Entrepreneurs who are embracing the hustle need to stay healthy, especially when travelling. Travel is tiring, time consuming, and makes it easy to adopt unhealthy habits in favor of convenience—we want to avoid that. When your health suffers, your enterprise suffers. Here are a few simple but effective travel tips and tricks on what you can do to avoid illness and exhaustion while building a business.
Rest Up Before (and During) the Flight
A frequent traveler is likely familiar with the potential woes of travel, such as jet lag. When your body’s internal clock is thrown out of alignment, noon can feel like midnight. However, there are ways to manage these issues and come out of a round-trip feeling fresh and alert.
You can always take something like a trusted and effective jet lag supplement with scientifically backed results. But don’t just stop there—the more you prepare for a trip, the better! An underestimated tip that isn’t discussed enough is getting the rest you need before you’ve begun travelling.
The packing, planning, and excitement for travel—especially for something as important as a business trip—can make it easy to throw proper sleep out the window. The simple fact of the matter is that if you get on the plane tired, you’re leaving the plane tired. So, get plenty of rest! The UK’s National Health Service even recommends going to bed and waking up at earlier or later times than usual, closer to the time zone of where you’re travelling to.
Try to get proper rest during the flight, as well. Take advantage of any free amenities such as pillows and blankets, or bring your own if you prefer. Create as comfortable a space as you can, and try to sleep if it’s night time at your destination. Proper rest contributes to a strong immune system, which means you can build your business without being sidelined by illness.
Stay Hydrated and Eat Well
Another tip is to simply make sure you’re drinking enough and eating right. When we think of travel foods and drinks, we probably think of chips, candies, fast food, coffee, energy drinks, and a plethora of other easy and convenient snacks. Makes sense—that’s most of what you see in the airport.
It just can’t be understated how important a healthy diet is for a healthy trip. The benefits of drinking plenty of water have been documented six ways from Sunday, and avoiding highly processed and/or sugary food can prevent a wide range of health problems. The benefits of proper hydration and diet don’t go away when you go to a different country or state.
Now, it’s fairly easy to drink enough water while travelling. What’s harder is eating right. Luckily, there are several things you can do to find the right food options. Remember, there’s an app for everything—yes, even diet-friendly restaurants. Trying to avoid dairy? Pull up the map and search for dairy-free restaurants to find all viable choices in the area.
It can also be wise to pack your own snacks. This will tend to be most helpful at the airport where you’re surrounded by low quality packaged treats and fried foods. Snacking on high-protein, high-fiber foods will help you avoid those sugarladen options, not to mention save you a few bucks.
A final tip on eating well is to plan ahead and allow yourself a nice treat once a day—at most—while travelling. We often think of eating out as a treat, but it’s an everyday occurrence when abroad. Opt for healthier foods throughout the day, but plan ahead for something special later, whether it be a juicy burger or a mouthwatering dessert. Give yourself something to look forward to, and you’ll reduce your urge to splurge on every cake, candy and chocolate you stumble upon in your travels.
Manage Your Stress
Travel can be full of excitement, but also full of stress. Work stress on a business trip can significantly impact your health, so it’s crucial to manage it well. Often, stress comes from uncertainty, so plan your trip out as much as you reasonably can. Pull up that calendar app and set reminders. Make sure each important activity of each day is clearly laid out.
Equally important is to give yourself downtime. Grinding your way through a trip without a second to yourself is a one-way ticket to burnout. So, take advantage of downtime where you can afford it—set the phone to silent and ignore the little red circles on your home screen, have a chat with your friends and family, or just explore a little.
Finally, don’t stay cooped up in your hotel room or office the whole time. It’s important to give yourself a change in environment every now and then. If the hotel has a gym or a pool, take advantage of that. Alternatively, you can just go on a walk. If you have outdoor activities you enjoy at home, see if you can’t do them in your travels.
Staying healthy while travelling is a challenge, especially in a fast-paced entrepreneurial lifestyle. But if you follow these tips and put in as much work into staying healthy as you do into your work—resting up, eating and drinking well, managing your stress—you’ll only find more success.
