WELLNESS--Staying healthy on the road is no easy task. For most of us, business travel can be exhausting and sometimes it seems that matter how well intentioned you may be to stay healthy on the road, coming home exhausted seems inevitable. Here are 7 quick tips to help you travel in a healthy way and come home refreshed.
- Wear a mask on the plane and wipe down surfaces
For starters, it is not always an easy task to keep germs at bay. Recycled airplane air and tight quarters is one way to pick up a bug from a fellow passenger. The best way to avoid dirty air is by simply wearing a mask. They have also proven that surfaces on the plane are more likely to be dirty with dangerous bacteria like MRSA. Bring wipes and wipe down the surfaces around you. There are times that planes are quickly emptied and turned around for their next flight in as little as seven minutes. The cleaning people are normally subcontracted by the airlines and are unfortunately underpaid and understaffed.
- Stretch that body
It’s easy to allow our normal routines to fly out the window when we are traveling, and the fact is we often simply don’t have time to treat our bodies the same way as when we are home. What we can do to avoid injury including our backs going out is after our morning hot shower, take 5 to 10 minutes to do some simple stretching. A short amount of elongating the body can go a long way in avoiding annoying injuries.
- Keep hydrated and nourished
Not having water at our disposal is a big mistake when traveling. To avoid the 7 dollar bottle of water from the hotel be sure to make a stop on the way to the hotel, even if that means asking the Uber to wait for you as you run in and grab plenty of water, and some healthy snacks like berries and nuts. If a normal breakfast is not an option due to a hectic work schedule, some fruit and nuts will tide you over until you can fill up on a healthy lunch.
- Pace yourself
If you’re there for business it may be challenging to keep the amount of work hours to a minimum so be realistic about your evening plans. If going out for dinner will energize you than go for it. If you know it will further drain you, opt to head back to the hotel and sleep. If you’re on a pleasure trip, be cautious about packing too much into every day. Remember that part of the reason you are traveling is to relax and reflect on your life back home. Think about what’s working and what's not. Keeping a hectic travel schedule blocks us from fully re-charging so we can get home refreshed and ready for what’s next.
- Order carefully at restaurants
One of the biggest challenges while on the road is eating healthy. The restaurant wants you to come back so they love to pack their food with delicious carbs and fat. Order the veggies whenever possible and tell the wait staff right when you sit down that you don’t want bread on the table. Alcohol could be used minimally at one drink. Any more than that and you risk being hung over and dehydrated the next day. Sometimes ordering a few sides is a better option to a big heavy dinner entree.
(Christian Cristiano is an acupuncturist in LA, TV host of Wellness for Realists and writes on wellness regularly for CityWatch. Christian can be reached at 310.909.6956 twitter: @CristianoWFR
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