The Empowerment Couple
Ready to supercharge your life with a symphony of laughter, wisdom, and transformative insights? Welcome to The Empowerment Couple Podcast, where entertainment meets empowerment, and education expands your world! Join Zuri and Mikey Star, your empowerment and expansion coaches, on a power-packed journey each week. Laughter and wisdom collide in a perfect blend, creating a space for the empowered posse to play. Dive deep into personal development, relationships, spirituality, career strategies, and other crucial topics that will inform and allow you to co-create your most beautiful life. Featuring top guest experts, every episode is crafted with your empowerment in mind. Subscribe now and let The Empowerment Couple Podcast be your soundtrack to happiness, transmuting your worries and filling you with an abundance mindset.
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The Empowerment Couple
Wanderlust and Wellness: Our Organic Traveler's Health Guide
Ever wondered about the intersection of wanderlust and wellness? You're about to find out! Zuri and Mikey Star here, bringing you an episode brimming with tales and tips from our globe-trotting escapades, all while keeping it organic. We're diving into not just the 'why' behind our passion for travel (think mental expansion for Mikey, and a love for the unknown for me), but the 'how' of sustaining an organic lifestyle no matter where we drop our bags. Get ready to laugh, nod, and add to your travel toolkit as we unveil the best ways to stay true to your green roots without breaking the bank.
Picture this: you're halfway around the world, your stomach's rumbling, and you're on a quest for that organic goodness. Sounds like a challenge? We've got you covered. From the thrill of night walks to finding the purest water sources, our episode is a goldmine of strategies for eating well and exploring vigorously, even if it means embracing the joy of a stirrup pin to purify your H2O. Plus, we're sharing our favorite vacation moments that make all the planning worth it, like stumbling upon a secluded church at a Grecian sunset—these are the memories that stick.
But it's not all about the destination—the journey matters too. We're spilling our secrets on everything from battling travel anxiety with natural remedies to keeping your skin glowing with personal beauty products. And what's travel without community? We're inviting you to join ours, where sharing stories and tips is just the beginning. So grab your headphones and let's take this adventure together—after all, every step, sip, and sight is a step closer to living your best organic life, wherever you may roam.
Manifest everything you want in your life, using our HoldTheVibe.com course! 5 modules led with audio and video by Mikey and Zuri to help you unlock the magic of manifesting using a simple step-by-step process.
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I'm gonna look you in the eye and you will know this Meow.
Speaker 2:And then you're saying meow how to travel as an organic freak.
Speaker 1:Organic freak is what I did.
Speaker 2:Organic freak. I mean, some would call us freaks Organic freak.
Speaker 1:Freaky maybe, but not a freak.
Speaker 2:I am Zuri and this is your invitation to be the beautiful you. Welcome to our podcast. My co-host and partner is expansion coach Mikey Star.
Speaker 1:And she's lifestyle coach, suri Star, and together we make the empowerment couple.
Speaker 2:We are the founders of the Omni Media Organic Lifestyle Company. I am Zuri and we have teamed up to bring you a healthy lifestyle podcast.
Speaker 1:Each week, we'll bring you either a special guest or a peek behind the scenes at how we are co-creating our most beautiful life. Our goal with this show is to energize, edify and elevate your day.
Speaker 2:Walk with us as we chart a course to living your most beautiful life, your most beautiful life. Never do that again. Hey, what's a beautiful pod fam. Here we go. How to travel as an organic freak. Let's get this show going. So I want to ask you, michael, mikey, mr Star, why do you travel?
Speaker 1:I travel to expand my mind. The more I see, the more experience, the more my awareness expands. It allows me to do all kinds of things mentally, creatively, and it also gives me the opportunity to really be grateful of A my ability to travel and B where I live. There's no place like home. That usually comes about halfway through my trip, when I've been sleeping on weird hotel beds or Airbnb's I'm like, oh my God, I just want to get home and is it halfway usually? Usually it's halfway. Yeah, I'll say it's halfway.
Speaker 2:And it's home sick.
Speaker 1:It's the little things. You know the smell of your covers and being able to use your own bathroom. You know those little things. Use your own bathroom, yes.
Speaker 2:You miss your toilet Like oh my toilet.
Speaker 1:I miss you. It's not weird and cold.
Speaker 2:Oh, boy, okay.
Speaker 1:What about you? What's your number one reason? Why do you like to travel most?
Speaker 2:I really like to adventure. I like the adventure part of it. I like the unknown. When you're at the airport and like you're already checked in, gone through horrible TSA security, and you're like, okay, no idea what to expect. This is going to be pretty amazing because you know the week's leading up to it, you're all excited and you're like Googling and you're watching videos and you're looking at photos and you know you're all amped up about the possibilities and they're endless because you have no idea what to expect. So I like that. I like that feeling of like, okay, we're going to go somewhere. We've never been no idea what to expect Because it's a totally different culture. I love that. I get excited just talking about it again.
Speaker 2:Now, all right, we're going to play a game called Da Fu. What Da Fu? And this one is going to be about travel, and I have to pull it up on my phone because that's where I have it. Okay, so this is a story. This game is about looking up for a story that is just like, no, that didn't happen, did that happen? No, anyway, okay, so that's Da Fu. Okay, all right. So what do you think the longest layover in history has been?
Speaker 1:Just the word layover gives me goosebumps.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, okay. So I've had a lot of times where I've had horrible options for flights and I'm like, okay, I can spend $600 more and I can get us there direct, or we can do a layover in Turkey and it'll be, like you know, $600 cheaper per ticket for 10 hours. And you're like, no, no, I mean I'm like why, maybe we can check it stuff out?
Speaker 1:No, yeah, anyway, okay, reminds me of that nap we took in Burger King.
Speaker 2:It was so awful. Hey, that's the first and last time I've been a Burger King. Yeah, peace, okay. So, uh, worst layover. You want to hear it, I do. What is your guess? Do you have any guess? Um, da Fu, think, think Da Fu.
Speaker 1:Anything longer than 24 hours would be horrible, so I would state 48 hours.
Speaker 2:Close.
Speaker 1:Okay, two whole days.
Speaker 2:No, listen, 47 years, what? It's a real scenario. What the fuck? Yes, exactly. So this guy, james Lloyd, tried to book a flight through Skyscanner from Christchurch, new Zealand, to London, england, and was told he'd be spending nearly five decades in Bangkok. Bangkok, yeah, maybe I don't know what to do with service or something, I'm not sure, but anyway. Um. So then he was like oh, I better look into this, that doesn't seem right. And it goes on to say that the customer service rep responded and said uh, to spend his time outside the airport terminal becoming a Tai Chi expert or booking a cruise.
Speaker 1:Yikes, at least Thailand's pretty.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so 47 years. Would you do it, yeah or no?
Speaker 1:Uh no.
Speaker 2:And no, that's a resounding nay. That's a no. All right, that's the end of this game of what the fuck, what the fuck. So did you know what the number one reason for people not traveling is?
Speaker 1:I would say, uh, inconvenience, having to actually pack clothes and leave their place.
