How to stay healthy while travelling
There are four key things to bear in mind while travelling to make sure that your health is still on top form by the time you get home.
Get enough exercise
If you’re staying in a modern city like Tokyo or Paris, it might be tempting to make use of the public transport system. However, not only will walking instead ensure that you maintain your health level, it will also enable you to see more of the city you’re staying in.
Another helpful way to ensure that you don’t lose shape while on holiday is to design a quick daily exercise routine before you leave, which you can do anywhere and flexibly incorporate into your day. Choose exercises like push-ups which require no equipment and little space.
Finally, if you can, go swimming! If you’re staying in a hotel with a pool, or in a hot country by the beach, even a gentle swim regularly will be great exercise. Swimming exercises many of the muscles in your body and is also great for cardiovascular fitness.
Keep on top of nutrition
When travelling, our diets often change radically. Our usual eating habits go out the window as we endeavour to try new and exotic foods. We allow ourselves to eat less healthily because we are so focused on enjoying ourselves. We might have more alcohol and sweet food than usual. There are few ways that you can ensure you maintain good nutritional health when travelling.
One way you can cut back the calories while travelling is by limiting the amount that you eat out in restaurants. Going to a restaurant usually means eating less healthily than you otherwise would – once desserts, drinks, starters etc. are taken into account. As because eating out is primarily about great tasting food, you might find that food contains more sugar, salt, butter, and fat than it would f you’d cooked it at home.
Also, keep stocked up on fruits and vegetables. While travelling, it can become very easy to buy food on-the-go, and healthy foods can be pushed to the sidelines. If you make sure that you’re stocked up on healthy food like fruit and vegetables, you are much more likely to eat it. You can even bring some out with you each day.
Take care of your hygiene
Travelling in foreign lands can mean coming into contact with new germs which you haven’t encountered elsewhere, so you are at greater risk than usual of picking up an illness. There are various steps which you can take to mitigate the risk of sickness.
Make sure you bring alcoholic hand sanitizer with you, so that you can make sure your hands are hygienic after travelling on public transport, using public restrooms, and always before eating.
Be sure to bring plasters, so that if you cut or graze yourself you can cover it with a sterile plaster and prevent any germs from getting into the wound and causing an infection.
Get enough rest and sleep
Travelling can be tiring, but you shouldn’t let it be exhausting. Getting from place to place with lots of stuff with you, fitting everything you want to do into your trip, staying up late, getting up early, getting poor sleep in hostels… all of these things can lead you to get less rest than usual. The result of this is a weaker immune system.
Firstly, don’t let your sleep pattern get completely wrecked. Instead of staying up until the early hours of the morning for multiple nights in a row, try to have earlier nights in between.
Secondly, if you are suffering from jet-lag, allow yourself the time to recover from it. Don’t just jump straight into the holiday and hope it goes away by itself.
Thirdly, if you are visiting a particularly hot country, you have to be especially careful not to get heatstroke. If it’s noticeably hotter than you are used to, take it easy. Don’t exert yourself as much as you ordinarily would.
