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1 November 2007
Stress free(er) travel
Manage what you can
By Terry Riley
Appeasing angry customers. Admonishing inept suppliers. Attending required
(read: dreadful) meetings.
It’s
bad enough that the reasons for business travel are loaded with stress.
What’s worse is that just getting to the customers,
 the suppliers or the
meetings can be as… no, make that even more stressful.
I can’t help you sooth your customers, fix your vendors or calm you as you
sit through awful meetings. But maybe, just maybe, the advice I’ve picked
up on managing stress while on the road will help you arrive better
prepared to deal with whatever situation you find at your destination.
When reviewing the following advice, keep in mind that, short of the
application of drugs, a feeling of calm can only be achieved when you have
a sense of control over your fate. Unfortunately there are many variables
that affect your travel that are out of your control. You can’t speed up
the queues at airports, you can’t select which cabby will deliver you to
your hotel, you can’t influence the weather.
Nevertheless there are many things in your environment you can
control. So manage what you can, resign yourself to what you can’t and
know the difference between them. (Hum. Sounds strangely like dealing with
that drug application issue.)
Physical environment
Your physical surroundings can account for a large portion of daily
stress. Temperature and humidity extremes, irritating noises, pungent
odors, poor lighting all stress our bodies, sometimes without us even
noticing it. We may not be able to entirely escape from unpleasant
environmental conditions, but we may be able lessens their effects by
seeking out more comfortable settings such as more open spaces, quieter
locations, fresher air, brighter surroundings.
And there are still some things we can do when we find ourselves at the
mercy of others. For instance, Jay Winner, MD, author of Stress
Management Made Simple: Effective ways to beat stress for better health,
suggests using waiting in line and delays as times to take breaks from the
demands of our work. “Instead of reaching for your Blackberry,” suggests
Winner, “use the time to reflect on other things like hobbies, friends,
family.”
Physiological environment
Eat well, get some exercise and for goodness sake, get a good night’s
sleep. Indeed, nothing may be more important to relieving a traveler’s
stress than a good night’s rest. So choose your hotel and your room within
that hotel carefully. When making reservations, ask if there is
construction going on in or near the hotel. (Though slim, there is a
possibility that you will get a straight answer if there is.) And, if
after checking into your room, you find it to be too hot, too cold, too
noisy or too whatever, ask to be relocated. If that doesn’t work, change
hotels. You need your sleep.
Judith Lazarus, author of The Spa Sourcebook and Stress Relief &
Relaxation Techniques, goes a step further and recommends booking
yourself into a hotel with a spa. If you decide to go this route, Lazarus
suggests booking your spa treatment when you make your hotel reservation.
And if you want a massage, you can get an appointment with a person (male
vs. female) you prefer who can offer the kind of treatment you want.
Social environment
Contact and social support from colleagues back at the office can help
lower your stress levels. Stay in touch with your work group by calling in
on a frequent basis. Keep tabs on the goings-on in the company and… okay,
catch up on some office gossip.
Staying connected helps dissipate stress, but don’t overdue it. Too much
socializing with the folks back home and you won’t accomplish what you set
out to do during your trip, which will only add to your stress.
Don’t expect stress to become detached from travel. They go hand-in-hand.
But with a few tools in your travel bag, you will be better equipped to
deal with those inevitable stresses.
© 2007 Applied Psychology
Related Err Travel columns
Traveling with the boss - It
could be your ticket up the corporate ladder
Air rage remedies - In the company of whacked-out
passengers
Traveling too much? - Maybe it's time for a
travelectomy
... and from Travel Fox:
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