The Complete Guide to Healthy Business Travel

Emerging from a busy period of travel coordinating wellness programmes in the UK and around the world, I'm reminded of the challenges of business travel but also the opportunities it can bring.

My usual routines have been difficult to maintain in the face of travel in cars, trains and planes and lots of hotel living. 

On the other hand, I've had the opportunity to sample the cuisine of many locations, discover new cities by running around them, swim in outdoor pools and the ocean (a notion that seems a million miles away today - as I write it's freezing and stormy in London) and catch up on reading for work and pleasure between cities.

I was also reminded of our Healthy Business Traveler series of blogs earlier in the year and thought it would be useful to revisit the series given that the lead up to Christmas and the beginning of a New Year can be a very busy traveling time for many.

The series includes one of our most popular blog entries ever covering healthy hotel eating.  The full series was:

How to ensure a great night's sleep while traveling

How to have your most productive day at work AND fit in some exercise

Healthy hotel eating

How to eat well on a plane

Fitness tips for business travellers

A varied diet helps you sleep better

Hopefully you'll find some tips that will help you manage your energy during even the most intense period of travel so you can get the most out of your trip and return home feeling in great shape.

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A Varied Diet Helps You Sleep Better

The individuals and organisations we work with regularly raise the issue of how travel, both for work and for pleasure, can impact on the ability to live a healthy life.  

So, over the next couple of weeks we'll be highlighting some of the key tips - relating to sleep, jet-lag, healthy hotel eating and exercise on the go - that we see making a real difference to how people perform when they have a schedule that includes travel.  

To get us started, here's some advice that will help you sleep better wherever you are in the world.

Eating a wider variety of food has a direct impact on the amount of sleep you get each night, according to research from the Centre for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania.  

Lack of vitamin C, selenium (found in nuts, meat and shellfish) and lycopene (found in red and orange-coloured foods) contributed to poor sleep patterns.  A diet of too much saturated fat, chocolate, tea and alcohol was found to prevent good sleep too*.

So, to boost your ability to sleep focus on snack choices that combine fruit and nuts and choose meals that are constructed around chicken or fish.  Aim to consume a maximum of 1-2 teas or coffees per day and 1-2 units of alcohol.

*Source: Men's Running Magazine

Image from Flickr: avlxyz

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