5 tips on how to prevent holiday disasters
The holiday season is upon us and I bet many of you are in the midst of planning one. Be it a winter holiday to a ski resort or a summer beach holiday to the southern hemisphere, holidays are meant for us to break the monotony of our stressful lives to experience a different way of living for a while and to decompress. It is a chance to build good memories, to shift your paradigm, to have adventures and to collect stories to share and pass down. Did you know that holidays are associated with a reduction of metabolic syndrome and symptoms ( Hruska et al, 2020), reduced stress and ambulatory heart rate. Yes, holidays can be good for health. But it can also turn into a disaster adding more stress to our lives. In this blog, we will discuss the ways to prevent this.
Select the right travelling partner/partners
Travelling with the right people can make or break a trip. Imagine the horror of spending hours, days or even weeks with someone who clashes with your personality. Some people need their full itinerary planned out, others like to plan on the fly. Some like to start their day early, others like to sleep in and party all night. Some like to try whatever local cuisines there are, some need to eat Asian food at every meal. Sometimes, certain personality traits don’t surface until you have spent long enough time with an individual. Imagine missing your flight or the train, or the sunrise because your travelling partner is late. Imagine having to deal with an obnoxious personality for every meal, and every hour for 10 days. We either have to suppress our frustration and anger, or eventually explode and snap at that person. Also, if your trekking mates are less fit, be prepared that you may have to help carry their bags. Travelling partners need a deeper kind of friendship, one that is built on trust, understanding and tolerance. Hence the first way to prevent a holiday disaster is to select the right travelling mate.
2. Plan well, outsource the planning or thrive in chaos
Have you encountered reaching the airport and realise you forgot to apply for a visa? How about being denied entry to an attraction because you didn’t know you were required to bring your passport? What about reaching the destination and realising you do not have enough warm clothes because the temperature dipped? Or travelling for a beach holiday and it rained everyday because it was the monsoon season? Such situations may cause more stress which in turn would affect your health negatively while the intention was to relax for better health. Some of us love planning and researching and are good at it. Planning becomes part of the joy of travelling. When planning, we have to consider the season, the accommodation, places to eat, how to commute, regulations of the country etc. For others who hate planning or do not plan well, that's what travel agencies are for. By outsourcing the planning, it would take some stress away from the trip. The travel agent would make all the arrangements and tell you what to do, where to go and what to bring. Depending on your personality, this might be a preferred option for some. And there is a special breed of people who thrive in chaos. These people never have a dull moment and seem unfaced in the presence of uncertainty. They turn every negative situation into an opportunites and are able to take things in their stride. This group of people have more tolerance to stressful situations and may handle unplanned situations well. To reduce the stress associated with planning, plan well, outsource the planning or you better thrive well in chaos.
3. Prepare yourself physically
As a practising physiotherapist, I have seen my fair share of injuries associated with holidays. Many of these injuries can very well be prevented if we prepare our bodies for the activities we are about to do in our holidays. Take for example skiing. If we get pain in our knees squatting, how can we handle a skiing trip where we have to go down hills in a perpetually squatting position, hours a day. Traumatic injuries may sometimes be prevented by ensuring our bodies have sufficient strength and endurance through training to handle the activity. For instance, ankle sprains may happen during trekking because we lose concentration or our muscles cannot work well because we are fatigued. Sufficient training may delay fatigue and increase our work capacity, preventing injuries. Lifting injuries are also commonly seen in my practice whereby people get injured lifting luggages. This is so firstly because of accustomed load to the body. Many individuals do not engage in regular strength training and hence, when they have to move a heavy 20-30kg luggage, it becomes an overload and they get injured. Regular strength training would drastically reduce the risk of injuries especially if we can safely lift more than the weight of our luggages on a regular basis. Preparing ourselves physically would minimise the risk of injuries and avoiding holiday disasters.
4. Prepare your essential logistics
We all need some basic necessities to survive well. This includes medications, toothbrushes etc and longer we are away, this list may increase to include stuff like nail clippers and a shaver. Some of these necessities may be easily available depending on where you travel to but may also be hard to come by if you are in a remote location. Preparing these logistical items may help alleviate stress in the event you need them so that you wouldn't have to go into distress when you suddenly need a pair of tweezers. On the flip side, bringing your entire wardrobe along with your tool box would be too impractical. Bringing along multi-purpose tools or improvising your tools may be a viable option. Wearing the right type of clothes and using the right tools are also important. Bringing just a windbreaker to climb Mt Agung or wearing leather work shoes to do hiking are examples not to follow.
5. Be vigilant
Not every country is going to be as safe as Singapore. It is important that we are vigilant when travelling. This includes avoiding being a victim of crime and also paying attention to what you eat or drink. Crime may be more rampant in other countries and being a victim in one of these situations may be very traumatic mentally, emotionally and physically. Being distracted and looking vulnerable may give criminals the impression that we are easy targets and hence at a higher risk of being prey. Paying attention to what we eat and drink can avoid cases of food poisoning which would affect your itinerary and there would be the stress of trying to locate medical help. Go for hot and piping food especially when eating street food and check out the surroundings before ordering. Avoid accepting drinks from strangers when visiting the night life overseas and avoid leaving your drinks unattended. If you have watched “Dahmer” on Netflix, you would know why. Be vigilant to avoid turning your holiday into a nightmare.
May these 5 tips help you to have fulfilling and enjoyable holidays for years to come.
Happy holidays!
References
Hruska B, Pressman SD, Bendinskas K, Gump BB. Vacation frequency is associated with metabolic syndrome and symptoms. Psychol Health. 2020 Jan;35(1):1-15. doi: 10.1080/08870446.2019.1628962. Epub 2019 Jun 17. PMID: 31204484.
Hruska B, Pressman SD, Bendinskas K, Gump BB. Do vacations alter the connection between stress and cardiovascular activity? The effects of a planned vacation on the relationship between weekly stress and ambulatory heart rate. Psychol Health. 2020 Aug;35(8):984-999. doi: 10.1080/08870446.2019.1687699. Epub 2019 Nov 6. PMID: 31694400.
