Staying Healthy on a Road Trip? Here’s What To Do

This summer, you are likely to hear the call of the open road, so when are you going to answer? Don’t feel guilty about ditching the office for a trip out on the road; studies have shown that taking much-needed vacation time can actually help towards reducing your risk of things like heart disease, anxiety, and even depression. However, with the outdoor heat, glass windows, and being in cramped car seats, plus eating road trip junk food, you might find that you don’t stay as healthy as you might normally, on a trip of this kind. So if you are planning a road trip, here are some of the things that you can do to make sure that you are able to stay as healthy and well as possible.

Find Allies

It can be easy to forget about self-care when you’re driving and on a schedule to be at your next stop off by a certain time. But, if you want to be able to stay as healthy and as well as possible, then you need to make sure that you’re not out on this trip alone. If you want to make something much more doable, then make sure that you get some help. It will make the journey more fun, but can also help you to be accountable. Don’t want to stop off for burgers every time you see an In and Out? Then let them know that. Don’t just rely on willpower alone.

Stop and Rest

When you’re out on the open road it can be so tempting to just keep going, especially if the road is quiet and you are on a schedule. But if you don’t stop and rest, then it could do some damage to your health. Not only can it be problematic to your health, but it can cause problems for others too. Driving tired can increase your chances of having an accident out on the road, so make sure that you are doing just that. If you are doing that, then you can hope that others are too, so that you don’t need to look up the legal service you definitely deserve after an incident that wasn’t your fault. So take regular breaks, and make sure that you do not drive tired.

Get Moving

There was a pretty recent study that was published in the online journal BMJ Open, that found that sitting for more than three hours a day, could in fact shave two years off your life. So if you sit at a desk, and then sit a lot in your spare time (including things like road trips), then it can be doing harm to your health. Even if you are driving long distances and have a lot of distance to cover, it is recommended that you stop every two hours for a break. Walk around a rest top, use the bathroom, do some star jumps and squats! It can all help, especially if you can’t fit in your regular exercise on the trip.


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21 thoughts

  1. I love road trips, so thanks for the helpful suggestions. I know stopping every couple of hours is ideal, but I like to see how long I can go without stopping as a way of saving time…

  2. Great ideas, Ula, especially considering the road trip, to and back, very well may be the biggest single thing you do on vacation (other than, maybe, sleeping). Best to make it fun and rewarding too.

  3. I don’t think I have ever actually been on a ‘proper’ road trip before! I definitely need to think about planning one and these are really useful – thank you! 🙂

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