Since travel restrictions have been lifted, vaccination rates and travel have increased exponentially. We cannot emphasize enough the importance of maintaining healthy habits when traveling this summer! According to Forbes, as of April 2022, nearly 2.1 million people have walked through TSA airport security checkpoints, which is more than double the number of travelers going in and out of airports in all of 2020. Our Euka Co-Founders, Harvard, UCLA, Mayo Clinic, and USC doctors, Drs. Bita and Shawn Nasseri, sat down with us to share their top 5 best tips and tricks for staying healthy when traveling. Whether you're navigating air travel, utilizing public transit, or taking a cross-country road trip, we’ve got you covered!
Don’t be afraid to overpack wipes, sanitizing sprays, and vitamins! We can’t emphasize enough the importance of washing and sanitizing your hands before eating, drinking, and using high-touch surfaces. It’s also critical to keep a travel-sized medical emergency kit on hand that is customized to fit the needs of your travel destination. Any simple bag/ packing cube/ sling bag can be outfitted with essentials ranging from sanitizers, vitamins, headache medicine, bandages, saline sprays, and allergy medicines. On the topic of preparation, we recommend considering your final destination before arriving to stay up to date with allergy exposures, sun and skincare needs, common illnesses, and just what to wear to stay healthy! Wherever your final destination may be, make sure to stock your carry-on with a Euka On-the-Go Kit, featuring much of what you need for your next adventure.
According to the CDC and FDA, 40% of Americans are deficient in the keystone for the immune system: Vitamin D! It’s also well known and accepted that boosting Vitamin C (Linus Pauling and his 2 Nobel Prizes to the present), Vitamins B12, B6, and Folate, can help you stay healthier during stressful times - like traveling! That’s why it is very helpful to bring your vitamins with you when traveling. Our bodies respond well to a daily dose of vitamins, especially ones with the full complement of B, complexes such as B1, B6, Folate, B12, plus Vitamins C and D. These vitamins should be taken in balanced doses instead of megadoses. Taking megadoses of vitamins can sometimes be detrimental and counterintuitive to achieving your desired end goal of maintaining your overall health, boosting your immunity, and giving you an optimal level of energy and endurance!
Whether you are dealing with 3 hours of jet lag or 11 hours, our bodies shift their circadian (daily) rhythms differently for each person. Therefore, one person can sleep comfortably on an 8 hour flight and arrive tired but refreshed, while their sibling can arrive with zero sleep and a beaten down immune system. Studies demonstrate that the immune system is far more effective at repelling/ resisting infection when we get a good night’s rest. Don’t be afraid to rest and take naps at your final destination - every single allopathic or holistic physician will attest that your immune system functions better with sleep and, therefore, your ability to fight off infections.
You never know if you are walking into densely populated and polluted air spaces within an airport, train station, bus station, or in an Uber or Lyft! Even though air-travel masking mandates have been lifted in most cities, we cannot emphasize the importance of wearing a firm-fitting KN95, KF94, or N95 face mask throughout the duration of your air travels. If you are double-masking, be sure to wear your firm-fitting medical mask as your first layer, and the cloth mask on top. Remember, before COVID-19, we are were exposed to many other respiratory pathogens ranging from Influenza, Parainfluenza, Human Metapneumovirus, RSV, and Rhinoviruses (thousands of strains), many of which are Pneumonia and Asthma bugs! Why not minimize the risk of contracting those viruses as well, since nothing is worse than getting to your vacation spot sick, congested, and MISERABLE?!?
If there is a packed subway train versus one with mostly open seats, the choice is obvious. Try to sit towards the front of airplanes, where there are fewer people stuffed together – the same way that everyone understands the 6 foot social distancing rule. If you are in a part of the airplane cabin with 30 people versus 160 people, like economy plus vs regular economy, it definitely improves the level of exposure to all colds and illnesses! Don’t forget that we had a myriad of illnesses prior to the emergence of Covid, Swine flu, etc!
