Get Better Sleep While Traveling

New destinations, new people, new food—travel holds some great benefits, but it can be hard to appreciate them if you’re struggling to stay awake. Poor sleep can leave you irritable, moody, and stressed, not exactly how most of us like to travel. However, there are ways to sleep better while you’re away from home. Some are simple while others take some preparation, but they’re all worth it. 

Photo by Tracey Hocking on Unsplash

Make It Feel Like Home

You may not have the comfort of your own bed at a hotel or AirBnB, but you can make it feel more like home. If you can, bring along items or stimuli you normally use at home. Travel with a favorite blanket or pillow, create a relaxing bedtime playlist, or bring along your favorite candle. Anything that looks, smells, and feels like home can be a huge help. 

Follow Your Regular Routine

Your body is trained to follow a regular routine so it makes sense to keep that same routine when you’re away from home. The predictability of a routine acts as a trigger for your brain to start your sleep cycle. Your routine doesn’t need to be complicated to be helpful. If you normally take a bath then read a book before going to bed, do the same thing and keep everything in the same order while you travel.  

Turn Down the Heat

Your body needs certain conditions to successfully fall and stay asleep. At the start of the sleep cycle, the body temperature drops. It stays slightly lower throughout the night until it’s time to start waking up, at which point it slowly rises again. 

Cool room temperatures help maintain that lower body temperature. It keeps you from overheating and prevents a premature wake-up. Typically, temperatures between 60 to 68 degrees work best, but that will depend on whether you sleep cool or warm. You might have to make some adjustments and experiment to find a temperature that works best for you. 

Keep It Dark and Embrace the Morning

Light has a powerful impact on the timing of your sleep cycle. Sunlight and other forms of blue spectrum light suppress sleep hormones. At bedtime, block out as much light as possible. This is especially important if you’re fighting jet lag. Your body bases the timing of your sleep cycle on the Earth’s day-night pattern. When you hop time zones, it needs all the help it can get to catch up with the changes to that pattern. Bring along a sleep mask and/or some binder clips to keep the curtains closed and the room dark.

Once morning rolls around at your destination, get out of bed and get some early morning sunshine. Exposure to light early in the day helps set sleep patterns for the next 24 hours.  

Time Your Meals and Eat Smart

Light isn’t the only way the body times the sleep cycle. It also uses other predictable patterns like meal timing to determine when to release sleep hormones. Try to eat your meals at approximately the same times each day to give your brain some kind of schedule to follow. 

You can also help by avoiding heavy, high-fat meals close to bedtime. Also watch out for acidic, spicy, and caffeine-laden foods that could cause indigestion or heartburn. 

Use a Sleep Aid

While I don't usually have issues sleeping, the first day or two away from home can be difficult for me to drop off. I have a pillow spray that chills you out, I've also used Dream Water (both the liquid and the powder), and also CBD gummies. Whatever you find works for you at home should work when you are traveling, so take those things along.

Start On The Plane

Sleeping on the plane can not only help your body combat germs, but it helps you avoid jet lag, too. If you need tips on how to sleep better or just on the plane in general, here are the tips I use. It helps to figure out what normally will help you, like I said above, so do some research before you travel if you don't usually use anything to go to sleep, or it's something simple, like a chill podcast or certain music that you can download before you leave home.

Sleep is the foundation of your health. You need it to be alert, happy, and ready to go. As you develop a travel plan, include ways to enhance your sleep. The changes you make in favor of better sleep may be small but the payoff can be well worth it. 

Have you ever lost valuable travel time because of poor sleep? 

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links and I may get compensated for any purchases you make through them. This helps me continue to bring you quality content, so thanks in advance.

Why Staycations Are Still Big Right Now

I know most of us are dying to get out in the world and explore, but we also want to be responsible and safe. Eric and I are still doing Destination Date Nights and exploring Portland's outdoor spaces and through restaurants that specialize in foods from outside of America. Yes, we'll be taking a road trip next month, but like our last one, we'll be changing the way we approach this trip, eating outside as much as possible or taking meals to-go, doing outdoor activities, and masking up whenever we're around people. 

photo credit

We'll be staying at our timeshare, so we'll have a kitchen and patio and pool and picnic tables. While this may not sound like as much fun as regular vacations we take, we'll be away from home and have a change of scenery. Follow me on Instagram to follow along on our trip and maybe snag some ideas for your own next trip. 

Will you be staycationing or road tripping this year?

3 Steps to Preventing Jet Lag

Jet lag. Is there anything worse? Well, probably. Getting robbed or attacked by a bear or losing your passport. Those are all worse actually. There's a really low chance of most of those things happening to you, but jet lag is really common...and annoying. Now that you're getting close to traveling again, you don't want to waste any time on your trips. Not that you did before, but your first trip out would really be devastating, so here are 3 ways to prevent getting jet lagged.

You can lose hours or days of your trip because of it, which is kind of like being robbed, because you're paying for vacation you don't get to use. Going west to east is worse than going east to west, but it depends on how many time zones you're crossing. The best way to avoid jet lag is to start combating it before you even leave home. Here are some tips:

Photo by Brigitte Tohm on Unsplash

Adjust Your Schedule

The sooner you can get on your new schedule, the better. If you can do so before you leave home, that's optimal, but if you have to work and can't really do that, then start on your plane ride. Immediately set your watch to what the local time will be and do what you normally do at that time. If it's time to sleep, then sleep, but if it's not, make yourself stay awake as much as possible. I take a quick nap, but occupy myself reading, watching a movie, playing a game or coming up with new post ideas (maybe you journal instead). If you are traveling with someone, break out a card game and make them play with you. In other words, keep your brain busy. 

When you get to your destination, stay on schedule. If it's daytime, do some sightseeing. If it's nighttime, then go to bed. Simple! And don't forget to eat on time. Have problems getting on a new schedule? Try a time adjusting app!

Stay Hydrated

Not getting enough liquids in your body can cause you to be sluggish. Bring a big bottle of water with you on the plane, avoid dehydrating drinks like soda and alcohol, and continue drinking extra of water for the first couple of days of your trip. This can also keep you from getting sick. A great alternative to water is tomato juice. It's known to be one of the best beverages for flying, because it's hydrating and full of vitamins. If you're thinking this sounds super gross, just try it. The altitude from flying dulls your taste buds a bit, so it's actually tastier than you think.

Eat Light and Healthy

Eating is really important, but you don't want to eat a huge meal before getting on the plane. You also don't want to eat fried and junk food. Find something light and healthy (or as much as possible) to eat before your flight that'll keep your going, but not weigh you down and make you sleepy. You'll also want to bring snacks. Protein-packed, healthy foods like nuts or fruit are great options.

If you want to know more about a jet lag "diet", see my post here. I still haven't tried it like I meant to, but I found that getting on schedule ASAP worked really well. I am normally tired the first evening, but after a good night's sleep, I am good to go for the rest of my trip. I've done this for coast-to-coast trips and also trips further away.

Have you ever been a victim of jet lag?