Speaker 2:Cause you know I hate packing, right? That's my least favorite part of traveling, um, no, the number one reason is actually cost. So I remember when we first really got into adventuring, uh, we came up with all kinds of different ways to do it on the cheap, and so, if that's you, we have some great travel hacks, um, on our site that we're going to link you to. So if you are looking to travel, you're not going to have to miss out on travel just because you're also budgeting. We figured that out for you. We're not going to get into that so much in this podcast, but we do have a link for you. Use the show notes for that, um. But once we figured out how to do that, we started traveling a lot more frequently. And then the question became how do we travel and still enjoy our organic lifestyle, right? Um? So for those in, like, the health and wellness space, this produces extreme anxiety. I have so many friends who are like I don't want to travel, I don't want to leave my little organic bubble, um, and I get that, but I think it's possible and not only think it's possible. I know it's possible and we've proven that we can do that. It does take a little bit more preparation and a little bit maybe more packing, um, a little bit more deliberate action ahead of going on the trip, um, but we just have fun with it and we make that a part of the whole process is like you know, it's kind of do some research, do a little bit of digging and do a little extra packing, save a little time. You're not doing things at the last minute when you want to continue your lifestyle, um, but yeah, it's absolutely possible and we're going to tell you how. In this show we have hats for eating, sleeping, exercising, supplementing um, and communicating, so that you can have an organic lifestyle on the road, no matter where you go in any country. We have we've done it.
Speaker 2:Like I said before, really just the very first tip, and kind of the most crucial tip, is to research and prepare ahead of traveling to your destination. Um, you'll need to know what to pack and how to dress, of course, anytime you're going somewhere, but you're also going to be looking at, um. You know, like what, what do they grow in that country? So, for example, you know, when we went to Costa Rica and I have lemon water every morning with Cayenne, it's like, oh, they don't have lemons in Costa Rica, so I had to adjust, right, um, headline water instead, but just things that like, if you're used to having certain things, and here's the thing, like traveling outside of your comfort zone is kind of the part point of like traveling right, so you're not. It's not going to be perfect. We're not looking for a perfect situation, but we are looking for, like, if you are doing certain things for your health, you don't have to make the excuse like, oh, I can't go on vacation because then I'm going to give up my exercise routine, or am I? You know, like, there are ways to do it. You just have to be creative and we're going to leave you with that.
Speaker 2:So, starting with food, um, you know, what I have found is that knowing how to find organic and what it's called in that country is the first step. Like, what do they call it? You know, in Spain we were just in Spain Um, they call it a couple of different things. They call it, you know, a, bio, b, I, o, as, or bio, and that's what you'll see on packages. But you can end. You see that all over Europe, by the way, um, but they also call it ecological, um, and they have a few different other names. But just knowing that ahead of time and we'll talk about that in our Spain episode and we cover in every single place we go we give you all the inside scoops of how to find organic. But, um, you want to look about, look at that ahead of time. You also want to find out if that country's ag is um, you know what it looks like. What are their rules? Like, just this is just like a Google Sush that you're going to do about that country or that, um, you know place. If you're going even to a different state, like, are they growing GMOs? Are they using new? Next, um, uh, like what does their food production look like? But do, what ingredients should you be looking for? So you're just going to kind of have fun Googling and figuring that out.
Speaker 2:Um, europe actually is one of the easiest places to travel because, like I said, you can find bio everywhere and in some ways it's a lot better than the U? S because they use a lot less preservatives and things are labeled and there's more regulations on food. So you know, if you're eating potato chips, I remember when we were in Greece and we were like these potato chips have potato and um salt, and then it had the oil that it was cooked in it, and it was actually cooked in clean oil. I couldn't believe it. I was like that's all there is. And they were so delicious, um. But even looking at something like you know that you would get in the U S U S brands, like comparing those side by side, you can see that they for sure are already making these, these items, much cleaner in Europe. So you're not going to have that problem. So much, um.
Speaker 2:But I also look for local farmers markets.
Speaker 2:I Google stores that cater to bio or organic ahead of time.
Speaker 2:I also look um at restaurants that cater to organic travels, and then we always like to get a place that has a kitchen If not a full kitchen, then you know, like a kitchenette, um, and then we'll bring like a hot plate, slow cooker, tea kettle, um.
Speaker 2:We always like to have a place that has a refrigerator, um. And then we ask usually, let's say, for staying at an Airbnb or we're staying at a you know a nice hotel. We will ask them ahead of time. We'll we'll ask to speak with the concierge or the host and say you know, what is your kitchen utensils look like what do you? Do you guys have plastic, is it stainless steel? And we'll just start a conversation and we'll also ask them, like, are there restaurants or are there organic markets? And they're usually so excited to share with you about their place that they are happy to chat with you. So if I'm traveling abroad, you know, a lot of times I'll use WhatsApp and I'll just start having a conversation and strike up a friendship with them and ask them about food. Um, and everybody likes food. That's what's awesome.
Speaker 2:It's that you really, everybody likes food, so it's super easy to say, hey, what's your favorite restaurant? Everybody has a favorite restaurant. The concierge is going to have a list for you Um, what's your you know? And ask them, like I really I have this day, or this is my restriction, or what should I be looking for? So, um, have fun with it.
Speaker 2:And the other thing I do this is just like a couple little tricks for staying super healthy is, um, I pack little packets of protein powder. I really like Nutiva's just hemp powder, or I like Truvani's vanilla powder, um, they're both vegan, um, but super clean, um, and then I add a little bit of spirulina and I will add um. And I add spirulina because it's an antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, contains chlorophyll, um and algae to keep you alkaline while traveling and it regulates your immune system. It's high in protein and vitamins, and so I like to just make sure that I have some type of protein source while I'm on the road. That can be used at the last minute, like, let's say, I don't like a meal or whatever. That just kind of safeguards me to make sure that I have a healthy protein source and that I'm getting some type of greens into my system. Um, I also add in chia seeds because they contain omega three fatty acids and they help keep your body hydrated and they're high in fiber.
Speaker 2:Um, and you know, those are kind of important when you're traveling. You're always getting dehydrated. You're always, you know, your digestive system is changing, um, and you're usually your time clock is changing, so everything kind of gets out of whack and these things keep you regular, they keep you hydrated and they keep you healthy. Um so, and then I just add it to like juice or water or coconut water. Then I will also use like chia seeds for like yogurt or oatmeal or salad, and so there's little hacks that I like for food when I'm traveling that just kind of um offset some of the travel things that come up. You know, when we go, let's say, to a place that has a kitchen, I always ask them what utensils they have, and the reason why is because a lot of times they'll have plastic and they'll have like Teflon pans that I swear have seen better days. They always are like.
Speaker 2:You know this, like shedding they're shedding or they have a big hole and you're like come on, you know paying a lot of money to stay here. Oftentimes, if you're paying for a place that has a kitchen, you're paying for that kitchen. So I like to ask ahead of time and then sometimes, if I don't get good communication, we'll just pack stainless steel pan and a good spatula and that kind of takes care of our mornings and just make sure that we're not then ingesting a bunch of other junk because you know we aren't used to it. You know we've created a lifestyle where we're not used to it. So, um, I also have like a full list of what I pack for plain food. I usually pack like a rolling yeti. Or we have a travel and cooler bag that I really like to, um, and in that cooler bag I'll have like utensils and napkins and water wipes and hand sanitizer. Um, so, again, like some of this is just like packing and knowing how to pack and how to make. Like this preparation is like everything, and once you do it once and you kind of create a system, then you just repeat it every time that you're going to go to town.
Speaker 2:I have a list and we'll provide all of that in the blog so you guys can really dive in if this interests you. Um, you know there's little hacks, like I pack frozen fruit because it makes a great snack but it also takes the place of the ice in the cooler so I'm not having to dump out water or deal with TSA if I get delayed, or something like that. Um, I like cherries because they promote sleep. Um, we also bring mangoes because they're like basically Mike and Zarelle's favorite. Um, I'm like Sorbet without the sugar. But if you're extremely picky, you could also freeze meals and you can do that in silicone pouches without flagging TSA. There's so many tricks, so we'll put all that in the blog, in the show notes, and we have horrible stories about TSA taking away stuff, so we really have like foolproof this.
