The new year is all about building new healthy routines and breaking old, bad habits. With the increased focus on our health and wellness in 2020 and a return to frequent travel on the horizon, many frequent travelers have been forced to reassess their usual travel habits and ask honestly, do I look after my heath while on the road? For many people going to the airport and getting on a plane is a once or twice a year event. We are going on holiday and it is exciting and many of the rules we apply to our everyday lives, such as eating healthy, getting 8 hours of sleep and only having one glass of wine with dinner are ignored as we let loose and enjoy ourselves. Engaging in this type of behaviour once or twice a year is not going to be hugely damaging to your health. However, for those that travel frequently, heading to the airport is more of a routine and can happen multiple times a month. Why then, do frequent travelers still entertain bad habits while on the road? Why would the usual healthy eater eat a greasy burger just because they are at the airport? Or why is having a drink an acceptable way to spend a spare hour? Frequent travel is notorious for building bad habits. Because the experience is often stressful and boring, we let our usual rules slide and take on a ‘it doesn’t matter, let’s just get through this’ type of mentality. And with the next trip to the airport often only a few days away, it was difficult to find the time to interrogate our habits and routines and put effort into changing them. 2020 has given frequent travelers a unique opportunity to reflect on their past experiences and make more conscious decisions to work toward a healthier travel routine. But realising the need for improvement and making the decision to change is only half the battle. Breaking old habits is not easy, however with the right tools and support it will get easier. We would like to introduce you to an incredibly useful tool that will help you in your journey, and that is mindfulness.
What is mindfulness?
It is likely that you have heard the term mindfulness before. Meditation and mindfulness have been popular in the wellness space for a long time. We asked Silvia Vizzoni, founder of Trip Unwind to explain what mindfulness is. She says…
‘Mindfulness is all about training the mind to become more aware of what is happening, as it is happening. It cultivates awareness of your thoughts, emotions and body in the present moment without judging, teaches skills to become less reactive to outside unpleasant experiences, and helps to develop self-awareness and to nurture growth, emotional intelligence, creativity and innovation.’
How can mindfulness help break bad habits?
Practicing mindfulness can greatly improve our ability to break bad habits. Habits are automatic and routine. We do them almost without thinking and this is often why they are so hard to break. Because we do not consciously intend to do the action, figuring out how to stop ourselves doing it can be tricky. Mindfulness helps to focus our attention on the present moment and acknowledge and create intent around the actions and thoughts that we often do automatically. We develop self-awareness as we become more mindful and this allows us to more easily identify and act on bad habits as we are engaging in them. If we commit to actively stopping the bad habit as well as acknowledging it, those bad habits will eventually be broken.
Another key aspect to mindfulness is the lack of judgement. This element can be the hardest part to wrap our heads around, especially when using mindfulness to address bad habits. Judgement is an automatic response if we find ourselves doing something that we consider a bad habit. And, because we don’t want to spend our free time being judgemental and feeling bad about ourselves, we inevitably stop thinking about what we are doing, and the bad habit continues. Mindfulness teaches acknowledgment without judgement. This is often one of the biggest stumbling blocks when it comes to mindfulness and requires effort and practice to get right, and needs to be mastered in order to effectively use mindfulness to break bad habits. Unfortunately, there are no quick fixes when it comes to breaking bad habits, however, once you have mastered the technique, it will become much easier.
How to use mindfulness to break bad habits.
Here are some steps to follow on how to use mindfulness to break bad habits on your next trip.
1. Awareness: First you need to understand what your bad habits are and when you engage with them. Make a note of every time you engage in a bad habit, what triggered it and how you felt directly before and directly after. For example, if you are bored while waiting for your flight do you automatically head for the bar?
2. Mindful Pause: Once you have a clear understanding of your bad habits and triggers, the next step is to introduce a mindful pause before engaging in it. When you come across a trigger for a bad habit, take a moment to stop, take 5 deep breaths and then ask yourself, ‘do I really want to do this?’ If the answer is yes, then go for it without judgement.
The idea behind this stage in the process is not to force yourself not to engage in the bad habit but to create a separation between the trigger and the reward (engaging in the habit). The mind follows an expected pattern, trigger, behaviour and then reward. By introducing a moment of self-awareness and acknowledgment after the trigger, it breaks the automated response and makes the action more intentional. And it is much easier to stop ourselves doing intentional actions rather that automated ones.
3. Identify Alternatives: Ok, now you understand your bad habits, your triggers and have introduced a mindful pause. Next you need to identify alternative activities for when you encounter your triggers.
First, separate your triggers into two categories, avoidable and unavoidable. For example, an avoidable trigger is boredom. You will have time to kill at the airport but that doesn’t mean you have to be bored. Have activities ready to go to avoid the feeling. Perhaps you could call a friend you have not spoken to in a while, or you could read a couple of chapters of your book. My personal favourite is to set a step goal for my waiting time. I will walk the terminal, listening to a podcast and taking in the sights and sounds. Plus, it has the added bonus of wearing you out, so it makes it much easier to get some sleep on the plane. 😊 An example of an unavoidable trigger is stress, you cannot control what it going to happen while at the airport and you cannot leave if it becomes too stressful. Have some relaxation techniques such as breathing exercises or relaxing stretches to help relieve stress. The Sanctifly app has lots of helpful travel wellness content to help with travel stress, including videos on breathing exercises, guided meditations and more. Download the app today to see more.
4. Choose an Alternative: Now that you are aware of your triggers and have a go to list of alternative activities you can engage with, the last step is to choose those alternatives over your bad habits. The most important thing to remember as part of this step is to be kind to yourself. You may not always succeed in choosing the healthier alternative and that is ok. Be kind to yourself and make sure you keep trying. Consistency and not giving up are the best methods for breaking bad habits.
How can Sanctifly be a support to travelers returning to travel.
At Sanctifly we are committed to supporting travelers as they return to travel. However, we do not want to return to the old ways. 2020 has thrown a spotlight onto health and wellness and the travel industry and frequent travelers are taking note. Access to wellness facilities to help counter act bad travel habits such as unhealthy eating and sedentary behaviour are no longer a nice to have but a need to have. Sanctifly is here to support this shift in mentality by providing access to wellness facilities such as airport gyms, pool, spas and lounges all over the world. With a Sanctifly membership you can spend your airport downtime doing something good for you. As part of your membership, you also get access to exclusive travel wellness content, airport guides and more. For more details on how a Sanctifly membership can help you navigate your return to travel, check out our membership options here.