This chapter is a collection of articles discussing the effects that travel has on travellers and how they may be mitigated..
What do long flights do to our bodies?
This is a reprint from A national Geographic Article written by Terry Ward. I think my readers might find this interesting.
This is a reprint from A national Geographic Article written by Terry Ward. I think my readers might find this interesting.
From dehydration and muscle soreness to nausea and indigestion, the typical discomfort and pain can all be explained by unnatural conditions on long flights.
If you’ve taken a long flight in a seat with limited recline recently, the discomfort of the experience is likely still painfully fresh.
While airline seat size and pitch (aka legroom) have shrunk since the 1990s, time passengers spend in the air is noticeably increasing.
When Qantas launches its nonstop Sydney to London route in late 2025, it will be the longest flight in the world at 20 hours of flying time. Current honors go to Singapore Airlines’ New York to Singapore route, which clocks in at over 18 hours.
The discomfort of long flights goes beyond cramped positions—there’s also dry air that can make your throat, nose, and skin feel dry, and air pressure changes while ascending and descending that can affect your sinuses. Worst case, flying could become deadly if a blood clot forms in your extremities and moves to your lungs.
But experts say most of us don’t have to worry. “Generally, flying is safe for everybody and the problems only occur when you have an underlying condition,” says Explorers Club fellow Michael J. Manyak, a physician specializing in urology and expedition medicine.
Experts break down how your body reacts to long flight times, and what you can do to mitigate discomfort.
Dry air and changes in air pressure
About 50 percent of the air circulating in-flight is pulled in from outside the plane at high and dry altitudes—so it’s generally far less humid than what you’re used to breathing on the ground, Manyak says. This environment can cause your eyes, nose and mouth to feel excessively dry.
“Your mucosal areas are drying out,” he says. “The dry air contributes to a lack of lubrication in your body’s systems.” Drinking plenty of water before and during your flight will help to keep you more comfortable and improve your circulation, too.
And while some respiratory conditions like asthma can be exacerbated by cold, dry air, most people don’t have to worry about symptoms beyond discomfort, Manyak adds.
Air pressure changes during take off and landing cause air in the sinuses to change and can result in pain in the nose and ears for some people, says Laleh Gharahbaghian, physician and clinical professor of emergency medicine at Stanford University.
“This is true for those experiencing sinus disease most profoundly, and felt only mildly as ‘ears needing to pop’ for healthy folks,” she says.
Gharahbaghian recommends taking decongestants before your flight, drinking water, and taking anti-inflammatory medicine if you have a cold or congestion.
Speaking of colds—while it might feel like you get sick or catch a cold every time you fly, Manyak says airports, “where everyone is mingling in waiting areas and there are no air filters,” are more likely where the real exposure occurs. According to the IATA, air in the cabin is half HEPA filtered, half fresh from outside the plane, and also renewed 20-30 times an hour.
Muscle soreness
If you don’t get the opportunity to move around, you’re holding a position—that means prolonged engagement of your muscles, which leads to soreness.
Gharahbaghian says it’s not unusual for people to feel stiffness in their back, neck, or even their thighs while enduring the same position for a long period of time.
Getting up to walk up and down the aisle when it’s safe or even adjusting your body and doing things like heel raises while seated can help, she says.
Most injuries can feel worse after sitting for a long period, since inflammation can build without movement to flush it out, says Kevin Lees, director of chiropractic operations at The Joint Chiropractic. Back injuries are no different, of course, and prolonged flexion (sitting for hours) can create pressure on the disks, rubbery cushions between the vertebrae of your spine—especially your lower back.
Slowed digestion, difficulty breathing
By sitting for too long, your digestive system is also affected, Lees says, as the movement of food slows on its way through the intestines.
“If you are sedentary, you do not get the physical stimulation to the intestines,” says Manyak. “This is one of the reasons why we try to get patients up and walking soon after surgery. It is also good for circulation and wound healing.”
A slumped posture can restrict movement of the ribs, leading to slower and shallower breathing, too, Lees says. “Shallow breathing can lead to decreased oxygen intake…This can cause foggy thinking, dizziness, and even fatigue.”
Gastric reflux can result from a slumped posture, too, and has the potential to cause nausea, says Lees.
Manyak says any potential nausea or motion sickness from turbulence tends to be short-lived, since pilots try to divert from turbulent areas as soon as possible. “Motion sickness goes away almost immediately with stabilization of the environment,” he says.
