When I told a colleague I was heading for the gym after my 11 hour London to Hong Kong flight he looked at me as if I had grown two heads. I often get asked if it is okay to exercise on the day of travel. The short answer is yes, as long as it is for the right reasons.
The big ugly reason is of course minimizing jet lag. While most flyers concentrate on the use of outward energy, subtle energy is of as much part of the solution when you look at natural ways of beating jet lag.
The detail of how to do this lies in helping you acclimatize quickly and assisting you achieve a body reset. Now is not be the time to attempt a personal best. Any restorative types of exercise that work your body mildly are a better choice over your normal routine. As the saying goes “when in Rome do as Romans do” – you would not exercise at odd hours at home, so if you arrive at odd hours on local time there is no reason to exercise then either.
I find the most successful use of exercise on the day of arrival is to help re-distribute my subtle energy. This energy is held within the meridian points and channels of the body and is a body-clock in its own right. The meridians come into peak activity one after the other in a particular order every day. Resetting this “clock” helps you get onto local time quickly. You can learn to trace these meridians individually for the same effect. I learnt this tracing method from Donna Eden, her books on subtle energy are a treasure of useful tools to mastering subtle energy.
What type of exercises support this energy redistribution? I can use a combination of exercises. Most of the time I keep it simple and do anything from light stretching with deep breathing to a light jog to work up a sweat. In the early days of my flying career I did do too much. I found it ate into my reserves of energy. The net result was that I lowered my immunity and became susceptible to colds.
There is also a mental aspect to being able to exercise on the day of travel. We all know that the journey is stressful on the body, being able to get into the gym takes mental strength as well as physical strength. Building this equity is good practice and can carry over to other areas of your life where enduring through stress also pays off in the end.
The moral of the story is keep it simple, don’t overdo it and make it enjoyable above all else. It is nice to see a well-regarded site such as LIVESTRONG.COM agree that exercise on the day of travel is beneficial. Read their article on exercise and jet lag here.
Exercises for Jet Lag – Livestrong.com
Energy Medicine – Donna Eden.