Stay Healthy While Traveling with These Tips
Traveling is a great way to alleviate stress and improve mental health. It allows you to take a break from the mundane tasks of daily life and experience new places, people, and cuisines. However, traveling can also be challenging and stressful, causing us to neglect healthy habits, become ill, and struggle with jet lag and fatigue.
If you’ve got a trip planned soon, read on. These tips can help you ensure your time off is enjoyable and rejuvenating.
Don’t skimp on sleep
When traveling, it's important to prioritize getting enough sleep. While it may be tempting to book a red-eye flight to save money and maximize your time off, sacrificing sleep can make you more susceptible to getting sick. Additionally, if you arrive at your destination feeling exhausted, you may experience digestive issues.
To avoid these problems, it's best to choose travel plans that allow you to get a full night's rest before and after your trip. If possible, avoid red-eye flights and layovers that disrupt your sleep schedule. Once you arrive, focus on regulating your sleep patterns by keeping your room cool and dark, limiting caffeine intake in the afternoon, and avoiding excessive alcohol consumption. Your body and mind will thank you for it.
Step up your hygiene
It can be difficult to avoid touching surfaces such as airplane tray tables, amenities at public lavatories, and TSA security bins. These surfaces are often breeding grounds for germs, which can lead to illness.
To protect yourself from picking up and transmitting germs, it’s important to step up your hygiene game. Wash your hands frequently, avoid touching your face, and always carry hand sanitizer with you. By taking these simple precautions, you can help ensure that you stay healthy and enjoy your travels to the fullest.
Eat to nourish your body
Maintaining a nutritious diet while traveling can be challenging, but there are simple tricks to keep it up. Before your trip, load up on foods high in vitamin C and zinc and avoid processed foods. This can help your body reduce inflammation and your risk of illness.
On the day of your trip, bring healthy snacks. This can reduce the chances of eating junk food in airports and planes. Some snacks you should pack include nuts, dark chocolate, and blueberries. Also, bring a reusable water bottle so you can refill it at water fountains.
At your destination, eat as many vegetables and fresh fruits as possible and try local cuisine that fits your diet preferences instead of processed food. To fill in any nutritional gaps, you might want to pack supplements that can help support your immune system, like vitamin C, vitamin D3, probiotics, and zinc.
Keep hydrated
When traveling by air, it's important to keep yourself hydrated as the low-humidity cabin air can cause dehydration. This can hurt many systems in your body, particularly on your mucous membranes. These delicate tissues in your nose and mouth are an essential barrier to viruses and bacteria. When they dry out (which is common when exposed to airplane air conditioning), they become more permeable to germs.
To stay hydrated, drink as much water as possible and limit your consumption of beverages like coffee, soda, and wine. Instead, opt for water, matcha, or herbal teas like peppermint and ginger, which are good for digestion and help keep you hydrated.
Get some movement
While you may be walking a lot more on trips, there are instances when you need to get some movement in. While waiting for your plane or train, or in between tour schedules, try some simple stretches, squats, or lunges. Once on the plane, you can do periodic neck rolls or ankle stretches.
When you’ve reached your destination, get moving to balance out the sedentary time you spend in transport. Get your heart pumping with yoga poses, 15-minute stretches, or bodyweight exercises. Exercise does not only boost your mood, it also increases your immune function and regulates your circadian rhythms.
Give your mental health a boost
Traveling adds additional stress to the mind and body, so it's important to adopt a regular stress relief practice that you can do anywhere. If meditation is your thing, download a guided meditation app and do some deep breathing whenever you need a quick mental reset or at night to promote deep sleep.
While it’s important to get the most out of your trip, it’s equally important to fit in activities that make you feel good. Try a workout class at a local studio, get a massage, enjoy some downtime at a local coffee shop, or nap.
The bottom line
Getting some time off is great for your overall well-being. To get the most out of your trip, putting your health first is equally important. You don’t want to get sick and be stuck in bed when you should be enjoying the new sights, sounds, and smells of your chosen destination. So, get enough sleep, eat as healthy as possible, stay hydrated, prioritize movement, and prepare your stress relief arsenal. Stress-free jet-setting isn’t a luxury; it’s a must.
