Travelling over summer?
Have you ever been cold and ‘flu free the entire year, only to come down with some nasty bug the minute you start to unwind on holiday? Finally, your body has time to be sick! Well, not quite. Usually it is a change in sleep and eating patterns, a change in climate perhaps and definitely plane journeys that lead to getting sick on holiday.
In fact aeroplanes are incredible harborer’s of the common cold, leaving you up to 100 times more likely to catch a cold on a plane than you are in your normal daily life (according to a study published in the Journal of Environmental Health Research).
Here are a few healthy traveling tips:
1 week before you travel try to boost your immunity with an extra healthful diet and extra sleep.
On a plane, be sure to use an herbal throat spray or suck on a propolis or zinc lozenge of some kind. This helps to keep the airborne bugs at bay at the point of entry to the body.
Take a little bottle of natural hand sanitiser. I like the Dr. Bronners Lavender one because it’s not full of nasties like the standard ones. I tend to use it after going to the loo mostly (those door handles!).
Be sure to avoid Foreign Toilet Syndrome (FTS) by taking some prunes (if allowed to your destination. If, like many you get a bit bunged up when travelling, a few of these daily will keep things moving.
If you have a long haul destination and want to adjust to the new time zone faster, I use these tricks:
On the plane I eat lightly to help me sleep and always rub a couple of undiluted drops of pure lavender oil to the soles of my feet. I use the oil at home too, so having it on the plane (and at the destination) helps my body realise it’s sleep time. 200mg of magnesium before the eye mask goes on and I’m all set for a nap.
When it’s time to lay down your head in a foreign land take 100mg of the herbal medicine Griffonia simplicifolia. The natural chemicals in a Grifonnia (5-hydroxytryptophan, or 5HTP) help to re-set your body clock when taken at night in your new destination. Also, no matter how hard it is, get up and soak in some sunlight first thing the next morning. This works wonders.
Happy travels!
