The holidays are amazing! They are most often indispensable after periods of hard work and stress, and they allow us to take time out, relax and forget the stress and daily challenges of everyday life. They give us new experiences, good times and happy memories, delicious food and, or at least they should, good health after all that stress..
However… It is not uncommon for people to become ill when they are going on vacation, arriving at their destination, or while traveling. Sometimes still in pain after returning home. And it sucks!
The reasons can be multiple…
1) Your stress hormones
Stress hormones, like adrenaline, that force you to stick to your busy schedule right before your vacation can protect you while you’re still working. Adrenaline can boost your immune system, so it may do just that while you’re working so you can meet those deadlines, but as soon as you stop and relax, the levels drop and that protection can disappear.
2) Vacation stress, combined with lack of sleep
Leaving after a long period of work pressure can be stressful in itself, and chronic stress and high levels of cortisol (another stress hormone and your morning wake-up hormone) can hamper your immune system, making your immune defenses more vulnerable.
You may also neglect your sleep to get things done and have everything ready before you leave, or your mind is busy and you can’t get a good night’s sleep, and you end up with a body and a tired brain when traveling. . Fatigue makes your body more prone to illness.
Stress causes cortisol to be released at the wrong time of day, disrupting your circadian rhythm, which can lead to a variety of symptoms and health problems, including a weakened immune system. and stress, sleep and good health are all closely linked. Add to that the fact that poor sleep often leads to poor food choices, which can then further aggravate sensitive or IBS-prone bowels.
3) Bad cabin air
If you’re taking a flight, especially a long-haul flight, you’ll be exposed to poor, recirculated cabin air for hours, and with lots of people in a small, enclosed space, viruses can have a run for their money. heart joy as they circulate around the cabin and eventually find their way into your airways. Some research shows that the risk of catching a cold can increase by up to 20% when traveling by plane.
Cabin air pressure can also increase water retention in your body, make your intestines gassy, dry out your skin, eyes, mouth (saliva), and the lining of your nose. These in turn can compromise your first line of defense, as our beneficial bacteria reside in these areas (and play an important role in your first defense life) but require moist mucus-filled surfaces to live on.
So when you’re in the air and not moving much, your legs can swell due to poor circulation moving blood to the heart.
4) Dehydration
You can lose a lot of fluids and electrolytes in hot weather by sweating. Travel, especially air travel, can also lead to dehydration. This can lead to headaches, lack of energy, constipation, and many other symptoms. A dehydrated body is a stressed body. And if you forget to hydrate, inadequate fluid intake can stop your intestines from functioning and lead to painful symptoms.
In hot weather, the digestive system may feel the stress of the change in temperature, which can also impair bacterial growth in the intestine, and cause more stool moisture to be reabsorbed from the intestine into the body, thus producing stools. hard and more difficult to pass.
5) Alcohol and sugary drinks
In warm weather, drinking chilled white wine, sparkling prosecco, beer or soft drinks can be a joy, and for many, having a drink at the airport or on board a plane is a welcome pleasure and a great hobby.
But be careful about what you drink and how much. Alcohol and sugary drinks (with sugar or artificial sweeteners) are also known to disrupt the gut environment and can lead to leaky gut and dysbiosis, or an imbalance in your gut microbiome.
Alcohol also depletes serotonin levels in the body and can reduce motility, as well as cause a low mood. And it’s a diuretic so can cause further dehydration in hot weather.
6) Change of diet
Have you noticed that your intestine suffers from the heat?
You might get a funny stomach in hot weather, which is actually not uncommon, even when you’re staying at home. This could be due to changing your diet depending on the weather conditions, so your digestive system could be struggling. If you go somewhere where you eat different foods than you usually eat at home, it can lead to intestinal symptoms, simply because of this change.
You can eat more salads and raw foods that are harder to digest. Check out my old raw food blog here. Or you may eat more processed foods, or simply overeat at the all-inclusive buffet, or maybe you’ll end up eating too many desserts, treats, and sweet things.
And if you’re really unlucky (I’ve been in this situation at least twice), you might end up with food poisoning or traveler’s diarrhea. Or “belly of Delhi”, as it is called in India (I learned this phrase the hard way during a trip around the Golden Triangle one year, and I was not laughing at this joke!). Food poisoning will likely leave you with a few days, during which you’ll just want to stay near the toilet. But even after an acute infection, it could leave disease-causing bacteria in your gut and cause other longer-term gut symptoms.
7) Lack of movement/exercise
While on vacation, you can just relax, lie by the pool, sit in restaurants and cafes, drive or sit in a coach to see the sights, thereby moving and exercising less. Your body is made to move, so it may start to complain. Stiffness, aches, pain, tightness…
Some of these could also be due to the hotel bed you are sleeping in; a mattress that is too hard/soft that your body is not used to can wake you up in the morning feeling less refreshed. In addition to eating larger portions, sweeter foods, and drinking more alcohol, you could have intestinal problems and end up checking in on the flight home a few pounds heavier.
Yes, vacations can indeed be dangerous! But…
Don’t despair! There are so many things you can do to protect yourself from getting sick, enjoy your vacation and return home healthy, relaxed and ready to get back to work and take on the world again!
And I’ll reveal my best tips to you in my next blog post. So watch this space and make sure you don’t miss it!
Happy holidays!
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