How Not To Get Sick On An Airplane

We all know that it’s a pain to get sick on vacation. What you don’t know is why you can get sick from sitting on an airplane. From seat design, air quality, and your body’s immune system, I will go over how it’s so likely and what to do to avoid getting sick. There are a few tips and tricks to helping you stay healthy on vacation and even at home.

Airplane Seats

Airplane seats are designed to curve your mid/low back into an inward slump. This causes a couple of things to happen within the body. It causes your ribcage to compress your diaphragm and adrenal glads and stresses them which support the immune system and healthy breathing.

By suppressing the breathing your body isn’t getting enough oxygen which is a common factor of why you get sick on an airplane not just the amount of people crammed in the air. The seats also jut your head forward leaving you with a stiff neck and a back that just makes you sick, uncomfortable, and restless.

Travel Tips For Airplanes

It can be such an easy quick fix to help your immune system and get off the plane not feeling recked!

Roll up a blanket, jacket, pillow etc, and place it behind your back right under the base of your ribcage. That can help you push the ribcage out and decompress the spine and let the diaphragm and adrenals sit comfortably.

You need to open up the back and get some length in between the vertebrae since you were compressed for either long or short flights

Grab on to a bar or stable surface and pull against it creating traction to decompress the spine. Pulling your hips away from the bar sort of like a standing downward dog position. I do this anywhere and everywhere I can. Yes, it might look a little funny but who cares?! As long as it keeps my body feeling good I’m ok with looking a little silly.

Ways to Keep the Body Healthy

Get your lymph moving! Your lymphatic system is so vital to keeping the immune support strong! If you can keep that flowing and not get congested in the body, it can actually keep you from getting sick. How do I keep it flowing Sam? Enter Tarzan! Not really but basically you can make a fist with your hand and make percussive beats “pounding” your chest.

The chest has many different areas of lymph and by making that percussive motion on the chest it can keep it flowing! I know I know it sounds crazy but I have personally seen the effects and benefits of how important the lymphatic system can be in keeping the body healthy and recovering from illness.

Daily Routine

I always take probiotics, vitamins, and essential oils which can help keep my body’s immune system strong! Probiotics are for a healthy gut which is another major contributor to immunity. If you fix and balance the gut you can have a healthy lifestyle not just on vacation but at home too!

Vitamins are just a given…duh! But Essential Oils have become a major part of my routine applying them both externally and ingesting them. I started using them because a roommate introduced oils as a way to help my headaches. I have had different kinds of migraines since 7 years old so I wasn’t so sure an oil would help me.

Now I use oils to help me with migraines, stomach aches, muscle soreness and pain, burns, scars, cuts, acne, vertigo, colds, cough, sore throat, etc. You name it and there’s an oil for that!

I wouldn’t recommend ingesting oils if you haven’t done the research. There are only two brands out there that I trust. Doterra and Young Living are the top oil company’s I would recommend. Please don’t put grocery store oils on your skin and or ingest them! They aren’t made with the quality and purity that is needed to use them for bodily use those are more for diffusing.

Doterra’s Guide To Ingesting Essential Oils

Someone to follow for more body work and healthy fitness benefits is GST Body’s Anna Rahe. As an instructor myself I love listening to others geek out over the body like I do! You can find her here on Instagram and watch IGTV for some great demos.

If you want to learn more about what you can do to stay healthy not just when traveling, but year around then stay tuned. I will let you in on some great travel and health tips!

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