Speaker 2:If you live in the US and you're listening and you're thinking, there's no way I could take that. No, we figured it out. So trust us, we've got your back. We have had the painful experience of going through TSA after going to Erwan and spending like a couple hundred dollars on a bunch of food and we're so excited. And then which, by the way, if you go to Erwan, you could spend a couple hundred dollars and get three things. But, that being said, erwan is one of our favorite stores. In May we were in a rush and we got organic guacamole. I wanna say it was like six or $7, right, it was expensive.
Speaker 1:Either that or 16.
Speaker 2:Or, yeah, it could have been 16. I don't know, we'll price check that for you. But regardless, we went through TSA and I wasn't planning on bringing it, but you got a bunch of stuff because I think we thought we were gonna be delayed or something. I think Obama was in town and it was clogging up. Anyway, I remember there were some details that made us think we might need extra food and TSA took away our organic guacamole from Erwan. It was like it's a very sad day.
Speaker 1:And the person who took it was so excited they looked at it. I saw their eyes kind of bold.
Speaker 2:Mind you, it's sealed and it's not soupy, so there was no reason for them to take it. But we figured out some things that trigger them and so we have some tricks and hacks and we'll share those with you. But when you are traveling a lot of times you might not eat the same things, and for that I always recommend, after eating huge meal, something maybe that's heavier than usual or that you weren't sure how it was cooked. I like to drink a glass of grapefruit juice, if possible, and that really avoids the insulin spike which will store fat in your body. And then I really recommend, if possible, depending where you're going, so take a walk after your meal so that you're digesting and kind of stimulating that digestion and yoga.
Speaker 2:I mean, you could talk a lot about that, but digestion, yoga once you're back at your room, and the more energy you burn from those heavy meals that might not have been cooked the way that you're used to, the less it'll stay on you and weigh you down. But speaking of you know, like getting weighed down, what would you say about water? Because, like, I've kind of covered food and we'll go deeper in the blog, but like, what would you say water? Like how? Because you're kind of the king at like figuring that stuff out. What would you say?
Speaker 1:Well, the water issues, the biggest part of the water issues that, anywhere you go, you're going to have either one of two choices you could tap water, which in most cases is you know you can't drink it, or you have plastic water.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bottled water.
Speaker 1:Bottled water that's in plastic bottles. You can't really get away from having to drink some plastic water. I like to call it plastic water because it's always in plastic water. It always tastes like plastic. But there are a few things that you can do in order to kind of improve the taste.
Speaker 2:Yep, and let's back up for a second to say, like hydration is so key because airlines like, let's say, you're flying and typically that is the type of travel we're talking about. It's super easy to take a road trip and, you know, pack everything. But if you are flying, airline cycle the air in the cabin of a jet about every two minutes and this leaves the air breathable but also dry, really dry, and then the cabin can end up being as low as 6% humidity, which is drier than a desert Like, and we tend to be more comfortable around 50%. So, just naturally, 50% humidity is what we're used to. And again, airlines are at 6% humidity, so it's pretty drastic. So that's why usually after a flight, you're like I'm so thirsty, especially if you've slept the entire way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I plan to drink a full bottle of water, like a full, large bottle of water every time that I'm flying Something, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then and you're really good at guzzling, some people aren't. I would recommend that you know. If you aren't a guzzler you can drink like some tea, like kind of just space it out and try to make sure. But here's the thing you don't want to drink the hot water on an airplane because it's toxic. The EPA has tested the hot water from airplanes and found positive tests for coliform and indicates it's basically from PCs or soil. But I mean it's contaminated. And so I have friends who are, you know, travel experts and also who have worked on airlines and they don't drink the hot water and just because the tests have shown how disgusting it is. So you want to fill it up at Starbucks or whatever coffee shop that has hot water and that's kind and will fill up your canteen for you.
Speaker 2:You don't want to drink any hot water on the plane and you know, if you're going to Starbucks and you ask them to fill it up, they'll even wash it out for you. They're so nice and give them a tip. You don't have to use their coffee or tea. Just, you know, be kind, and then you can take that on. Like, once you're through security, you can take that on with you, I like to put like a ginger in my hot water, or I have tea bags always, and so you know. Then you're kind of set for the trip. If you're not, if you can't guzzle water, you know, ahead of the flight or during the flight, you know. So a hot water canteen would be great. Or for those of you who don't like drinking water at all or tea, another great hack to stay hydrated is coconut water, and let Mike tell you about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course. I mean. Coconut water is one of those drinks that are packed with electrolytes. So typically, when you get dehydrated, the first thing that goes are those electrolytes. So, and most of the bottled water, although it will hydrate you, it will not replace those electrolytes. So, getting a nice you know, if you can find a can of organic coconut water in the terminal, great. If it's not organic, that's one of those.
Speaker 2:Just look at the ingredients. Yeah, you can kind of flip it around, look at the ingredients, see what it actually has in it, how it was processed, and you know this isn't about perfection. This is about staying healthy and trying to sustain as much of your healthy lifestyle as possible while also adventuring. And some of the airports have filtered water dispensers. You're not gonna find glass water bottles, but so of course, you always will have something that's plastic leaching. But if you bring your own and some of them do, like Chicago has, you know, refillable stations where it's reverse osmosis and you know you could use that, and then Fiji water is high in silica, still, you know, gonna leach plastic and it's definitely hasn't been found to be consistently clean. But silica is really important, you know, for us to have, especially while we're traveling, but, and Fiji is really high in silica.
Speaker 1:So Typically, it's the artesian water that you're looking for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and so you like to use a stirrup pin. You wanna talk about that? I know we got it when we were going to India.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, and yeah, the stirrup pin. It's a small little handheld device. You turn it on, you put it in a glass of water. 30 seconds later it filters most of the contaminants out of that water. They're also great for backpacking, hiking. You know, if you run out of water, you can literally grab a canteen of water from a local river and use a stirrup pin. So it works.
Speaker 2:So when you find With like a UV ray or something.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, you know if you find yourself in certain circumstances where you don't have access to bottled water and the only thing that there's available to drink is the tap water, then that's where the stirrup pin really comes in handy.
Speaker 2:Yep, and also you should know ahead of time, like, what the water quality is Like. We knew when we were going to India that the water quality wasn't gonna be good and we were going on a tour, you know, into different farms and stuff like that, and we're like we're gonna be drinking a lot of bottled water, which we did. We drank a lot of bottled water, plastic bottled water, but we had it in case we were in a situation where we're thirsty, which you don't wanna be thirsty. Once you're thirsty, that means you're dehydrated. That's too late, it's too late, I mean not too late. Drink, it's not too late, right, but it's, yeah, you gotta drink. And then once there, like you know, you wanna research the water quality. You know, like you don't want to go to Mexico and face a monozuma's revenge, right?
Speaker 1:Yes, I mean, it all comes down to research, that little crucial moment just before you travel, like what you said. Before you're going on Google, you're checking out the organic nomenclature, you're seeing what type of dining experiences that you're going to be looking forward to. So you're doing the crucials right Food and water, yeah, and you're just asking.
