The Conversation Around Healthy Business Travel Has to Change ...

There is a distinction to be made between the Jet Lagged and the Jet Stressed. It is the same difference between the chronic and the ac?te. One is ac?te and the other is chronic. Jet stress is in fact chronically ac?te. The val?e of this distinction alone is what separates those who fly well and those who don't. A second val?able observation to o?r ca?se is that any time Man has conq?ered or thrived in an environment he has done so by taking his own environment with him. To beat jet lag in all it's forms yo? and I m?st do the same, freq?ent fliers more so than others. The c?rrent conversation on the s?bject of flying well repeat the b?zz words like body clock and melatonin too often witho?t a change in res?lts or progress. The conversation is long in the tooth with the same tired advice - get plenty of sleep, drink plenty of water and keep yo?r mind active. Old wives tales and a pastiche of personal remedies exist alongside rigid scientific data. The masses of freq?ent fliers and b?siness travellers are confo?nded and str?ggle to make sense of disjointed and often conf?sing information. Prod?ctivity, personal health, relationships and global b?siness's bottom line s?ffers.

The Most Intensive Freq?ent Fliers Hold The Key

I once read some good b?siness advice which preached the val?e of catering to the extremes of a target a?dience. The notion was that if they were catered for all other demographics within that target market wo?ld be well taken care of. Freq?ent b?siness fliers are representative of this extreme. An article in Wired magazine* charted the travel paths of b?siness fliers over a year demonstrating the intensity of travel sched?les of freq?ent fliers. The goals of b?siness travellers to maximise prod?ctivity on the road, make the right impressions, close the deal and stay healthy bring home the ?rgency of the conversation at hand.

?nhealthy Flying Doesn't Pay, What Are The Costs

The price we pay for not dealing with freq?ent flying challenges and it's associated woes o?tweighs the benefits. The costs are meas?red on a personal and global b?siness scale. Yo? can meas?re it on the personal scale with the tendency towards weight gain, insomnia, tiredness, fatig?e, adrenal stress, hormone irreg?larities, tro?ble conceiving and the list goes on and on. The cost to global b?siness is meas?red in millions of dollars in lost prod?ctivity. A 2003 New York Times s?rvey* estimated that heavy-d?ty b?siness travellers lost abo?t 20 per cent prod?ctivity d?e to trans-meridian travel. A recent AirPl?s Traveller Prod?ctivity White Paper* also highlights the link between b?siness travel and prod?ctivity.

Sol?tions Need An ?pgrade

Over the short ascent of global b?siness travel and globalisation many advances and efficiencies have been made in the area of civil aviation. The hardware of the trade, the planes have seen many modifications incl?ding fly by wire technology and a new generation of f?el-efficient planes to take ?s into the 21st cent?ry. Contrast that with the plight of the freq?ent b?siness flier, healthy flying advice has remained static. There has been no respite in terms of the press?re and demands in the workplace. Global mobile working is on the increase see the Worldwide ERC website* for confirmation.

Look to Hollywood as an example of what I mean by this. A script is prod?ced, a film is cast, locations are sco?ted o?t and the cast goes on location to shoot. Travelling to locations are incidental to the o?tcomes so?ght be it a film or a b?siness meeting. Yet the q?ality of the end prod?ct can depend so m?ch on the well-being of the participants. As globalisation makes the world smaller and calls for collaborative gro?ps to come together in the name of a common goal over a short period of time, the need to be f?lly f?nctional and prod?ctive is a conditional necessity for s?ccess.

Pharmace?tical Interventions The Only Show in Town, Really?

?ntil now the lo?dest voice heard in this conversation has been that of the pharmace?tical ind?stry. Representative of this was Cephalon's failed bid* to get the FDA to permit the sale of N?vigil as c?re for jet lag. It speaks to the defa?lt mode of operation, a pill for every ill and re-classifies jet lag from a costly inconvenience into an illness. This brings me to the point I want to make - better living thro?gh chemistry does have its limits. The entire idea that yo? can contin?ally dr?g yo?rself o?t of jet lag over the span of yo?r career of flying and come o?t ahead is moot. Workforce mobility and globalisation on the horizon sho?ld make this obvio?sly clear by now. Any conversation abo?t a c?re to the problems of jet lag has to have an element of s?stainability abo?t it, and this is where c?rrent approaches fall down.

Let's Start with The First Q?estion

The req?ired change in tone of conversation is not complete witho?t looking at the definition we give jet lag. ?p ?ntil now it is characterised as being all abo?t the body clock to the excl?sion of anything else. As ?sef?l as this is it is limiting in the creativity we can bring to finding a s?stainable sol?tion. The disc?ssion has to incl?de a Jet Lag 101 co?rse which asks q?estions like what is jet lag in its entirety? How does it affects yo? differently from me? How can yo? take charge of yo?r sol?tion? What g?iding principles and methodologies we can all relate to and ?se? Witho?t this first step we are doomed to looking at the same information b?t expecting a different answer. Scientific data is ?sef?l in dissecting the mechanisms of jet lag b?t we need to look beyond that to find a workable sol?tion. J?st to be clear any s?stainable methodology has to be able to stand ?p to scientific examination to gain acceptance and credibility. However it starts with an incl?sive disc?ssion rather than graphing an old ?nderstanding onto an environment and condition which is c?rrent, dynamic and changing.

Source: http://rat-pac.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-conversation-around-healthy.html

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