Author: Ray Attebery

Want a vacation from travel-related health troubles?

Try these tips:

Travel Health Tip #1:

Take regular breaks Stroll the airplane aisle or highway rest stop periodically to prevent the blood in your legs from pooling. Another good reason to get moving: Sitting in a car or plane all day can make you constipated, says Rick Kellerman, M.D., president of the American Academy of Family Physicians
and chairman of family medicine at the University of Kansas at Wichita, but you can prevent that with exercise. Even moving around for just a few minutes helps.

Travel Health Tip #2:

Pack produce… and other high-fiber foods, says Dr. Kellerman. You are more likely to prevent stomachaches and other gastrointestinal problems by having family members eat the way they do at home. When you get hungry and pull off the road, head to the local grocery instead of a fast food joint.

Travel Health Tip #3:

Get your ZZZs. To head off jet lag, schedule your flight as follows: When heading east, fly early; when heading west, fly late. This long-practiced flying strategy ensures the least disruption to the bodys normal sleep-wake cycle, preserving your travel health.

Travel Health Tip #4:

Wet your whistle. On a flight, you family is in a very arid environment that dehydrates the body and dries out the tender skin and mucous membranes in the nose and throat. A good rule of thumb is to drink at least 16 ounces of water before leaving and 8 ounces of water every hour while flying, suggests G. Richard Olds, M.D., a travel disease specialist and chairman of medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Fruit juice is also a good choice; cola, tea and coffee are not (the caffeine they contain may have a diuretic effect). Are you visiting a hot climate? A sports beverage can replenish sodium and potassium that are lost in sweat.

Travel Health Tip #5:

Go the distance with germ warfare. You do not need to vacation in Mexico to experience Montezumas revenge. The farther you travel from home, even within the U.S., the more likely you are to be introduced to unfamiliar germs, says Dr. Olds, that will increasesyour chances of respiratory illness, loose stools and other germ-caused infections. So take precautions: If you are traveling across several states, pack some over-the-counter cough syrup, sore throat lozenges and an antidiarrhea medication, Dr. Olds says.

Travel Health Tip #6:

Shun the Sun Spending time outdoors at the beach, mountains or woods? Protect your families skin with a sunscreen that has a high SPF (30 and up). Apply it to exposed skin areas about half an hour before heading outside to allow the sunscreen to swing into action. And use at least two tablespoons per application. Reapply sunscreen every two hours throughout the day and immediately after you have gotten wet or have been sweating.

Follow all these tips and you will go a long way in assuring your and your families travel health, and guess what? your vacation will be made in the shade.

Source: articlesbase.com

Author: peterhutch

Man has made some impossible things seem so ordinary these days. Years ago who would have ever thought that within few hours we would be able to cross from one continent to another? Who would have thought that within just a few hours you could skip from once country to another? Today thanks to the invention of airplanes and their use, we can travel around the globe. You can be in one country a day and another country the very next day. Distanced have been made shorter thanks to the discovery of the airplane.

Drink lots of water on the plane. For more info about drinking water go here. The plane dehydrates you so you need extra water to help you body stay hydrated. And the only thing that counts as water is water. Coffee, tea, alcohol etc. do not count as water. If you want to drink them you can, I am just saying don’t expect to get rid of jet lag then. (as well as them being hazardous to your health) Right before the plane is about to land (before the wheels actually touch down) you are going to gently pull the outside of your ears in all directions straight out from the middle of your ear.

Avoid drinking alcohol as your ‘falling-asleep-assistance’

Tiny alcohol bottles on board often used as a falling asleep assistance during the flight. In the airplane these affect however – exactly the same as tranquilizers – three times as strongly as down on the earth! If you are suffering from fear of flight you should avoid alcohol here, since psychological symptoms can occur such as aggression or depression (however, this is an extensive subject. I will post an article about this in the future. For now I focus on ‘jet lag’).

Jetlag is caused by crossing time zones during air travel. It’s really a symptom of the disruption of your body’s circadian (day/night-light/dark) cycle which controls the timing of bodily functions such as when you sleep and eat. Other contributing factors to jetlag are the dry atmosphere of planes and the lack of fresh air, the discomfort from cramped conditions, swelling caused by cabin pressure, food and drink consumed in transit (which can mess up your appetite at destination) and the direction of travel.

When flying try and keep make-up to a minimum and follow a good skincare regime before leaving for the airport.Spend time to properly clean, tone and most importantly moisturize your skin. While flying the moisture is stripped from your skin, and although the body gallantly tries to keep it moisturized from the inside, it can do with some help from the outside.It is of paramount importance to keep your skin hydrated at all times. It might be good to look for a “heavy duty” type of moisturizer, or to regularly re-apply a lighter type of moisturizer. With a heavy type of moisturizer you could look at something like your regular night cream, since it is normally richer than your day cream.

Source: articlesbase.com