Speaker 2:You're typing into Google what's the water quality in Spain? What's the water? Can I drink the water in Mexico? If you didn't know that, obviously that kind of has some pop culture references that is more commonly known. But let's say you didn't know. That would be a drastic mistake to make on day one. But you're sitting there and even brushing your teeth with the water is dangerous.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember when we were in India and Zarela would order juice, I'd always tell the people no ice, no ice. If it's right out of the bottle that's fine, if they have a big jug that's fine, but no ice, because typically the ice is made with water that's been contaminated. Now it may not be contaminated to the people who live there because they're used to it. Water has adjusted, whereas ours is not, so it's going to affect us more than it will affect the local population.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you can't get there and ask the local population how's the water? They're like it's fine. What are you talking about? Because they are used to it and so you really got to like. You know, tripadvisor is great for that too. Like read reviews and people will give you tips. Obviously, all the places that we go, we will give you tips and tell you about that. But let's talk about exercise, because that would be like three. You know the trifecta. Are you eating good? Are you getting good water and hydration? Are you moving your body?
Speaker 1:You got to move your body Now. It is extremely important to move your body while you're on vacation. Yes, you are going to be spending a lot of time sitting at buses, terminals, planes, boats. Once you get to your hotel room, you're going to want to lounge, and then there's going to be lots of you know, dependent on where you're going. Lounging on the beach, lounging poolside that's what you're supposed to be. You're supposed to be relaxing. However, you also have to make exercise as habitual as you do at home, because your body doesn't stop. It still needs Still a machine. It's still a machine. It still needs to move.
Speaker 2:So- so what are some things you like to do?
Speaker 1:Well, I'm that weird guy who brings I have a very I'm a big into yoga. I have a very thin yoga mat. It comes in handy because, anywhere you go, you can lay at your yoga mat and take 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Stretch your body, do some inversions, do some twists, and it will really allow your body to move some of its energy around, some of its lymph around, and that, of course, is going to boost your circulation. It'll also help make sure that when you're sitting in your hotel in your plane chair, that your legs don't fall asleep. It'll also help you relax, so-.
Speaker 2:So like when you're, let's say, in the terminal, you know, or the plane forward folds right.
Speaker 1:My favorite for the terminals are child's pose.
Speaker 2:On your yoga mat. Don't do this on the floor.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly On your yoga mat Child's pose. It's a great shoulder and back opener. It relieves some stress on your lower back. I like to do seated twists and then seated forward folds and then, if you can if dependent on your practice if you can get in a nice downward dog or even, you know, a headstand or shoulder stand, that really goes a long way in keeping your anxiety down while you're on the plane and it helps you sleep.
Speaker 2:And also you end up walking, sometimes in a lot of airports. But if you don't like, do a little power walk, you know, get your blood flowing before you get on the plane. That will just allow you to either rest if you're, you know, going to sleep, if it's sleep time, taking a red eye, but also just allows you to kind of sink in and relax so that you don't have to get up as much on the flight. Obviously, you want to still move your body once you're on the flight, which is why I mentioned like forward folds. You can do that on in your seat oftentimes, depending on what airline you're on.
Speaker 1:What I typically do is when I get up to go to the bathroom, when I'm waiting to get in the bathroom, I'll do a forward fold right then and there, and you know, you fold, you count the 10, 10 nice deep breaths. By the time you get up, typically the bathroom's open and you have a nice change in your body's chemistry. It's very quick.
Speaker 2:What about once we're there at the destination?
Speaker 1:Walk as much as possible. Walking is great. You know, if you're a runner, run. If you're a hiker, hike. If you're a biker, bike, if you're neither, walk as much as possible. You know, if you have the option to either take a five minute cab ride or do a 15 minute walk, go for the 15 minute walk. Your body is really going to love you for it.
Speaker 2:And if you're Mike, you'll take a night walk in a foreign country or a place where there are wild animals or something scary like that, and he'll recruit some of the people that we're traveling with for just you know dangerous moments to remember and recall and laugh about, and usually he will scare everyone with it. You want to talk about that?
Speaker 1:Well, night walks are great because you get the chance to see wherever you, wherever you're going by yourself, right, typically, the streets are empty. You know, you can kind of walk and check things out, but of course you have to not be afraid of the dark or have a nice flashlight. I'm not afraid of dark.
Speaker 2:He's always taking night walks, so I really feel like my favorite moments on vacation, though, are when we're doing something in nature and something physical. So it's like hiking or hanging bridges or, you know, dancing on the beach and same parts, or swimming in the hot springs and Costa Rica, zip lining, jet skiing in Miami, like it's always the the active things that are my favorite when we come back, what's your peak and pit? Like the peaks are always those physical things that we're doing in nature that are super fun, and it makes me think for the next time, like I want to. I want to ride scooters, you know, like we did in Paris. Or I want to, you know, walk through fields, like we did when we went to India, you know. So it's like I have those memories and those are always my favorite things, and so look for those opportunities ahead of time, because there are so many things that you can do that don't require you to go to the gym or, you know, if that's not your thing, and get in that daily workout, get in that that lymph, you know, movement, that blood movement, and you know I remember my favorite thing that we did in Greece, for example.
Speaker 2:It was around sunset and I was like, wow, I just want to stretch my legs after that meal and the beach had like too many rocks, and so we were on our way back to our little cave house that we rented and he said wonder where this road goes? And Mike turned off this road and opened up to this beautiful cliff side sunset and then we saw a little path and he's like I'm going to go see where this goes. And we kind of followed him and you know, just to stretch our legs after a meal. And that was the best moment that I had in Greece, because we came across this little church, hidden church in this like tiny little church, caved out a cave, like carved out and as a cave in the side of the mountain and with like a little path that led to it, and it was just right at sunset.
Speaker 2:It just was so perfect. And it came from that desire of wanting to move our body and keep with that you know ritual of making sure that we've moved our body after we've had some food and it. You know, it's probably because exercise releases endorphins and they trigger that positive feeling in your body and it's I mean, that's what's similar to morphine, it's really is a drug. So that's probably why those are my favorite moments. We've, we've stimulated our body and the body machine is like hey, thank you, let me give you some endorphins. So you do you have any favorite like outside adventure, things that for because you were outside exercising your body or you had the desire to see the country in a different way, anything that comes to mind?
Speaker 1:Well, I love driving a right, but driving definitely strips you of the ability to actually interact with whatever environment that you're in. So, for me, every time that we have traveled to a country and I've had an opportunity to walk around, say, go through some of the shops or the coastline or the countryside, I'll opt to do that. I mean, it's very, very simple and you know, I typically have my camera and I'll capture whatever wildlife or architecture that I see. But it's the process of walking, it grounds me, it gets me my body moving, it's meditative, so it does so many things at the same time. So for me, my most memorable moments were, you know, in Greece, walking the coast or walking up to see some of the ancient ruins. Same thing with Costa Rica. You mentioned the hanging bridges going on these long walks through the Amazon I mean the Amazon, the rainforest Really, really Different trip.
Speaker 1:Yeah, different trip. The Amazon will come soon. That's on my bucket list. And then you know, st Bart's, how many times did we just walk on the beach, up and down the beach?
Speaker 2:It was a small little beach but we walked up and down it. We're just swimming in the ocean.
Speaker 1:Oh swimming is amazing. It's un-pulled walking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this, I think, comes as like a distant fourth, but what I do also just to stay healthy and to this is by guess, where the freak part comes in is that I really like to keep myself healthy by keeping myself clean, Because there you know, when you're in any environment where the air is circulated and you're sharing the same air, like a plane, for example, or train or a bus, and I would say you're, you know on it for a long period of time, If you're going somewhere where you're on it for five to six to you know, 18 hours.
Speaker 1:That's a long trip.