DVT and blood clots on planes
By far, the biggest risk to your body on a long-haul flight is something that can also affect you on the ground when you remain for too long in a restricted position.
“The worst thing is deep venous thrombosis (DVT), or getting a blood clot in the legs,” Gharahbaghian says. “If a blood clot goes from your legs to your lungs, it can become a life-threatening problem.”
Signs of DVT include swelling, throbbing, or pain in one leg, says Manyak. “The pain occurs because you have impeded the blood supply and its return to the heart…The veins involved swell, causing pain.”
There’s a litany of factors that could predispose fliers to DVT, says Manyak, who himself learned he had a hereditary blood-clotting disorder after experiencing a clot after a trans-Atlantic flight.
These factors include a family history of blood clots, being pregnant or having recently given birth, having cancer or undergoing active or recent cancer treatment, taking birth control, says Manyak.
Getting up to walk the aisles every hour or so during a flight, doing heel raises while at your seat and wearing compression socks, which improve circulation in the legs, are a few of the things you can do to keep blood from pooling in your lower extremities on long flights, Manyak says.
It’s good advice for anybody who feels stir-crazy just thinking about their next long haul flight. “The biggest thing that causes discomfort for travelers during a long haul flight is the fact that you’re not moving,” Manyak says.
Jet lag doesn’t have to ruin your trip. Here’s what you can do
This is a reprint from A national Geographic Article written by Jennifer Barger.
From strategically timed naps and caffeine to high-tech gadgets, these expert tips will help your body adjust to a new time zone.
Daylight filters through the windows of a hotel room in Reykjavik, Iceland. Getting out into the sun upon arrival in a new time zone is one of many things travelers can do to combat jet lag.
Hop a plane across several time zones, and you may end up with what scientists call circadian dysrhythmia (aka jet lag). It’s a temporary sleep disorder where your body’s internal clock isn’t in sync with the time cues in your destination—daylight, dark of night, mealtimes.
It’s also why you might doze off at lunch on your first day in London or be unable to get to sleep the first couple of nights of a vacation to Japan. “We have a natural rhythm to our bodies, and it’s pretty well set,” says Vivek Jain, director of the George Washington University’s Center for Sleep Disorders.
But jet lag doesn’t have to wreck your trip. “If you plan for it, you can do most of your acclimatizing to your destination a few days in advance,” says W. Chris Winter, neurologist and author of The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep Is Broken and How to Fix It.
A September 2023 study published in the scientific journal Chaos suggests that eating a big breakfast in your new time zone can help both your gut and your brain adjust. You can also use light exposure, sleep, strategically timed naps, and caffeine. Recent scientific innovations, from high-tech gadgets to safer pharmaceuticals, might be worth adding to your anti-jet lag arsenal, too.
Here’s what the experts suggest to help you adjust to a new time in no time.
Wake up—and eat up—in a new place
Try to book a flight that lands during the day, since getting out into sunlight helps reset your body clock. “It jump starts you much more quickly,” says Luxembourg-based sleep coach Christine Hansen.
If it’s morning or early afternoon when your plane lands, a jolt of caffeine can help you acclimatize. So can eating breakfast at the standard time in your destination. But you might want to forgo that cacio pepe fettuccini dinner your first couple of nights in Rome; the study published in Chaos found that skipping your evening meal while filling up at breakfast produced the quickest adjustments to subjects’ circadian rhythms.
Don’t be afraid of the dark
Blocking out light is key to getting sleep on the plane (a proven jet lag antidote on overnight flights). If your destination is several hours ahead, wear sunglasses until you’re ready to snooze, then strap on a sleeping mask. When your brain senses darkness, it starts to produce melatonin, the chemical that initiates sleep.
Get comfortable
A 2021 German study found that worrying about having jet lag made it worse. So, if you believe a certain routine or item will help you drift off, it might just work.
Use whatever tools you can to make your trip more pleasant and silent. “Basically, anything you can do to get comfortable enough to sleep can have a very strong placebo effect,” says Jamie M. Zeitzer, co-director of Stanford University’s Center for Sleep and Circadian Sciences.
That could mean a pillow—either a traditional C-shape one or a newer wraparound model such as the Trtl or Ostrich, which resemble padded neck scarves and offer 360-degree head support. Also worth a test run: an airplane foot hammock (hook it underneath the seat in front of you) designed to relieve pressure on your legs and back during a long flight.
