Staying Healthy While Traveling

Travelers who tour many different countries with different time zones are faced with many challenges that can contribute to the degradation of their mental and physical health.

Traveling to many places with different time zones can also affect psychosocial behavior because of the different stimuli that the body is forced to experience. Staying healthy while traveling is important wherein the traveler need to be in a state of high well being to prevent any complications that might arise from the trip.

The most common problem many passengers experience when traveling is jetlag. Jetlag is defined as feeling characterized by insomnia, fatigue and the general irritability caused by a tired mind after a flight.  The new environment ,new culture and new body clock system may distort the normal time of rest for an individual. This can cause consistent stress on body functions resulting to an inefficient output of energy by different body organs that depend on night and day settings

Jetlag is commonly experienced a few days by a traveler until a time where internal homeostasis is achieved by manually calibrating sleep and dietary patterns with the new place.

Another reason why some travelers experience headaches and nausea during flight can be attributed to dehydration. Even if the traveler has not endured any strenuous exercise during the flight, the flight duration itself can lead to water deprivation needed to maintain efficient hydration. In addition, The different changes of pressure within the cabin also affect body functions and metaboloc rates. Moreover, this constant change of pressure will increase metabolic rates and thus increase the consumption of bodily fluids.

It is advisable to drink water throughout the flight so that you can keep the body hydrated and well supplied. As hydration starts to set in, this will lead to slow movement of blood. Movement of blood is essential to the brain and the body as it supplies oxygen to vital body organs. When the brain oxygen supply is low, feelings of irritability, fatigue and sleep can set-in as more and more carbon dioxide is produced.