Traveling is a great opportunity to take a break, make discoveries, and visit interesting places. But it can also be stressful, so finding ways to squeeze self-care into your schedule can help you stay healthy and happy. These are some simple tech tips that can help you maintain a fitness routine and stay healthy while you're on the move.
1. Stay Fit With Travel-Friendly Workout Gadgets
When you're traveling, it can be tough to stick to your fitness routine. Instead of skipping your workouts altogether, try using technology to schedule a bit of time for physical activity.
With the right accessories and equipment, you'll find it easy to exercise on the move. Grab a pair of athletic shoes, some resistance bands, and one of the many available smart fitness gadgets that are lightweight and small enough to fit into your luggage.
2. Avoid Jet Lag With a Personalized Schedule
Jet lag can be taxing, but it's easy to lessen its effects. When you travel between time zones, your body’s internal clock (which regulates your sleep patterns) can take a while to adjust. You may not be able to avoid it entirely, but you can prepare for your next trip by getting adequate rest.
This is where Jet Lag Rooster can help. You simply need to enter your travel itinerary and your typical sleep habits, and the app will create a personalized schedule that includes tips on ideal sleep hours, reducing exposure to bright light, and taking medication to help reset your internal clock.
In addition, staying hydrated and maintaining a healthy diet can help you manage jet lag symptoms and feel better.
3. Set Up Out of Office Autoresponders
Taking a vacation is one of the best things you can do to reduce burnout and anxiety. However, work emails and notifications can dominate your life all too easily, as every such notification that comes through threatens to distract you from enjoying your well-deserved time away.
To prevent this, you can set up an out-of-office status on collaboration workspaces and email autoresponders to let people know that you won't be checking messages for a while. It can reduce work-related stress and can help you unplug while on vacation.
4. Find Quiet Spaces With Noise Level Apps
It can be hard to find a quiet place amid a hectic day. That's even more difficult when you’re traveling to an unknown city and need to find a place where you can relax or work without getting disturbed.
SoundPrint is a free app that helps you identify quiet places around you to work, relax, or catch up with friends. And while you're exploring places, you can also add quiet spots within the app for the benefit of other users.
SoundPrint features a user-friendly map that helps you navigate toward quieter spots in your neighborhood. You can choose between filtering locations based on their distance from your current location, noise range, sound levels, or the type of establishment.
Download: SoundPrint for Android | iOS (Free)
5. Turn On Dark Modes to Prevent Screen Time Exhaustion
Having a laptop, smartphone, and other devices with you while traveling is a great way to stay connected with your family or even stream your favorite movies on the go. However, as we know, laptop screens and smartphones emit blue light that can result in eye strain, headaches, and premature aging.
Most desktop devices and smartphones offer a dark mode or bedtime mode to put a warmer color temperature on your screens. Turn on your device's dark mode when working during your trips to reduce screen time exhaustion and enjoy a more comfortable experience.
6. Use Meditation Apps to Help You Relax
When you travel, your schedule inevitably gets thrown out of whack. If you’re looking for ways to stay focused on relaxation during your trips, meditation apps like Calm can help.
Calm is a meditation and mindfulness app that features guided sessions to help you reduce stress, lower anxiety, and improve happiness. The app's Sleep Stories feature will give you something soothing to listen to as you fall asleep. It also includes breathing exercises and ambient sounds to help you ease into a peaceful state of mind.
7. Set Up Real-time Weather Alerts
Accurate and up-to-date weather forecasts are crucial when traveling, and even more so if you have specific interests in mind such as hiking trails or beaches.
The Weather Channel app allows you to choose your location and see weather conditions, including real-time alerts for heavy snowfall or thunderstorms in the area. This handy weather app can help you prepare for road trips, air travel, and short excursions by providing you with short-term and mid-range forecasts. Data includes wind speeds, humidity levels, storm conditions, temperatures changes, air quality, and precipitation levels. The app also provides non-weather information, such as allergies and Covid-19 risks.
You just need to enter a city or zip code or tap Current Location to view a comprehensive weather forecast for your destination or location. If you travel frequently or move around the country often and need to track COVID-19 restrictions, this app could be helpful.
Download: The Weather Channel for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)
8. Monitor Activity Levels Using Fitness Tracker Apps
For most of us, it's hard to maintain healthy sleep habits and optimal activity levels while traveling. But thanks to wearables and fitness apps, you can monitor your fitness progress and stay on top of important variables like heart rate and sleep quality.
Use a smartwatch or some of the available activity tracker apps to monitor your activity, track your fitness, and stay healthy and well-rested while traveling.
9. Track Your Itinerary With Note-Taking Apps
If you have a hard time remembering flight times, check-in dates, or hotel reservations, putting all of these details in one place can be a huge help. You can use note-taking apps that allow you to jot down these travel reminders and other notes and stay on top of your itinerary with ease. You can also quickly check and update your lists from anywhere and access them from multiple devices.
Stay Healthy on the Go
Regardless of how much planning you do, traveling is rarely a quick or easy process. Even though you're on the go, you can still make time for self-care. And these tech tips can also make travel easier than ever. Be confident, stay refreshed, and have a great travel experience with a little help from technology.