Travel Days and Digestion: Simple Ways to Feel Better in Transit

Simple ways to support digestion and stay grounded while you travel...

An Ayurveda view on eating while traveling.

Travel days bring a certain kind of irregularity...

Ayurveda offers simple tools to support digestion and the nervous system in these moments. Not to control the experience, but to help you feel a little more like yourself while moving through strange days.

When the nerves are calmer and digestion is more steady, most of us become far happier travelers. And sometimes, that begins with something as simple as what you choose to eat at the airport.

Ayurveda leans toward warm, cooked foods, especially on travel days.

This might look like choosing soup over a cold sandwich, or even a sandwich over a bag of chips. The idea is not restriction. It is support.

Cooked food is generally easier to digest, which can help reduce bloating and that heavy, uncomfortable feeling that often shows up mid travel.

The crunchy snacks we all love are not bad. I love them too, even when I travel. But I have learned to notice how I feel when I reach for something warm instead.

And then there is another layer....How we eat might matter more than what we eat.

When we eat in a calm environment, with space to breathe, chew, and settle, we support healthy salivation and a more receptive state in the body. When the mind is less anxious, when we pause long enough to smell the food and connect with it, digestion tends to respond. It nourishes us differently.

I have a way to think about this, and I hope it invites you to let these guidelines meet you where you are. And it does not matter what Ayurveda thinks. Ayurveda does not think. I think. You think.

Let’s say I have a bag of potato chips. I love potato chips. The crunch, the salt, the grease, I love it. Crunch - It's one of the safer addictions out there! An Ayurveda joke is that crunch is the seventh taste! (There are six tastes: bitter, astringent, pungent, sour, salty, sweet).

So imagine sitting calmly, upright. Not multitasking. Not rushing to your next gate. Not running through your mental packing list for the fifth time.

You eat the chips slowly. You notice the crunch. You taste the salt. Your saliva has a party, developing more as you chew, quite literally telling your digestion what enzymes are needed to break down the food you are eating. Your body is engaged in the experience.

Now imagine choosing a cup of soup because Ayurveda says to.

But you are rushing. Walking to your gate. Half paying attention. Eating without actually being with the food.

Between those two, which is the better choice? This is where the art comes in. Because there is not a universally correct answer. There are just different experiences, and different outcomes.

And when you understand yourself relative to these concepts and practices, you gain a kind of flexibility & empowerment that supports you in real life, especially in places like airports, where very little is in your control.

The Oak Tree Inn in Balmaha, Scotland is where I hold yoga gatherings in Scotland. This is their lentil curry soup - lots of flavor, not too salty...spiced to perfection!

A cup of hot tea. Warm water. A simple bowl of soup. Even something like macaroni and cheese. These are often the choices I lean toward, when I can. Always I travel with ginger tea, and peppermint, and consider it the best relief if I experience a lot of bloating, or cannot get an appetite on travel days - very common for me. If you are on travel day and cannot get an appetite, try using warm water or one of the teas to get things 'moving' as in to spark the fire of hunger...I'll write a separate post on how to handle lack of appetite, regardless of travel days.

When I cannot slow down, when I do not have a moment to sit, breathe, and eat with some level of presence, I often choose to not eat. Not as a rule. Just as a form of listening to my body & responding.

When I am moving through a busy airport, thinking about a hundred things at once, I ask myself, "How can I support ease here?"

Even asking that question tends to shift something.

Travel will always disrupt routine, and that is not a problem. The practice is not to control it, but to meet it in a way that keeps you steady within it.

Safe travels! Enjoy the ride!

Ayurveda uses spices to give us a balanced taste to each meal. Tastes are bitter, astringent, pungent, sour, salty, sweet