From kick-starting your career, expanding your network, enhancing your portfolio to getting to see new places, you name it, business travel has countless advantages for a business professional. However, for there to be a bright side, there also has to be a downside and on the other side of the spectrum, business traveling can be lonely, exhausting, stressful and detrimental for one's health.
As you are traveling for business, you are most probably traveling on your own, meaning you are leaving your family and friends behind. Most of your time is spent at the airport, on the plane and at business meetings with people you probably just met.
If the business professional is married, this can have consequences on the marital life. Some couples are comfortable with having their space, but when traveling is frequent, this can get to be too much. Constant traveling can also keep the business professional to miss out on their children's life event. One remedy for this situation is the use of Skype or video chat. Although this may alleviate loneliness, a virtual presence is not a real substitute for a personal presence.
Frequent traveling also affects business travelers in terms of jet lag. Human body is not prepared to cross multiple time zones in such a short time as technology allows. This impact has certain consequences in the body and the mind that can affect your productivity and cause you to feel tired. A solution to this issue is to try to sleep on the plane or adapt to the time zone you are traveling to beforehand. Avoid alcohol or caffeine on the day of traveling to be able to sleep on the plane.
Unfortunately, there are more risks to constantly traveling for business. For instance, you are at a higher risk of a heart attack and a stroke, you are more likely to eat unhealthy as you are eating on the go and jet lag or sleep deprivation increases your appetite for junk food.
The planes are constantly being boarded by passengers and the trays where you eat are rarely cleaned, thus germs abound and you are more exposed to get sick. The likelihood of catching a virus also increases as you find yourself in a plane, so a closed space, sharing the same air with many other people who might be already sick. Finally, you are also more exposed to radiation.
You might start gaining weight not only because you are more likely to eat unhealthy and to overeat, but also because it becomes difficult to exercise at all. Some hotels do have a fitness centre and some places you visit might have a park where you can exercise, but it still breaks your routine, and you might not even have time to exercise.
The best solution is to recognize this downside is real and try to make up for it as best as you can. Use virtual communication to connect with your family, take sanitizer with you on the plane, try to take vitamins, try to follow a logical sleep pattern, try to exercise, eat healthy whenever you get the chance, and make the most of it to stay happy and positive, since after all, the glamour and achievement to business traveling is undeniable.