Traveling between islands or continents is now very easy to do. No need to count days, weeks, or months, now it only takes a few hours using an airplane, and one can already reach their destination.
The purpose of traveling can vary. Some travel for personal matters, family matters such as returning to their hometown, or for work matters, or traveling for vacation trips. Whatever matter it is, you need to be healthy while traveling. Therefore, maintaining bodily health becomes the main asset that needs to be maintained while traveling.
It cannot be denied that having fun is the essence of a trip and is mandatory for every vacation. However, it does not mean that you should neglect health issues. Instead of enjoying the journey, some pleasures may disrupt body stamina. Eventually, it’s possible that you’ll become exhausted and turn your vacation into an unpleasant memory.
Therefore, know what tips can keep your body healthy and fit during your holiday travels.
1. Stay Hydrated by Drinking Water
Being too engrossed in enjoying the journey and tasting various local foods can make someone forget to drink water. However, when engaging in high activities during holidays, the body will need more water.
When you don’t drink enough water, the body will experience dehydration. This can lead to lack of concentration, fatigue, drowsiness, and headaches. In the long run, insufficient water intake can also trigger kidney diseases. Therefore, even while on vacation, you should ensure that your body receives two liters of water every day.
2. Maintain a Healthy Eating Pattern
Often traveling changes your daily activities. One of the things that also changes is your eating pattern. Do you want to keep tasting food while traveling? You need to recognize this and remind yourself that there’s an eating pattern that needs to be maintained. It’s okay to taste food while traveling in that area, but still pay attention to its compatibility with a balanced diet.
3. Light Exercise
To stay healthy, make time to exercise during your vacation. Even light exercise is enough to keep your body fit. You can do stretching when you wake up and before engaging in activities. Or just some light movements before going to bed.
Walking is also the most suitable choice of exercise during a vacation. Instead of using motorized vehicles, you can choose to walk to easily accessible locations. Try to walk for at least 30 minutes every day.
4. Adequate Sunlight Exposure
Ensuring that the body gets enough sunlight is one way to stay fit during travel or vacation. Sunbathing in the morning sun is one way to do this. Because sunlight is a natural source of vitamin D for the body. A recent study found that individuals who lack vitamin D are at risk of premature death.
The study was conducted at the University of California-San Diego and involved 32 participants. Researchers then analyzed the participants’ levels of vitamin D or 25-hydroxyvitamin in their blood. The results showed that participants with lower levels of vitamin D had twice the risk of premature death compared to those with higher levels of vitamin D in their blood. While on vacation at the beach, you can take advantage of this opportunity to sunbathe.
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5. Don’t Forget to Rest
During vacation, you don’t have to think about work or school assignments, so most people choose to enjoy this relaxed time. Although it should be enjoyed, it doesn’t mean that sleep patterns should be disrupted.
The impact of irregular sleep on health includes easy stress, difficulty controlling emotions, susceptibility to viruses and bacteria, heart problems, and triggering other chronic diseases.
Meanwhile, its impact on the skin includes dullness, acne, and the appearance of dark circles or eye bags that can affect appearance.
Irregular sleep patterns make the body vulnerable to illness. One way to maintain body health is by getting enough and regular sleep, at least 6-8 hours per day.
6. Don’t Forget Your Medications
If you have medications that need to be taken, don’t forget this. During vacation, whether traveling or not, it’s usually a time to ‘take a break from routines’, often including the routine of taking medications. You certainly don’t want to make the Hospital one of the places you have to visit during your vacation because you forgot your medications.
7. Not Only the Body! Make Sure the Vehicle is Fit too!
In addition to the driver’s healthy condition, also ensure the condition of the car before embarking on a long journey. Components such as the battery, radiator, oil, brakes, and tires are most vital to ensure they are still in normal condition and ready to use.
Don’t forget to check the condition of the car and experience problems during the journey. This can disrupt long journeys as it can be dangerous. Simple workshop tools should also be prepared such as a jack, wrench, and jumper cables to anticipate unexpected incidents.
If the vehicle is fit, safe, and ready to be used to the maximum, automatically you won’t be bothered by excessive thoughts. Thus, your vacation will be safe and free from stress!
8. Manage Stress Properly
Another way to maintain body health is to manage stress wisely. The fact is that stress can weaken the immune system, so people who are stressed and have a lot on their minds usually get sick easily.
When experiencing stress, the production of the hormone cortisol can drastically increase. If this happens for a long period, it can lead to a decrease in bodily functions.
That’s why, during holidays, it’s very important to manage stress properly. Try to think more positively about things or do enjoyable activities, such as trying new things, recreation, leisurely walks, socializing with people around, or pursuing hobbies that you haven’t had time to do due to busyness.
9. Try to Eat Healthy Foods
Increasing the consumption of vegetables and fruits helps meet fiber and vitamin needs. Having adequate fiber and vitamin intake is very good for boosting the immune system.
Diseases usually occur due to a lack of nutrients in the body, especially vitamins and minerals. By regularly consuming vegetables and fruits, nutritional needs are met. So the body can be protected from diseases during vacation.
You can prepare vegetables in various delicious dishes, such as clear soup, stir-fry, soup, salad, and so on. Meanwhile, fruits can be eaten raw, made into juice, or healthy smoothies.
Foods from vegetables and fruits that contain vitamin C are highly recommended for consumption to maintain body immunity. Examples include broccoli, kale, oranges, guavas, lemons, and others. You can make them into healthy juices, such as a mixture of oranges with kale.
10. Manage Stress Properly
Another way to maintain body health is to manage stress wisely. The fact is that stress can weaken the immune system, so people who are stressed and have a lot on their minds usually get sick easily.
When experiencing stress, the production of the hormone cortisol can drastically increase. If this happens for a long period, it can lead to a decrease in bodily functions.
That’s why, during holidays, it’s very important to manage stress properly. Try to think more positively about things or do enjoyable activities, such as trying new things, recreation, leisurely walks, socializing with people around, or pursuing hobbies that you haven’t had time to do due to busyness.
11. Be Prepared: First Aid Box
In addition to “bring an umbrella before it rains”, you also need to prepare personal medications as a form of anticipation. Medications that need to be prepared include those related to your medical condition, headache medicine, motion sickness medicine, stomach ache and diarrhea medicine, flu and cough medicine, allergy medication, and pain relievers.
Items such as a pair of tweezers, small scissors, thermometer, bandages, tissues, hand sanitizer, and antibiotic ointment are also important to include in a first aid kit/bag for anticipation in dealing with minor accidents.
12. Avoid Bad Habits that Endanger Health
Another way to maintain health so as not to get sick easily during vacation is to avoid bad habits that can endanger health. For example, smoking, consuming alcohol, staying up late, oversleeping, and others.
Frequently engaging in bad habits like the ones mentioned above can be dangerous to health because they can damage the immune system. As a result, the body becomes unfit and triggers laziness in performing activities.
If you have a habit of coming home too late and staying up late then easily getting a cold, it’s best to reduce that habit. To maintain your body’s immune system, you can take vitamin and supplement to feel warm and refreshed.
Healthiness and sickness doesn’t care whether you’re on vacation or not, so we still need to pay attention to our health both physically and mentally so that we can do any activities during travel and holiday trip without any disturbance.
The various ways to maintain health mentioned above should be applied so that you don’t get sick easily during travel or vacation. Increase consumption of balanced nutritious foods, meet fluid needs, and engage in productive physical activities so that your body’s immune system remains good until the end of the holiday period. Happy vacation!