Speaker 2:When you're on a flight for a long time, you're sharing that air and you know so. If somebody's sick or whatever, especially during cold and flu season, you know I don't use any antibacterial products but I just combat whatever is happening around me with washing my hands with warm water. I always carry a little bit of clean hand soap. I like to use soap from branch basics. I also have some Bronner soap that I like. But yeah, and then I carry water wipes and I carry hand sanitizer. I don't go overboard, but let's say I'm getting on the plane, I'll just wipe everything down with water wipes. I will wipe things that I know I'm going to touch and I keep them in my food bag or I keep them in a little pouch on me. And there's so much research that shows that hand sanitizer, when it has antibacterial, is not as healthy for you, and we talk about that more extensively in the blog. We will link to that.
Speaker 2:Of course, if you have sensitivities, allergies, you have some type of situation where you need a hypoallergenic environment or allergy-friendly bedding. I highly recommend pureroomcom and again, we'll link to that too. But that's an excellent resource if you are chemically sensitive and you still wanna travel. They have air purifiers from my favorite, which is Intellipure, and they have great bedding and it's a pretty drastic difference. So we don't typically have to do that and that isn't available in a lot of the places that we've traveled. But I would say, if that is something that you think will help you or your loved one, actually take the plunge and get out in an adventure. Pureroom is really great for that and also there are kind of a lot of places in the US so you could always test it out for a little staycation and near your home so that if it doesn't work for you, you know like, hey, that's not an option. What about sleep?
Speaker 1:Sleep is, in my opinion, one of the most stressful parts of traveling. I myself struggle from insomnia every now and then, hence why I really got into yoga and meditation. But back in the day, when you know, before I was really into my yoga practice, I would dread traveling because I would find myself up in the middle of the night when you guys were passed out. But I actually did a couple things in the last couple of years that allowed me to get good sleep. First of all, because you're most cases when you travel, you cross time zones. You may lose a couple of hours, you may gain a couple of hours.
Speaker 1:So it is very tempting to sit on a plane and catch up on some of the movies that you've missed. However, if you can get in at least a 45 minute nap during that flight, it's really going to help you. So, of course, get your neck polos, get an eye mask. An eye mask is great because it helps your body relax, because it blocks out all the lights that your eyelids themselves can't. I know that you like to wear an infinity scarf.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like to wear it because it well, I don't have to carry a bunch of things and it kind of takes the place of an eye mask and keeps, like the flight attendants from asking me if I want coffee or do I want some of the food that they're serving, or do I want peanuts, and so I kind of, if I'm going to go to sleep or if I'm going to meditate, I'll just cover my face with the scarf. It also keeps me from, like you know you, taking pictures of me with my mouth wide open or catching flies and germs and whatever else is floating around in that recycle there. I know you, you really got me into noise canceling headphones. You want to talk about that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, noise canceling headphones are critical if you are looking for some in-flight relaxation. The other thing about you know having a face mask and all that stuff it also tells the attendance that you are sleeping.
Speaker 2:Yeah Right, so you mean the infinity scarf. You said face mask. You mean like covering your face, like I'm asking yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, I'm asking.
Speaker 1:It tells the flight attendants that you were not to be disturbed, so I don't. I can't tell you how many times I didn't have one and I was shaken awake by a flight attendant asking me if I want peanuts.
Speaker 2:Or like do you have your seatbelt on, Cause I can't see it, and you're like, yes, I have my seatbelt on, but also I like to bring my own because I feel like the ones that they give you you know, some of the nicer airlines will give you a mask that they don't really fit. So that's kind of why I started doing. The infinity scarf was like on the cheap flights. You know that the like domestic flights they don't give you one. So you know, packing one sometimes if I forgot, like just always have a scarf.
Speaker 1:So, with noise counseling headphones, we did a little bit of research. Before we went on one of our big trips we went into a local Best Buy and there's a couple of different types. You have your in ear earbuds, then you have your standard noise canceling headphones, that kind of rest over your ear, and then you have ones that wrap around your ear. I would suggest getting the ones that wrap around your ear because they would they do a much better job at filtering the ambient noise that you hear on airplanes. You know the engine, the, the, the, the engine noise, the crying baby, the, the drunk couple behind you. You can actually you don't even have to with the over the ear earbuds. You don't even have to listen to anything, you can just put on the earbuds.
Speaker 2:The headphones.
Speaker 1:I mean the headphones turn on the noise canceling and it really cancels some of that stuff out. So you have your iMask, you have your noise canceling headphones. If you plug your noise canceling headphones into maybe a meditative app or something that also allows you to get some good sleep, Yep, we can link to our, our favorite ones.
Speaker 2:And for noise canceling, it's really because we want to cancel out the pollution. It's not just from the passengers, but but a passenger airplane is around 80 decibels, which is enough to trigger your stress response, and so that stress response links to, you know, prolonged airplane travel, to things like hypertension, cardiovascular disease and even psychological disorders, and so noise exposure can lead to cumulative hearing loss too, over time. Not to be alarmist, but you know, the more exposure, the more hearing loss will continue to grow, and so I am singer, songwriter, my ears are very important, so I'm really happy you got me into the whole noise canceling headphones. You're welcome, and I think we'll also link to his favorite meditation apps that you can download. Many of them are free, some of them, you know it's a small fee. But so also there's a couple other tricks you were talking about, like how do you protect your eyes, not, let's say, you want to be awake.
Speaker 1:Well. So you need noise canceling headphones, you need an eye mask, but you also need blue blocker glasses, right? The big deal with blue blocker glasses is every light that you see on an airplane, within an airplane or on the terminal. They're all junk lighting, right? So if you're walking through the terminal, you're down in coffee, you're getting ready for flight and you hop on your flight and all of a sudden, you want to relax. Your mitochondria is actually spun up to be awake, and that could seriously offset any type of relaxation that you have while you're on.
Speaker 2:Right, because it disrupts your circadian rhythms and all of that becomes important when you actually want to sleep when you get to your destination, or you want to sleep on your plane, like you want to sleep when you want to sleep.
Speaker 1:Exactly so. I would suggest not waiting until you actually sit in the airplane to put on your blue blockers. Put them on the minute you walk into the terminal, because again all that lightning is going to be junk lighting, and plan in advance. We just talked a little bit about water. Grab yourself some nice chamomile, some 99T. I like to travel with two thermos. There's a large one that I can fill with water and then a small one that I can fill with hot water and I'll brew myself a tea while waiting for the gate to open, and I'll sit down, I'll put on all of my eye masks and noise counseling, I'll have some tea and I get the best sleep on the plane.
Speaker 2:And like some of this, like sometimes when I listen back to myself talking about the things that I do. These are habits, these are rituals to us. Now they might seem like that's so extra, but let me tell you, when I get to my location, I'm not tired, I'm not dehydrated, I'm not constipated all of the things that typically we hear. People and clients come to us and they're like how do you do this? Because I can't. I'm dead the first two days of a trip, so my seven day vacation really turns into more like four and a half, because then I have to pack and worry, all the anxiety producing about that flight again.
Speaker 2:So this is to make it easier, so that you can be a jet setter If you're cold. I always tend to be cold, and so I mean you can travel with the travel blanket if you're on a flight where they're not gonna be providing one, like a long flight or a night flight, or an extra jacket, something like that. I know that you sometimes do have trouble sleeping, so packing. We have this herbalist in California that has teas that you can order online. We'll link to those, but her name is Emma, emma's Herbs, and they have insomnia tea and I've never seen you not be able to sleep when you drink that tea.
Speaker 1:So that knocks me out.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like your kryptonite as far as insomnia goes. Indeed and also magnesium lotion.
