How to maintain your well-being while traveling
Plus a shout out to an underappreciated movie from the late aughts
Hello and welcome to Academia Made Easier. I am so glad that you are here.
A year ago, I achieved a particular (albeit not particularly impressive) airline frequent-flyer status and got temporarily excited about the idea of achieving an even higher airline status. To remind myself that ‘airline status’ is a pretty shitty goal, I decided to rewatch the excellent 2009 movie Up in the Air.
In Up in the Air, Ryan Bingham (played by George Clooney) has an awful and dehumanizing job as a consultant who travels the United States to lay off workers. With a constant travel schedule and almost no personal attachments, Ryan lives out of his suitcase, eating in hotel restaurants and swimming in hotel pools between the next flight to the next city. Ryan’s big goal is to achieve 10 million frequent-flyer miles. Work travel is not just his job, it is his life.
One of the fun things about the movie is how Ryan has travel details figured out, from bookings to packing to navigating security lines. While his lifestyle is unattractive and his big goal is soulless, his travel systems are admirable. And while my rewatching of the movie successfully removed frequent flyer miles from my personal goals list, it inspired me to think about my own travel systems and planning.
Of particular interest on this front is maintaining my well-being while traveling. As someone living with a health condition, paying attention to my sleep, movement, and nutrition helps me feel and perform my best. Travel presents unique considerations and challenges – Why is restaurant food so heavy?!? Why do people talk so loudly in hotel hallways?!?! – so I strive to take control of the elements I can to maintain my wellbeing away from home.
My strategies and systems are not nearly as honed as Ryan Bingham’s, but they work for me, and hopefully will inspire you to consider what might work for you. So, without further ado, here is today's small thing to try immediately.
One Small Thing to Try Immediately: Create and implement a travel well-being plan
It is easier to maintain well-being at home than when traveling. Most of us eat better, sleep more soundly, and move more regularly in our home environments. We are also separated from loved ones and exposed to more germs when we travel, further undermining our well-being. But there are many good reasons to travel for work (see: “How to decide whether or not to take that work trip”), so it is important to have a clear plan to maintain well-being while traveling. Try the following:
1. Prioritize well-being when selecting travel options. Transportation, accommodation, and dining options are not always flexible. But when you do have choices, research and find the options that best match your needs. Here is my list:
Transportation: Departures that require me to be awake at 4 am (or worse, leaving for the airport at 4 am) are bullshit, and highway driving after dark is dangerous (moose! deer!). I avoid both.
Accommodation: I always find details on the hotel gym. Does it exist? Does it have the equipment I need? Is it a welcoming space? What are the hours? What are the reviews of the gym on external websites? If my schedule allows for outdoor runs, I look into proximity to running paths and green spaces as well as neighbourhood safety. If I can’t find the necessary information on the website, I call the hotel and ask.
2. Prioritize well-being when creating your schedule. It can be tempting to overpack travel days to ‘get the most out of them’ (scare quotes intentional). But those jampacked days tend to suck. So go the other way. Treat work travel days like any other work day, with a reasonable time for work and then the remaining time for yourself. Schedule the workout, meditation, or alone time you need to feel good in your body. Take the time to connect with friends who are in the same city. Sign up for a free walking tour to learn about the local area. Plan for when you want to be getting to sleep each night.
You may need to make some hard choices. Must you really go to all the conference dinners and receptions? If so, could you leave early to get to bed at a reasonable time? As the self-proclaimed Queen of the Irish Exit, I can attest that massive joy is found in efficiently working the room and then ghosting away before the speeches begin. Not all events support this (damn you, sitdown dinners with long awards programs!), but consider what might be possible for you.
3. Decide ahead of time. When traveling, you are out of your routine. Sleep schedules are thrown out of whack due to time zone changes. There is often a lot of sitting and waiting and general periods of inactivity. The food offerings are plentiful. (Dessert after every meal? Am I a child?) The alcohol offerings can seem constant. (Drinks every night? Am I a frat boy?) The loss of routine creates myriad small decisions: what to consume, when to move, when to sleep.
Making decisions is exhausting, so simplify matters and decide in advance. Make rules for yourself to prioritize the things that make you feel your mental and physical best. Some of my decisions in advance: maintain workout schedule; salad not fries; decline desserts unless the meal left me hungry; no free airplane cookies; get fresh air whenever possible; drink water whenever offered; give my drink tickets to someone else; move around whenever my AppleWatch alerts me to do so; wash hands, wash hands, wash hands, and also, wash hands.
Planning for wellbeing makes it more likely that I will maintain my preferred habits while I am away, and makes work travel more enjoyable. I encourage you to find your own travel wellbeing systems. Your wellbeing matters, and travel shouldn’t undermine it.
Do you want more travel ideas? Please check out my past newsletter, “How to make work travel a bit easier".
Until next time…
In my corner of the world, we are entering the end-of-term period, with its tsunami of grading and general stress. If it is helpful to you, please check out past newsletters “How to triage your to-do list”, “How to transform grade discussions from negotiation into learning”, and “How to end the semester gently”. Take care and pace yourself. This too shall pass.
Stay well, my colleagues.
P.S. Back to Up in the Air: one cool thing about the movie is that it includes real people. As the main character’s job is to fire people, the movie features clips of interviews with people fired during the 2008 recession. Plus, the movie also stars Anna Kendrick. Be sure to check it out!
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