Tips for Prioritizing Health While You Travel
There are lots of reasons why people travel. Whether you’re on vacation, traveling for work, or even retired, it’s important to prioritize your health. We know healthy travel can be tricky when you’re out of routine or indulging in celebrations and that staying healthy spans far beyond “working out”. To help, we put together this list packed with ideas, tools, and gadgets to keep you on track. Even when you’re busy taking on new adventures!
Healthy Snacks
It’s not a vacation without snacks. Be cognizant of what you pack for the plane or car and choose options high in protein, nutrients, and good fats to keep your body feeling energized. Sugary snacks will leave you feeling sluggish and weaken your immune system.
Routine Stretching
Some healthy travel snacks include; nuts, fruit, trail mix, energy bites, veggie chips, popcorn, protein bars, and string cheese.
Stretching keeps your body limber and adding it into your daily routine is important regardless of our traveling situations. Combat long bouts of sitting with rebound stretches that will improve common aches like lower back pain, neck pain, and tight hips. We love using a stretch strap to progress through and achieve more targeted stretches, they also roll up and store away easily for travel.
Try these beginner yoga stretches.
Research Local Gyms
If you’re on vacation, working out might not sound like an ideal activity. However, don’t knock it so quickly. Not skipping your workouts (even on vacation) can improve your mood, increase energy levels, and aid in digestion.
When you travel search the area for local gyms. Most run specials for a free week trial. Large chains allow you to work out at any location, so if you travel frequently you may want to consider joining one for easy access.
Travel-Friendly Workout Gear
Getting to a gym while you travel may be difficult for a number of reasons. As an alternative, we recommend putting together your own set of travel workout equipment. This would include items that store and transport easily such as; a yoga mat, resistance bands, wrist or ankle weights, pedal exercisers, and balance discs.
Fitness trackers are also a really great way to track your progress and hold yourself accountable for hitting goals. This fitness tracker comes with a free downloadable app to track your data and provides both instructor lead and scenic workouts to follow along with.
YouTube is also a great place to search for a variety of instructor lead workouts you can do anywhere with little equipment.
Compression Therapy
Compression provides relief from joint pain, muscle soreness, and poor circulation. It can be applied to almost anywhere on your body with the use of sleeves, stockings or gloves.
- If your hands ache while you drive, arthritis gloves can provide warming compression that boosts blood circulation to reduce pain from carpal tunnel or arthritis.
- Compression sleeves can be worn over vulnerable joint areas like the knees, elbows, wrists, and ankles.Just like the arthritis gloves these sleeves provide gentle compression and mild support to improve circulation.
- When you travel for a long period of time, the sedentary time span can cause your body to build up fluid and swell. This is especially common on flights, due to pressure in the cabin you’re even more likely to experience swelling and discomfort. Compression stockings are great for this and should be worn during the flight. These also help to reduce restless leg syndrome and general aches or soreness.
Learn More About Compression Therapy
Keep Tabs on Vitals
Important vitals to track when you travel include:
Temperature
With COVID, now more than ever it’s important to routinely check your temperature, especially if you aren’t feeling well and suspect you may be running a fever. This will help protect you and others.
Blood Oxygen Level
A pulse oximeter can easily measure your SpO2 to get a picture of your lung health. Also, keep in mind that changing elevations can greatly influence your oxygen level
Blood Pressure
We should all be routinely checking our blood pressure to ensure heart health. Having a personal blood pressure monitor, like this one, is convenient to have when you’re spending long periods away from home that delay doctor’s visits. Being able to monitor your own blood pressure can also open the doors to remote patient monitoring or TeleHealth appointments.