Speaker 1:Yes. So you have two things. Of course, trying to get a little bit of sleep while you're on the plane will offset some of the time change. And then, once you're back at the hotel, you can usually talk to the concierge or host ahead of time and ask about bedding if you have any allergies. We don't have allergies, but we sometimes pack our own pillowcases and that certainly helps a lot. And then melatonin sprays or pills are great for regulating your sleep. Some people will frown upon that, but if you are taking melatonin on a regular basis and you forget it, you'll be in a tough spot. But if you don't normally take melatonin, having that extra melatonin on hand when you're traveling certainly allows you to offset some of the jet lag.
Speaker 2:It's more like carrying it just in case you need it, because you never know what's going to happen. That's both the excitement and the anxiety-producing part of traveling is that you might end up stuck at another airport for a day and a half because the French decided to strike again at the airport. Yeah, so these things are more like. Maybe you don't normally think you would need it, but Well, going back to melatonin, it's interesting.
Speaker 1:Melatonin is actually a hormone that is made by your pineal gland, and your pineal gland is very connected with your eyes. So if you're getting the junk light, if you're offsetting your sleep patterns, by the time change, your melatonin production is going to drop naturally. So you know, and your pineal gland is a pea-sized gland. It's found just in the middle of your brain. It's also called the third eye and it's there to help your body know when it's time to sleep and when to wake up. So knowing how to manipulate that gland and take care of that gland is really going to allow you to have the necessary energy levels that you're looking for. Being sleepy at night, being awake during the day, spending time outdoors in sunlight according to a 2008 study, exposure to sunlight can increase production of both serotonin and endorphins. Now, serotonin is a hormone and neurotransmitter. It helps regulate your mood, as well as your sleep, your appetite, your digestion, your ability to learn and your memory.
Speaker 2:So if you Kind of important?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So if you're traveling and all of a sudden you got brain fog and your belly's upset, your serotonin may be a little out of whack. Go outside, get some vitamin D.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this is where if you're a blue-eyed brother or sister of mine, you know you're probably like quick to grab the sunglasses because you're sensitive. But even just exposing yourself to that morning light will really help you and kind of take off the sunglasses a little bit, just so that your eyes can kind of regulate what time of day it is and all of those things. It's amazing when you start really researching this. It's amazing how impressive our bodies are. They know exactly what to do. We just need to make sure that we aren't unaware of some of these things. Like I never knew sunglasses, like why do I care about wearing sunglasses?
Speaker 2:But then I was like well, wait a minute. If our eyes are really doing all of that regulating, we have to. We have to be conscious of that.
Speaker 1:And in conclusion, with the whole sleep, the best thing to do is to simulate your new schedule before you leave, if it's possible. If not, take that flight time to adapt to your new schedule and so you know if you can arrive early to your terminal, get some stretching in, make sure you stay hydrated, move your body around while you're in flight and when you get off, if you've got yourself a little 45-minute nap, you're going to be good to go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and sometimes, like when we go to a place, we will sacrifice a little bit of sleep To get on schedule, so that we aren't so off schedule if you're somewhere where it's six or seven or ten hour difference, so that you're not so off schedule that you're awake all night and the rest of the world is sleeping where you are right or the rest of your destination is sleeping because that's their sleep time. So sometimes you have to think like how am I gonna offset that? And, you know, pad your vacation a little bit to to accommodate that drastic change. So let's talk about self-care, because we were kind of talking about self-care the whole time. Really, this is all just like how to best take care of yourself and Get the most out of your adventure. Let's say you're going to a hotel or like an Airbnb.
Speaker 2:I I never use the products that are at the hotel. Obviously, I just do a BYOB. I bring my own beauty products and specifically, what I would say is that if I don't bring certain things, they are very either expensive or Hard to figure out Ingredients, and that just becomes another challenge. You don't want to spend your time in a pharmacy or or a salon while you're there, you want to just enjoy yourself. So Bug spray, for example, is really hard to find in certain places and or it's limited to like deet or some toxic Pesticide that you don't want to put all of yourself or your child or whatever right.
Speaker 2:So I have a recipe that I will give you guys for bug spray. It's my homemade recipe and and it got us through the rainforest in Costa Rica without one bite, and the one time that we did get a bite was when we didn't. We took a shower after being at that one hotel in Monteverde and there was like, after we showered, there was bugs in our bed and we didn't have books pre on us. But we got through all of the jungle, everything, no bites, and so that's what I will say that this is my recipe and you're welcome to use this. I also will give you a couple suggestions for the brands that, if you want to just order something on Amazon or pick up At your health food store that are great too and that do work Sunscreen, bring your own sunscreen because it is so expensive certain places Like since we were just talking about Costa Rica, I remember we had to have someone grab some for for us and it was like a $30 for a spray can and it was not good.
Speaker 2:It was crappy. It was something like you know Whatever, just that banana boat or something. It was something that would have cost like six or seven dollars in the US, but it was crazy expensive because the locals don't need sunscreen.
Speaker 1:There isn't a market for it right.
Speaker 2:So it was so expensive, was crazy and it's never clean and it's just like they just really jack up the prices in tourist towns. So pack your own.
Speaker 1:I'd also say pack a little bit of aloe vera gel. I love our gels, one of those Cure, all elixirs that you can put on your skin, and it also does a big. It really helps in regards to soothing sunburns and in most cases, if you can put it on Right after a lot of sun exposure, you can actually cool your skin down so that doesn't continue to burn totally.
Speaker 2:He's spoken like a husband of a redhead.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes no flaming hot Cheeto on his arm, and it has happened when you. You know you think you have enough sunscreen on and you get burned. So the other thing about self-care is just supplements like. What supplements are you traveling with? There's a there's a physical and emotional stress component of traveling which means your immune system is going to work in overdrive. You know, if you go into the trip with a little bit of a compromised immune system, obviously that's not ideal but sometimes that happens with the stress of packing or whatever but it leads to. You know, if your system is an overdrive it can lead to quick depletion of your Mastur antioxidant glutathione and your subsequent immune system is going to crash. And you don't want to crash when you're out jet-setting.
Speaker 1:You will not be jet-setting.
Speaker 2:No, you won't, and that can just ruin a trip. So I like to pack vitamin a, vitamin D3, a really good vitamin C, and then zinc glutathione. Mike always likes to pack Some. You want to talk about olive leaf?
Speaker 1:Yeah, my in mind to go back. I typically will have an olive leaf. Olive leaf is great. It has it's a. It's a antimicrobial, anti viral. It boosts the Immune system, helps regulate digestion. It's, it's it's excellent Magnesium. Also, it's an excellent travel supplement. Apparently, in a 2012 study published by the National Institute of Health state that magnesium was shown to improve symptoms of insomnia and or a terrible night of sleep. Low magnesium is one of the major Sources of insomnia, so it also made a good magnesium. Magnesium also keeps your bowels flowing the way they're supposed to, so An anxiety and it's good for so many things.
Speaker 2:We'll dive into that more in the blog. I Like a good D2 and B12 liquid spray. I like to also bring digestive aids because if I'm stressed or if I'm Eating things outside of my regular diet, which just will naturally happen as you travel I like to bring digestive aids like enzymes and bitters or fennel. I actually sometimes will bring all three if I'm going to a place where I'm a little concerned. I also like to bring a probiotic to maintain a healthy gut while traveling, and then herbs. So there's really like I could. This could be an entire show and so but a couple. I'll just name a couple.
