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Travel Fitness Tips: Top 10 In-Transit Stress Busters By Rebecca Johnson and Bill Tulin

Avoid ups, downs, peak travel times, and busy airports. Take nonstop flights--versus direct, which may include stopovers--whenever possible to avoid layovers and decrease your chances of delayed or canceled flights. Try to avoid travel on Mondays and Fridays and rush hours of 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Consider midweek travel as an option. Another stressor to avoid: congested airports. Many savvy fliers won't touch down in crowded hub airports such as Hartsfield International in Atlanta, opting for satellite airports or alternative routes instead. If you're spending too much time waiting in airports, join an airline membership club. For an annual fee--in the $100 plus range, varying by airline--you'll gain access to the club lounge, where you can sip fruit juice, watch television, read a complimentary newspaper or magazine, or tackle a business project. You'll also be able to avoid the long public check-in lines, select seats, and make further reservations with the airline representative present in most club lounges.

Schedule extra time to get there. If a meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m., don't catch a flight arriving at 9 a.m., or head out in your car with not a minute to spare. Give yourself plenty of time to catch your plane and make your meeting to avoid unnecessary stress.

Catch a pretrip workout. If you're leaving early in the morning, exercise the night before. If you're leaving in the afternoon, exercise in the morning. It will relax you, and you may not mind sitting in the car or plane as much with a little muscle fatigue. Remember, the better shape you're in before you leave, the better you'll feel in transit.

Adopt a healthy in-transit attitude. How you feel about getting there depends, like most things in life, on your attitude. Frequent traveler Randy Petersen adopts a Zen-like attitude to travel: "Canceled flights and missed meetings don't bother me anymore because there's not much point in worrying about what you can't control." Be creative when things go wrong and look at the downtime as an opportunity. For example, if you have an unexpected layover, use the extra time to contemplate one of your life's goals and brainstorm ways to achieve it. Many travelers find that scheduling a post-trip reward improves their in-transit attitude. After a long flight, Steve Campbell heads for the shiatsu clinic near his office in Tokyo for a massage.

Practice deep breathing. When stressed, one of our first responses is to hold our breath and tighten our chests. If you're in a plane, constricted breathing just adds to the mild hypoxia you might already be experiencing. When you're en route, make it a point to take in four to five deep breaths every hour.

Pack variety into your trip. View your time in the air or on the road as your personal private time. Don't spend the whole time working on the plane or listening to sales tapes in your car. Listen to audio books or relaxation, how-to, or music tapes, or play with a hand-held electronic game. Use the time to think or meditate. Some of the best ideas were born cruising down an interstate.

Create a personal travel mantra. Carry in your head a phrase or two that affirms positive qualities in you, stated in the present tense, to help you cope with in-transit stress. For example, the phrase, "I am where I'm supposed to be," might help you relax when a situation develops that's out of your control. When you feel stress, repeat the phrase a few times in your head. It really can help you relax

Don't drive more than six to eight hours a day. The stress from long drives can interfere with your driving and job performance once you arrive. Experts suggest not driving more than 400 miles a day and never driving after an emotional upset. One study indicated one of five drivers killed in automobile accidents had experienced emotional distress within six hours before the accident.

Take a short nap. Pull your car over to a rest-stop or recline your seat on the plane, and take a short nap. Just don't let your snooze exceed 30 to 40 minutes, which could disrupt your sleep-wake cycle and make it hard to get to sleep at night.

Indulge yourself in an on-board massage. If you happen to be an upper class (first class) passenger on one of Virgin Atlantic Airway's flights from London to Japan or the United States, have your tired, achy muscles worked on by the free, on-board masseuse! Or sit in an in-flight automatic massage chair. Japan Airlines offers its "sky massage" service--a specially equipped chair offering 15-minutes of pounding, rolling, or shiatsu massage--on flights between Tokyo and New York and on the Tokyo-London route.

Excerpted fromTravel Fitness: Feel Better, Perform Better on the Road, 1995, by Rebecca Johnson and Bill Tulin.