How Bad is Business Travel for Your Health? Here’s the Answer

Are you fantasizing about traveling for business all around the world in business class and staying in luxurious hotels? Think twice because it’s nothing like Hollywood movies tell you it is.

Disrupted sleep, long flights, late and unhealthy meals, feelings of loneliness, and cultural shock are only a few of the things that make business travel takes a toll on employees.

Data from the Global Business Travel Association shows that US companies sent their employees on more than 500 million domestic flights in 2016. And, although those employees are warned about “bad health” burdens like immunizations and possible food-borne illness, very few are told about the more common threats to health during biz travel. In essence, stress, poor sleep, unhealthy eating and drinking habits, and cultural shock or loneliness are all typical results of frequent business travel.

In the long term, being on the road and dealing with these issues can lead to the appearance of chronic mental and physical disease risks. Not convince? Let’s explore precisely  how business travel can affect your health.

How business travel affects your physical health?

Think about the last travel you had and how many habits you had to change during your vacation. You most likely had to change your eating and sleeping habits, meeting with your loved ones, or even the habit of having your coffee every morning. Didn’t seem that difficult to change them for a few days, right? Now imagine that you travel all the time and have to change those habits every time you go somewhere new. Change doesn’t seem so comfortable anymore, does it?

A recent study from Harvard Business Review on the health consequences of frequent business travel shows that there is a strong correlation between those two. To be more precise, the study points out that business travelers who spend more than 14 or more nights away from home every month are significantly more likely to report poor health conditions than those who spent only one to six nights away every month.

From trouble sleeping to clinical symptoms of depression and anxiety, alcohol and tobacco dependence, and a sedentary lifestyle, these are all poor health conditions found in frequent travelers.

Moreover, due to all these factors, the study suggests that those more frequent travelers are 92% more likely to be obese than those who are only six nights per month away from home.

How business travel affects your mental health?

Traveling, visiting new places, meeting new people, and gaining professional goals are all reasons to be well and happy, right? But what if you had to do that over and over again for at least 20 days every month? Would you still be that happy? If you think that the answer is “Yes”, once again, you can blame Hollywood for that.

But business travel is far from keeping you happy, at least in the long term. Over time, frequent business travel can result in anxiety and depression. Constant feelings of loneliness, cultural show, inability to fully adjust to one place, and being away from your loved ones will result in a poor mental state. A study from the World Bank points out that nearly 75% of the staff reported high or very high stress levels related to their business travels.

Apart from that, physical changes, such as developing a physical health condition, lack of proper sleep, or changes in eating habits, when on the road also contribute to poor mental wellbeing.

For example, how productive and focused can you be after a sleepless night? Most likely not very, and this is a science-backed health fact. Lack of proper sleep is one of the main things that impact our mental health. During the night, our brains and body regenerate from the damage from the previous day. Therefore, if you don’t get a minimum of 8h per night, your mental health is directly impacted.

How to avoid the bad health burdens of business travels?

So, now that you know how bad business travel can be for your health, it is time to develop some strategies to avoid these burdens or to, at least, lower their impact on your mental and physical wellbeing. Here are a few tips on how to avoid some of the health consequences of biz travel:

Maintain physical health on top

Sure, you have very little control over how much sleep or what you eat or drink during your travels. However, you can, at least, make sure that when you are at home, you have very healthy habits. Also, you can bring some healthy snacks in your carry on to supplement your nutrition when you’re on the road.

Make time to exercise

Exercising is the number one golden rule for maintaining your mental and physical health at the top. And, after a long flight or a long meeting, there’s nothing that can help you relax, sleep better, and restore your energy than exercising. So, even when you are traveling, make sure to have at least 15 minutes of exercise because it will undoubtedly make a difference in your overall wellbeing.

Combine business with pleasure

Business travel often leaves you no free time to visit the places you travel to and meet the locals of the locations. However, when it comes to your mental wellbeing, if you take at least one extra day for these types of activities, you’ll feel less stressed and unhappy about your travel. It would work well if you would try to meet some locals to socialize with and ask them to show you around. You can connect with other people from the same area on social media or socializing platforms such as EscortsAffair.

Take sleep very seriously

As mentioned above, proper sleep plays a major role in keeping you healthy and focused on your business activities. And, since business trips demand high mental performance, it is especially important to set yourself up for the best sleep possible. One good strategy would be to book only late or night flights so that you can get some sleep on the plane before your important meetings in the morning.