Whether you’re traveling, in between adventures, or simply enjoying a longer stay in your current location, being healthy isn’t impossible. But we all know this. There are many ways you can ensure you remain in good health to support your body while travelling.
However, for 2024, it’s about more than simply eating a balanced diet and getting awesome experiences; it’s about taking your health and wellness and elevating it a little bit more to enhance your life and leave you feeling refreshed, energised and as healthy as possible.
How to Improve Your Health On The Road
Eat More Fibre
Eating more fibre can help you improve your digestion but also help you lower your risk of certain illnesses and health conditions. The current recommendations are that adults get around 30g of fibre per day in their diet for a healthy gut; however, people fall well short of this amount.
Foods such as wholemeal bread, breakfast cereals, potatoes with the skin on, vegetables, nuts, beans and seeds, for example, are all excellent sources of fibre and can support a healthy gut.
Over 25 years of studies have shown that dietary fibre is not only good for your digestive system; there are different types of fibre you can eat in a range of foods, from insoluble fibre, which passes through your gut without being digested, soluble fibre, which when mixed with water forms a gel and helps to keep stools soft and resistant starch which can’t be digested in the small intestine but does ferment in the large intestine which helps to keep your gut healthy, but for your overall health too.
It’s important to note that suddenly increasing your fibre intake can lead to increased bloating and wind and changes in bowel habits, so if you want it up, then do so gradually. Eating more fibre can help to protect you against some cancers and reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes and heart and circulatory problems.
Improve Your Sleep
As a traveller, you might think that you sleep well, considering you can end up sleeping in some funny places. Still, the quality of your sleep is what is essential here, as well as being able to create good sleeping habits despite the constant changes you might be experiencing.
A poor diet, lack of movement or sunlight, too much blue light exposure, dehydration and broken sleep patterns can all impact your ability to get a good quality night’s sleep to prepare you for the next day.
For starters, did you know that our bodies need more sleep in winter? Researchers in Germany found that, on average, people slept for an hour longer in December than in June and that a good sleep pattern is required for a healthy gut (see above point, too).
There can be many ways you can improve your sleep quality, even if you’re on the move.
Get inspired:
- How To Keep Your Health Routine While Traveling The World
- Finnish Sauna: How to Have a Blissful Experience
- Health And Beauty Must-Haves During Your Travels
Reduce the time spent on your electrical devices
Reduce the time with your electronics in the closet bed and avoid spending time on your phone or laptop when you should be sleeping. In fact, removing them from sight when it’s time to sleep can be extremely helpful for this. Lock it in your luggage, leave it in the hotel safe, or anything, but don’t have it in bed if you can avoid it.
Practise yoga or meditation before bed
It helps you to relax your body and mind. Do some gentle exercise a couple of hours before bed; avoid anything too vigorous and too close to bedtime, as this will have the opposite effects.
Use natural products
Use those which help you relax and be ready to sleep. From cbd gummies in your daily diet to you getting into a calmer, more relaxed state as cbd works with your endocannabinoid system to help you calm your nervous system, to using products such as chamomile tea, lavender, melatonin (only small quantities of this are needed as our bodies produce this hormone naturally, or adding valerian root to your diet.
Move More
This isn’t a nudge to make you find a gym and get pumping, but you absolutely can if you want to. It’s about being as active as possible and embracing all kinds of movement.
It could be that you fidget a lot, tapping your foot on the floor, jiggling your knee, drumming your fingers, etc; it all adds up to movement, and all movement is good, in which case embrace it. Keeping your body moving in normal ways can help you remove any unwanted aches and pains that can commonly be associated with travelling.
Adding mobility exercises to your day is a good tip for more movement. These can be things you can do while waiting in line at passport control, sitting on the plane (within reason), or anywhere else. Mobility exercises help you build strength and improve your range of motion, essentially resetting your joints to give them the support they need.
You can do mobility exercises as much or as little as you need to and fit them into small pockets of time when you might not be doing anything else while waiting in line. You can try the head and neck movements to help you avoid that stiff neck from long periods of inactivity; when getting ready for bed, you can add some hip mobility exercises, work on your ankle strength, or even try some thoracic rotations. By simply moving your body more, you are supporting good joint health and increasing the calories you burn daily, and that is always a good thing.
Exercise Your Mind
We all know the importance of keeping our minds active to help us learn new things and avoid memory loss. And for the most part, travellers are adept at doing the things that science recommends for improved cognitive ability:
- talk to strangers
- do something that scares you
- challenge yourself to learn something new or old
- do something you didn’t think you were capable of.
All of these are excellent ways for you to build resilience and support good brain health.
Another tip backed by science is to do squats or exercises that force you to work against gravity. A simple squat or lunge can help boost blood flow to the brain and improve your problem-solving skills and cognitive ability. So next time you’re faced with a dilemma, get squatting to see if it helps you think your way out of the situation. And if not, it’s good for your movement and overall health anyway, so you’ve got nothing to lose!
There are many ways you want to improve your life and your health as a traveller this year. But these simple tips can be added to your life with little to no disruption and be helpful in supporting your body and mind wherever the road may take you.