Add noise-canceling headphones or earplugs to set the stage for slumber. Silicone earplugs, which you mold to form a seal over your earholes, are more comfortable than old-school foam ones.
Sleep on it
Taking melatonin, which is also made naturally by the body, can help you doze off in the air or in a new time zone. Melatonin is available over the counter, but experts recommend consulting your health care provider before use. Unlike a prescription sleep drug, it won’t sedate you for hours.
Experts are mixed on using drugs to knock yourself out on a flight—or to quell insomnia once you’ve arrived. Sleeping pills are available over-the-counter (ZzzQuil, Unisom, etc., which work using the antihistamine doxylamine succinate) or prescription-only Zolpidem (Ambien, Edluar, Intermezzo), which is a sedative or hypnotic.
Both types of drugs carry risks of mental impairment and grogginess—particularly if taken with booze, as some travelers do, against prescription warnings. Zolpidem can be addictive if used regularly. “But I don’t think Ambien is bad if people take it as prescribed,” says Zeitzer. “It’s worse to have anxiety keep you from sleeping and having that ruin your trip.”
A newer class of insomnia drugs, dual orexin receptor antagonists (DORAs like Belsomra, Dayvio, Quviviq), block the receptor in your brain that helps you maintain wakefulness, especially in the evening. Unlike sedatives, DORAs don’t force you into unconsciousness and aren’t considered addictive, so researchers believe the sleep they provide is much closer to normal.
Do some advance planning
You can minimize jet lag by adjusting your bedtime, light exposure, and caffeine intake a few days before your trip. Smartphone apps Timeshifter and StopJetLag generate personalized pre-travel schedules and give tips on the best times of day to fly.
The Lumos Smart Sleep Mask is a new tool travelers can use to help them “pre-adjust” to new time zones. Developed using Zeitzer’s research, it emits targeted flashes of low-intensity light while you snooze. You use it the night before a flight and the first night in your destination. This reportedly shifts your internal clock forward three to four hours a night (as opposed to the usual one hour per day).
Frequent flyer: the effects of air travel on the human body
This is a reprint from A national Geographic Article written by David Whitley.
Flying really isn’t good for you, right?
Of course not. But perhaps the most remarkable thing is how little damage being sealed in a pressurised cabin with hundreds of other people and their germs does to you. Flying does expose you to higher levels of radiation, but not dangerously so. You’ll get more from a chest X-ray, for example, than a transatlantic flight, though this mounts up a little for frequent flyers. But even airline crew aren’t exposed to nearly enough each year for it to tip into the danger zone — where there’s an increased risk of getting cancer.
What about dehydration?
Dry air circulates around cabins, which can have a dehydrating effect. For those who are otherwise fit and well, this doesn’t cause much of a problem — sometimes dry skin, a dry mouth and/or a mild headache. But the dehydrating effects of being at high altitude and low humidity for hours can exacerbate existing illnesses. Going easy on alcoholic or caffeinated drinks can help, and switching contact lenses for spectacles is a wise idea to avoid eye irritation.
And deep vein thrombosis?
It’s a common misconception that deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is something that only happens on flights — it’s more about being immobile than being up in the air. Risks are similar if you’re on a long bus journey, for example. Lack of movement can slow blood flow in the veins, leading to blood clots — usually in the legs — which can potentially break off and cause a life-threating pulmonary embolism. The NHS Fit For Travel site says those who have had recent surgery, are pregnant or obese, or suffer from varicose veins are among the groups at most risk from DVT.
What can be done to prevent it?
Anti-embolism stockings, if worn correctly, are a good bet, but most of the best preventative measures are behavioural. Advice includes choosing an aisle seat, as this extra room acts as an incentive to move around more, carrying out muscle exercises, avoiding excessive alcohol consumption and staying well hydrated — if only because it’ll make you get up to go to the toilet more often.
Anything else to fret over?
The main aspect of in-flight health that most of us will encounter is tiredness and changes to circadian rhythms. Flying often involves getting up at unsociable hours, inadequate sleep and messing up the body clock — all of which leave us more susceptible to being hit nastily by any bugs that may be floating about. Jet lag, alas, is something there’s no easy cure for. However, there are a number of things that can be done to minimise it. They include — get whatever sleep you can on the plane, try to adjust meal times to the destination, don’t plan much for the first day or take a stopover. And — this should be something of a mantra — try to avoid going the whole hog on the free wine and spirits.