No time for travel ouchies during the holiday season

CHARLOTTE DOUGLAS INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

Take extra care to avoid injury and illness during holiday travel season, the busiest time of the year for transportation across the U.S.

Holiday travel is tricky enough without dealing with injury or sickness.

Nothing is worse than looking forward to spending time with family during the holiday season and wind up sick or nursing an injury due to travel. Nicole Vital with Novant Health offered a few tips and tricks for when travel tries to get you down during the holidays.

1. Make sure to stretch periodically on long road trips or flights.

As odd as it sounds, the prolonged hours of sitting during long trips in the car or even flights cause stiffness in joints and muscles in the body. Studies have shown that it could even cause a serious condition such as deep vein thrombosis.

“Deep vein thrombosis, or a DVT is the shortened medical acronym that you’ll see for a blood clot that is in the large vessels or large veins in the legs,” Vital said. “If they migrate to the lungs, which is the most common place they migrate to, then they become pulmonary embolisms or PES.” 

PES can be fatal if not treated immediately. Clots that form in the legs often develop from prolonged hours of sitting.

“If we sit or even lay down for extended periods of time, you run the risk of blood pooling in your lower legs,” Vital said. … “But some things you can do to make sure you don’t get clots are to move around. … If you’re on a plane, going to the bathroom or just simply walking back and forth to the bathroom will help keep the blood circulating. If you’re in the car, make sure to take breaks occasionally, go to the bathroom, take laps in the park, go to the gas station or grocery store. Anything you can do to move around and not stay seated would be really helpful.”

2. Keep clean by washing hands, breathing moist air and staying socially distanced from others sick.

On top of muscle soreness from traveling, another common ailment is colds, the flu or even COVID-19. Making sure to steer clear of people that are sick and keeping a healthy home are critical during the dry, cold holiday months.

“First off, social distancing is helpful,” Vital said. “Making sure that you’re staying away from people you know are sick is obviously helpful. I’d also recommend humidified air. The reason why viruses spread so easily in this part of the year is because of dry, cold air. When our houses get cold, it drops the ambient humidity in our homes. So, tossing in a little humidity by running a clean humidifier and using saline to moisten our nasal passages is helpful.”

Vital also suggests staying up to date on vaccinations.

“Getting yearly vaccines is important,” she said. “The COVID-19 vaccine, influenza vaccine and even RSV can help prevent those viral illnesses. These help decrease the amount of time you are symptomatic and also decreases the risk of hospitalization, which could lead to missing work and school.”

3. Prioritize healthy sleep habits.

Most Americans have sleep schedules that don’t align with proper amounts of time for the body to rest. Add in the holiday craziness of travel and keeping up with work or school can also hinder sleeping habits further.
Vital emphasized the importance of making sure during the holidays making sure to get the appropriate amount of sleep.

“Sleep is the way for our body to recover, our brain to rest, and I think part of good sleep is just discussing how to get there,” Vital said. “All of us are staring at computer screens or phones and even TVs. With that, a lot of folks can’t unwind. You’re staring at blue light all day. Our brain secretes something called melatonin that helps us sleep. If you’re staring at blue light, your brain doesn’t recognize it’s dark.”

The blue light our brains take in hinders the process of melatonin production. 

“Shutting off some of these devices that emit blue light will be helpful,” Vital said. “About two hours before you go to bed, have a nighttime routine. We think about it for our children, but with adults, we brush our teeth, might get into bed and scroll on Instagram, so, it’s important to have a routine that doesn’t involve these devices. Also, decreasing temperature is really helpful. … Cultivating a routine without blue light and creating a good sleeping environment will go a long way.”

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