Speaker 2:I really like Adaptogenic herbs, like ashwagandha. It's a Indian, you know traditional Indian medicine that's been used to help your body adapt better to stressful situations, and Western medicine is really started to kind of embrace it because of its magical effect. A 2012 clinical trials showed that ashwagandha can help reduce the blood levels of cortisol. So if you're a stressful person, whether you're traveling or not, I highly recommend ashwagandha. I will link to my favorite Suppliers of that specific herb. And I also like rhodiola, and that's newer for me, but it's been used for 3,000 years as part of traditional medicine in Eastern Europe and Asia, and it helps you feel more alert, it decreases stress, it improves your mood. The combination like this combination makes rhodiola like the best companion, travel companion for any trip. It improves endurance while exercising, assist in recovery after, and it's just essential, and so it's in a couple of supplements that I have, like a mix of aptogenic, adaptogenic herbs, and Love rhodiola. So if you're new to it, I Go into more about that herb and I will link you to the best sources that I've found it.
Speaker 2:Just let's talk about immune just a little bit more. You already touched on olive leaf, but you know, according to an Australian study on international travels in 2016, taking elderberry supplement can be an excellent way to support your body's defense while traveling. I love elderberry and other very so great because Even your, your kid, will take elderberry. Because it tastes great and it's easy to find. It's usually pretty inexpensive. I like to pack some with me. I take a product called under the weather by Truvani which has elderberry in it and a bunch of other Great things to boost your immunity. Sometimes I'll take it ahead of going and then I'll continue taking it the entire time I'm gone. But there are other elderberry Syrups. So if you are traveling with a child, you know, boost them ahead of time and then boost them while you're Traveling. That's really gonna help them.
Speaker 2:I Always pack a homeopathic, a few things like a Silicosinem, which is for the first signs of flu or cold. For bug bites, I pack lead-em. It also helps with inflammation and joint pain. I for like injuries. I pack Arnica for motion sickness, borax, upset stomach, noxfamica, and Then I'll link you guys to a really good pill carrier too, because this might sound like how the heck am I gonna pack all those bottles? But I have a pill carrier that's not plastic, it's waterproof. It's actually made of oats. It's really cool.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I'll just link you to that, and this is a matter of like getting your pills out, putting them in there Monday, tuesday, wednesday, and so that you're just set, right Well, to include in that that nice short list.
Speaker 1:I would also state that Grabbing an organic based activated charcoal Will do wonders to speed up any type of recovery that you get from, say, food poisoning, which typically happens when you're traveling, or you know your body's reacting negatively to, you know, any number of ingredients that are unknown when you're eating abroad.
Speaker 2:But also if you're just feeling a little crappy, it really helps with jet lag. I found Upset stomach like you said. Yeah, like, keep in mind that you know you, you mentioned.
Speaker 1:The recycled air and you have all of the off gases, you know anything, all the materials, all the adhesives, all that stuff that is Used in the construction of the aircraft. All those chemicals tend to just kind of get recycled and then whatever else people are bringing in. So, Taking an after filtering through the system, yeah, taking an activated charcoal before. Your plane and then after your plane, it's. It's kind of like a catch-all yeah, just, you're just gonna, you just want to boost your body's filtering service.
Speaker 2:And you just want to make sure you take it separate from your supplements so that you're not then Taking out those good stuff that you just put in there, correct? We want to make sure it's organic and coconut based is what we really like. So activated charcoal will link you to the right brands in our show notes and then really like the last thing to touch on is just our last couple things to touch on is really Anxiety, right like that's. People, especially in the US, have so much anxiety. It's like talked about non-stop in our culture. So you know we want to set you up for emotional mental health. Here are some great hacks for you. You know we want to set you up for emotional mental health. Here are some great hacks for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you still touched it. You know, you said it very beautifully. Like you know, americans we have, you know we carry so much stress and anxiety and a lot of times when you're traveling If you are traveling on vacation, Excellent, you know. Hopefully when you get to your place of vacation, your place destination, you have opportunity to decompress. But a lot of times you're traveling for business or family affairs Weddings, funerals, things to that nature. So it's not like you're your anxiety is gonna drop.
Speaker 1:What typically happens in those type of trips is your anxiety actually raises. The more stressed you are, the easier it is for your body to get sick. So one of the best things that you can do to combat anxiety is to practice gratitude. So instead of saying, oh, I have to travel to, I don't know Detroit, you can say you know what I get to travel to Detroit, I get to see somewhere new. Or I get to go home, I get to see my, my family, I get to have opportunity to To take care of some of these family affairs or I didn't have to walk to Detroit from California.
Speaker 2:Exactly I get to fly in a plane. I mean, if you think about how magical it is to even be able to go into an airplane, you can kind of reverse yourself from thinking like you know, all of those fear producing thoughts of like Gonna be in coach and this is gonna happen, and whatever anxiety Story you're building in your head. You can reverse it with gratitude with gratitude.
Speaker 1:Now, for those of you who are Don't have a sound meditation practice or you haven't Developed one at all, the flight is a great time to meditate, so there are plenty of meditation apps out there. We already talked about noise canceling headphones and putting on eye masks. Give yourself a mental bath and Spend, say, 10, 15 minutes during your flight and meditate. That is significantly going to drop your anxiety. It's gonna have you practicing the power of now gratitude and Trust me you monitoring your thoughts?
Speaker 2:You? Can just sit and observe your thoughts, because there's all different types of ways to meditate, right, correct, like so. If you've never meditated and you're just listening to an app and it's maybe not a guided meditation From Mike or you know somebody that we refer you to it you can just listen to music, close your eyes and Think. You know like. Pay attention, be the witness of your thoughts.
Speaker 1:The easiest meditation process that you can do is called box breathing, where you inhale for the count of eight, you Pause for the count of two, you exhale for the count of eight, pause for the count of two, inhale for the count of eight, and you and you, you do that for say ten to twenty cycles when you are counting on your exhale. So inhale, pause, exhale one, you do that for about say ten to you know, twenty cycles, and and you can literally feel your body relax, your heart rate drop, your endorphins are starting to kind of Regulate themselves. It is, it is such an easy practice and because you're already on, say, a bus or a cab or a boat, you are, you're primed just to close your eyes and escape for just a few minutes. Mm-hmm. Gum, you know chewing gum is great. If you are, you know if you get C sickness or if you have some Anxiety kind of just distracting your brain, letting your brain do something.
Speaker 1:We have. There's these great little wristbands that you can use that are great to offset any type of motion sickness. We can definitely send you the leak to those. There's a bunch of homeopathic options, some of which you already talked about, that are great for anxiety. So pop in a couple of those guys. Before, during and after your. Your flight is going to be great and you know an audible book. Audible is great because you know it saves you from having to rewatch. You know the same. You know violent movies that you're going to see in the plane.
Speaker 2:Instead, you can pop on your your audible and kind of escape into the world of fiction or self-help or or Anything this I mean there's audible is great, like any book that you you know wanted to read and don't feel like you can if you're gonna be on a boat or you're gonna be in a bus or something that might make you car sick. Audible is great for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So and then the other thing that maybe we could just talk about is Tracking how you feel, so that awareness we talk about when you are, you know, sitting there with your eyes closed or your following mics. You know, suggestion of doing a meditation and box breathing is Track how you feel, like you can. If meditation isn't your thing, you can just track it by bringing a pen and paper or a journal or something that you can just write down, like you know, how you're feeling or what you want to do. You know there's so many things you could do and we could give you some some good leads for journal entries and and things you can do while you're traveling. I typically like to write lyrics, so Travel is so great for lyric writing. You're just always people watching and seeing all these circumstances and being within earshot of conversations, and it's like my favorite way to lyric, right.
