Immunity On The Plane: For The Business Traveler

We’ve all been there. You are on the plane and suddenly you get the chills.  By the time you get to that big meeting, your heading is pounding, you’re sniffling, and you hope that you don’t cough all over the big contract that you are supposed to sign. Ready, set, don’t sneeze.

You wonder how you got sick so quickly considering that you felt fine 24 hours ago. Easy! Your immune system is down. Imagine that you were at a meeting with 200 other people, all sitting in the same room, and at least 10% of them were sick. You were in that room for at least a few hours, and you were all breathing the same air. That's how you get sick on a plane.

With the way viruses and bacteria travel, you become much more susceptible to disease when you are sitting on a plane, because the same space is much more concentrated with germs than it would be otherwise. This compromises your immune system. Yet there are things that you can do to better your chances of staying healthy, and keep your immune system up.

The most important thing you can do is to drink lots of bottled water throughout the flight. This keeps the mucosal lining moist, and this is your primary immune system defense against infection. If it is working properly you will have a better chance at staying healthy.

In addition, do not eat any high-fat and greasy foods before or while you travel. These  foods are difficult for your body to digest and may cause discomfort.  This in turn causes stress on your body, and since stress results in increased Ph levels, this means an increased acidity in your body. Therefore your immune system becomes compromised, and leaves you more susceptible to disease, so you get sick

There are homeopathic remedies that you can take to boost your immune system and help stave off any form of infection while on a plane.  One of these is garlic pills.  Garlic is known to kill many viruses and bacteria, and so is a great immune system booster. If you’re worried about smelling like garlic for the plane ride, do not worry. The pills have no odor and 1 pill is the equivalent to eating several cloves of garlic.

Another supplement that is important for the plane is one that most people are very familiar with, which is Vitamin C. It boosts your immune system while on the plane! Not only is it a great anti-oxidant, which means it kills free radical oxygen molecules that can do harm to cells in your body, but it has also been proven to boost interferon levels in your body (interferons are your body’s anti-viral agents), and its boosts anti-body levels in your immune system.  Try taking some Vitamin C every few hours through your plane flight and it will reduce the chances of getting sick.

It’s also very important that you get up and walk up and down the aisle at least once every hour while on the plane. Not only will this keep your muscles from getting stiff and prevent you from getting DVT (deep vein thrombosis), but your lymphatic system which is what removes bacteria and germs from your body does not have a pump to move it, so your immune system is stifled.   Lymph fluid moves based upon a difference in the pressure gradients between the lymph vessels and the capillary beds.This happens only through muscle contractions. So make sure you move!

It is always much easier to prevent  plane sickness than it is to try and cure it once it happens.  Therefore try and give your immune system  the tools it needs on the plane to ensure that you arrive in tip-top shape for that meeting. Ready, set, go. This time you won’t have to worry about sneezing.