You’re on the road — a lot — for work. For many people, frequent business travel is just part of the job.
To some extent, travel for work may be viewed as a perk. “Personally I have been able to visit cities around the world, and I see that as a benefit of my job,” says Andrew Rundle, an associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York City. “Also business travel can be seen as a way to advance one’s career — give a killer talk at a conference, network, lock up a contract or a sale, figure out your client’s needs.” But despite the upside, and while business travel may even be glamorized, researchers like Rundle find that those who travel the most frequently for work tend to experience the greatest negative impact on their well-being — including mental health.
A study led by Rundle, published in December in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, focused on the potential effects of business travel on behavioral and mental health — everything from smoking to anxiety and depression symptoms. EHE International, which provides annual comprehensive health assessments as part of a corporate wellness plan, funded the research. The study was done using EHE International medical record data in a way that didn’t reveal identities of the personnel. In a conflict of interest statement, Rundle and a fellow researcher also disclosed serving on a research board supported by EHE International.
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Summarizing the results in the broadest terms, the researchers reported, “Higher levels of business travel were associated with poorer outcomes.” More specifically, employees undergoing wellness assessments were categorized into five groups based on extent of business travel: those who spent zero nights away from home per month, one to six nights away, seven to 13 nights, 14 to 20 nights or 21 or more nights. The best outcomes were reported among those who were away from home one to six nights a month for business. Beyond that, as time on the road increased, so did reported mental and behavioral health concerns.
“Compared to people who travel in the lowest category, what we see here is that individuals who are traveling two or more weeks or 14 or more nights a month away from home, they are scoring worse for basically every outcome we looked at,” Rundle says. “So they’re more likely to smoke. If they drink, they’re more likely to be showing signs of alcohol dependence,” he says. Those traveling two weeks or more monthly were more likely to report symptoms of anxiety and depression, to have sleep issues — trouble falling asleep or staying asleep — and to be sedentary. “All of the sort of ill health effects that you might actually expect associated with business travel are really clustering in these extensive travelers,” Rundle says, with the effects being even more pronounced for those who traveled for 21 days or more a month. Other research, including a previous study Rundle co-authored, has shown how extensive travel can raise the risk for issues ranging from significantly higher stress levels to sleep disorders to obesity.
Research highlighting noninfectious risks associated with work travel complements studies that evaluate infectious disease concerns for business travelers, says Dr. Lin Chen, director of the Travel Medicine Center at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and president-elect for the International Society of Travel Medicine.
Chen led a study published in the Journal of Travel Medicine earlier this month that analyzed data from 64 travel and tropical medicine clinics on six continents, from North America to Europe and Africa. The research found that those traveling internationally for work encountered a range of health problems from diarrhea and other gastrointestinal issues to malaria.
Experts say employers should do their part to protect the health of business travelers. Rundle says he isn’t against business travel; often there’s no getting around it, and for some businesses it’s their lifeblood, even as working in a technologically connected world provides opportunities to get some of that work done remotely. Rundle says he has spent a lot of time thinking about and advocating for ways to maintain the health of the employee who’s on the road. “If you’re going to send your workers out on the road for that long, as a human resources person, you should be putting them in accommodations that have access to gyms and physical activity venues. You can’t force your worker to go to the gym,” he says. “But you can at least make that a viable option.”
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Though it’s certainly not always so easy to do, experts say the same goes for trying to make sure employees stay in places where there’s access to healthy food options — not just the menus of nearby restaurants that offer only fried and fat-laden fare which can be ordered in. “Companies can also provide training in sleep hygiene and stress management techniques, including mindful meditation, yoga, tai chi or other mind-body practices,” the researchers suggested. “Companies could provide employees with technology and health apps to help maintain health goals on the road: fitness trackers, fitness apps with exercise routines that can be completed in the limited space and equipment context of hotels and nutritional guides.” In addition to support from employers, employees who travel extensively must also do their part, experts say, and cast aside any notions that lifestyle choices on the road don’t matter like at home.
“Try as best as you can to not have an all or nothing approach to business travel,” says Michael Friedman, a coauthor of the study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, and a clinical psychologist practicing in Manhattan and South Orange, New Jersey. It’s OK to give yourself a little leeway to be off your routine, but don’t take an “anything goes” approach to travel when it comes to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. That may mean squeezing in workouts, even if an exercise session needs to be shorter, and picking the healthiest options from limited food choices. Traveling past your normal bedtime? “You might not be able to get your full eight hours of sleep, but if you are a little bit mindful of it, you can at least get six hours of sleep,” Friedman says. As with making small, consistent changes or backsliding at home, those habits on the road for the regular travel can have a big impact in the long run. “It’s like all those things are the difference between being wrecked after a trip and just not having had quite as good of a day health-wise,” he says. “Over time, that can be the difference between developing depression, heart disease, diabetes and someone who’s basically coming out OK.”
So take a realistic and flexible but steadfast approach to incorporating healthy lifestyle choices while traveling. That goes along with taking preventive steps based on where you’re going, such as getting recommended vaccines and taking prescribed medications (like malaria pills when and where advised) for international travel.
[See: 11 Strategies for Staying Sober While Traveling.]
“Somehow the messages need to get to these frequent business travelers that these risks exist,” Chen says, “and being disciplined about all the precautions and mindful about their health and their exercise routine and choosing good health habits will matter.”
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