Planning ahead can make a big impact on any time you spend away from home. Packing healthy snacks, beverages and items that support a good night’s rest can make a huge difference in how you feel!

 

 
     Hi there, it’s Elaine Gardner, the founder of DesignYourHealthyLife.com. I am a huge proponent of planning ahead and making things easier for myself. I find that doing so, under circumstances when I’m going to be away from home, is particularly helpful in creating a healthy lifestyle for me when I’m on the road.

     I love to travel, and I love to see new places and spend time with my family, and I love to go to personal growth workshops and business development workshops. And sometimes it’s not easy to plan ahead and to take things with you if you’re flying, with the limitations with TSA and all of that, although there are a few things that I’m going to mention today that you can pack on an airplane in your suitcase.

     I’m about to hit the road and am going to a 4 day event. This particular event is taking place in a large civic center and you’re not allowed to bring in a lot of things. But I’m staying in a hotel with a friend and am traveling by car, so I can pack things to have in my hotel room to have before and after the event. And I’ve put quite a bit of thought into it (this isn’t the first time that I’m doing something like this). But this particular event, with these really long days, is going to be a new experience for me.

     So the first thing on my mind is always sleep. I am a basket case without good sleep. I know a lot of people can function on a lack of sleep or not good sleep, and a lot of people use caffeine, of course, to push their bodies and power through those days when they’re feeling fatigued. But that just doesn’t work for me. I don’t feel good if I drink caffeine, it makes me jittery as opposed to giving me energy or making me feel awake or focused. So I really, really want to get a good night’s sleep.

     One of the tools that I employ in order to do so, is an earthing mat. And I’m going to unroll it for you and hold it up… it’s just this little mat and it has a long cord on it, and it has this little prong at the end. And what this does is it actually plugs into the third prong of a grounded electrical outlet and it comes with a tester so you plug this into the electrical outlet first to test it and make sure that the outlet is grounded. Then you plug in the earthing mat. And I sleep on this, so I lay it on the bed under my legs because it has to have bare skin touching it in order to be effective. And what it does is connects you to the Earth’s energy, being the grounded part of the electrical outlet. And it’s just so incredibly healing.

     There’s been a lot of studies on it and you can easily find that information online at earthing.com or just do a Google search for “earthing”. But one of things that they’ve shown is that it stabilizes cortisol levels. Cortisol is the main hormone that controls your sleeping and waking cycles. So I find that traveling with the earthing mat and using it while I’m sleeping really helps me get a great night’s sleep.

     I also have on my iPhone, a white noise application and I run the sound of ocean waves so I don’t hear other hotel guests out in the hallway or above me or anything like that, I just hear the ocean waves. So it’s a very soothing night’s sleep for me when I employ those 2 tactics.

     And then I have packed my breakfast for myself and my friend who I’m traveling with. I have organic whole milk plain yogurt sweetened with maple syrup, I have organic berries, and over the weekend I made organic zucchini bread with raisins in it, so I’ll have an incredibly healthy breakfast to get me started. It will save me a ton of time and money; I don’t have to get up and go anywhere other than just get up and eat and get ready, and I can head to the event and I’ll feel really good with that.

     I also have a case of water that I’m traveling with so I can get really hydrated before and after the event. Unfortunately, this particular venue won’t allow you to bring in outside beverages so I’ll have to purchase bottled water while I am actually attending the event, which I’m sure is going to be pricey. But at least I’ll be able to have water before and after. And I have some snacks with me. They do allow you to bring in packaged, closed snacks, so I have some Trader Joe’s Organic Apple Carrot Pouches. And I have some, what they call Raw Cookies, but let me just read the list of ingredients to you. They’re all organic and it’s coconut, sprouted sesame seeds, carrots, dates and nutmeg. So they are lightly sweet because they have dates in them. They’re just yummy and a quick and easy snack to have in my bag to help me get through the day. I also have some grass-fed beef sticks. And I found these LivBars.

     I’m not typically a fan of protein bars and snack bars and things like that. A lot of them are loaded with sugar and other unhealthy ingredients like soy. And I don’t tolerate nuts or oats on a regular basis, and most bars have those things. But I really wanted to have some extra snacks to pack with me for this event, so I looked on Amazon and I was able to find these and they taste decent. I took one out of the box and I gave it a try just to make sure I’d be able to tolerate it. I don’t typically like the taste of protein bars either, so again this is a LivBar and I bought the raspberry, kale, maca one. And it’s in a nice little pouch so I can easily tuck that into my bag that I’ll bring into the event.

     So I’m just sharing this with you today to show you how a little planning ahead can make a huge difference in the quality of food you consume and your use of time, your resources, and your money when you’re traveling. Everybody is different and every traveling situation is different, but these are some of the tactics that I’m using for this particular trip.

     It’s summer time and I love to travel. I hope you have some great stuff planned for yourself that you can enjoy, and that these tips will help you prepare for it and be able to enjoy that particular experience in the best possible way. I’m a huge fan of life experiences, and I know if I don’t take care of myself or sleep well or eat well when I’m traveling, I just won’t enjoy that experience as much. So that’s what I want for you, as always, is to have the health that you need to live the life that you deserve, and to be able to maximize each and every day and each and every experience. Until next time… I’ll talk to you soon!