Speaker 2:So I read quite a bit of poetry, yeah yeah, and Mike's also has some great body scans and chakra Meditations. Both of those we're gonna provide into the show notes so that you guys can get those, so that you're not having to Hunt and pack the right things to keep yourself calm and or to check in with yourself. It's because you're emotional and mental health? Yes, it. It will be Challenged while traveling, whether it's an angry flight attendant or passenger or a flight delay. Just you know, stuff does happen. You will be way outside of your comfort zone and, on that note, you know we are talking about being Organic freaks.
Speaker 2:But you have to relax about things not all being perfect. There's really no such thing and when you travel to certain places, as you're googling and doing some of your prep work, you will realize, wow, okay, I'm going to these places in China. I need to bring X amount of dried food, like I'll know. You know, okay, when I get to China, they're not gonna let me have these foods, so I will make sure that I don't bring them, but they will allow me to bring these foods if they're sealed, etc. Knowing those rules, you know it'll allow you kind of just to relax. You're not gonna go through Customs and be freaked out and you can occupy yourself with, like we said, books, journaling, playing a game. We definitely watch movies on the plane if that's an option. You know, work on a project kind of just plan something ahead of time like preparation is key.
Speaker 1:Bringing a deck of cards, or some dice, super easy.
Speaker 2:Yep and easy to pack. Talk to us a little bit about like communication, and I always rely on you to do some of the communication and transportation and ask you to geek out on on Google.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna talk about that a little yeah, and this kind of goes back to that pre-trip Planning, right, so you're looking at where you can buy organic food, maybe a local market. Well, one of the other things that are critical is your ability to communicate with the people around you. Google translate is a great app. You have to download the language that you need Prior to using it, so don't wait until you're in a country where you may not have Wi-Fi or coverage. So download them to your phone and, with Google translate, you can use it to scan menus. You can use it to have conversations with vendors or nurses, if needed be, and, and then also Maps. So you want to.
Speaker 1:You know Google Maps works well, but you can also download the area that you're gonna stay in ahead of time in the event that you don't have Wi-Fi or Cellular data. If you're trying to hold on to your, you're not having to pay extra, extra, extra money to be able to use your phone. There's an app called Duolingo. It's a great little language app that allows you to learn the basics in a very fun, engaging way. Another thing you can do while on the plane. You know you're not going to be able to, you know, fly from here to Greece and be able to speak fluently, but you are gonna be able to say all Greek to me, it's all great to me.
Speaker 1:But you will have the opportunity to say some very basic things and it's it's important, especially if you wanted to understand the language, to better navigate as an organic traveler. So you know, you want to know what the words organic are in that language we kind of talked about. So it's either bio or ecological, and you know. So, again, a little pre-trip work will definitely go a long way.
Speaker 2:And have fun with it. Like, yeah, we definitely. If we're gonna go to France and neither one of us speak French, we will, you know, play around the week before we're going and start Bonjour, in, you know, being really silly with each other. It it kind of builds the excitement. If you want to look at it and reframe it as like, oh my gosh, I don't want to do all this work. You know, have fun with it. We also download what's up. Yeah, and we talked about a little bit before, but go ahead.
Speaker 1:Well, you know it's. It's a great way to communicate with the people back home. It's free and it's commonly used for those who are hosting as a guide or or as your Airbnb.
Speaker 2:So so the hosts like, for example, they can tell you about the organic options, like we did talk about that on WhatsApp, but like you may need reservations, there's there's things that what's up, you can talk with them for free ahead of time and that's built into the cost of your stay. Their job is to host you.
Speaker 1:So, basically, what's up allows you to use. It, allows you to call and make text messages on your phone using just a wireless Feed. You can actually turn off your cellular data and Then be able to contact whoever is actually using the what's up. Right, yes, right.
Speaker 2:And so also like, for example, if only one of you is gonna have a SIM card when you're traveling, or only one of you is going to have, you know, pay for Service through a cellular provider while traveling, then it allows you to communicate with the rest of your party. That might be like Okay, who has the phone working phone and the other people are using what's up when they're, you know, on Wi-Fi.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you're doing these before your trip, then you won't have to have long, arduous conversations with the phone company after your trip. Yeah, transportation is also a big deal. Do some research, see if there's, if there's Uber or some sort of bus system, or or can you rent scooters, you know, and if so, a lot of times they'll have you Download apps for that, like, for instance, bird and lime. There are types of scooters that we wrote while we were in Paris and very much like Uber, where you download it and you create an account, have that all ready to go, so that you can really maximize your time. You can be a little bit more Kind of on the fly, like, hey, let's go over there, we got an, you know, we got the the line map, let's go. Also, make sure you know who is picking you up at the airport or if there's some sort of airport transportation or public transportation.
Speaker 2:It's important because, yeah, I'm giggling because you know what story I'm thinking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in most cases, once you walk out the terminal, you are already a target for really shady people. That will shade, yeah, that will, that will. That will kind of Take advantage of the fact that you are in a new country.
Speaker 2:You have all your bags usually your jet lags your jet lagged and If your parents even worse, because you're like, okay, where's my kid? What's happening?
Speaker 1:and you don't speak the language right. Right. So you know that's what happened to us in India. You know we got a cab and and halfway to our destination.
Speaker 2:We'll back up, though. Oh the the story is that the people who we purchased our travel Transportation with didn't show up, so there's no sign with our names on it, and then when we went outside to look around, there is no sign, and we were so tired after, I think it ended up being like a 23 hour. Yeah or deal and and we're so tired, and then go ahead. This guy comes up to us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this guy comes up and, you know, kind of hustles us and kind of corrals us over to this guy's cab and we're like, okay, you know, okay, okay. So we hop in this guy's cab and we get halfway to our destination and the guy stops on the freeway on the freeway and demands more money and a lot of money a lot of money and as we're protesting, he's jumping out of the car, opening the back and starting to offload our luggage.
Speaker 2:On the set of freeway on the set of freeway.
Speaker 1:So we were prime targets and he juiced us well.
Speaker 2:Mind you, we had, you know, our daughter, and she was younger than she is now and we were exhausted and our, our hotel was so close to the airport on purpose, and those people were supposed to pick us up and we didn't realize how shady that area was. And also, to us, this guy came from a booth that had people there. We're like, oh, this is legit, and those people aren't there. Let's just, let's just go. So, just to explain the rationale of getting in a car that has that says taxi. Taxi had a company connected to it and there's no accountability, there's no way for us to like what are we gonna do? Roll all of our bags back to that booth? Yeah, on the opposite side of the freeway they had us. So we're like, okay, basically we're gonna have to pay for our safety, to get out of this person's car At our hotel. And then we paid him and he took us to our hotel.
Speaker 1:So long story short, double, triple and quadruple check Transportation from to and from the airport. Note that that is where most of the scams are taking place.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I mean, I don't know totally how that ties into our organic freak, but it definitely ties into safety, and maybe some of the stories that you've heard From us will help you. Just stay extra prepared and kind of Reframe it so, instead of it being anxiety producing, look at it as like a really fun challenge that is going to set you up to have an amazing vacation. Of course, mike's been great about capturing it all on photography and video, and we do have some slideshows of every trip that we've taken. We will link you guys to those two so that you can get energized and excited about traveling and adventuring with us.
Speaker 1:It goes to that. It's saying absence makes the heart grow fonder. If you love your, if you're, if you feel like your life is is dull, leave it for a little while. I guarantee when you come back you're gonna really miss it.
Speaker 2:And people will miss you too, and it's just like you know, it's the contrast of being comfortable and uncomfortable, and All the beauty in between yeah, we hope you received extreme value from this podcast.
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