Around the World in 24 Hours
Those of you who like long airplane flights, raise your hands. My guess is yours probably isn’t raised. Over the last few years, as the busy entrepreneur, I’ve been doing the global commute from New York to Jakarta up to 6x a year for not just JUARA research, and but also to build up our JUARA Indonesia office which we expanded to two years ago.
Unfortunately, with the growth and expansion of business also comes the stress and weary-eyed look of frequent travel. These long-haul flights are no joke – 24 hours, including transit, which means 24 hours of movies, limited legroom, and more recirculated air than I’d care to breathe. Exit flight, and enter jet lag and very confused skin. (All you flight attendants who do this all year round, I admire thee!) All in all, in Indonesia, I’ve gotten dengue, typhoid, and numerous fatigue induced aches and pains. In New York, I go from tropical wonderland to allergies, city pollution, and wildly different weather. In fact, I’m taking turmeric pills (with some fats like omega oils or a teaspoon of coconut oil to help make it more bioavailable), and royal jelly to maintain calmer nerves and a stronger immune system to keep up.
Sounds exhausting? It is. But do I love it? Absolutely. And my skin and health? Let’s just say people keep asking if I’m in my early 30’s, and the real number is a decade up. How I manage? Here are some habits I’ve developed that I recommend to anyone who has a heavy travel or run-around schedule – whether it’s commuting 10,000 miles, or just 10 miles.
1. For international travel, you may have heard it’s best to arrive in the daytime and stay busy/out until the local bedtime to faster adjust to local time. This is true. In addition, and this is a little unorthodox perhaps, since there is a 12 hour time difference from Indonesia to NY, I stay up the night before so I sleep soundly on the plane (if you can,) and secretly I feel I’ve outran jet lag w/ a 24 hour head start. This also makes a 24 trip feel shorter.
2. Water – inside and out. Stay hydrated before, during, and after the flight. Drink water, but also stay moisturized on the plane ride – recirculated air is not thy friend. If you don’t like to wash your face on the plane or put a cream on, take our oil-free Tamarind Tea Hydrating Toner (put into a travel bottle, since no cotton ball needed) and splash on frequently. It’s like an Evian water spray or a traditional facial mist, but better since it contains hyaluronic acid and natural tamarind seed extracts to bind moisture to your face and triple tea extracts that act as antioxidants.
3.Make plans – I try to have something scheduled that’s fun to do after I arrive at the destination; the psychological motivation to do something enjoyable does wonder to motivating you to stay awake when jet lag creeps in.
4. Use masks to speed up skin recovery – My skin revolts after a long, exhausted trip, and sometimes it takes days for it to return to normalcy. I speed up that process by double-dosing on my treatment masks. After I cleanse, I use the Rose & Willowbark Purifying Mask to exfoliate and clarify skin. Then I follow with the Turmeric Antioxidant Radiance Mask to purify further, detox. Together, my skin returns to a healthy, soft, smooth, even-toned state. Follow with moisturizer. Do this combo 2-3x a week for a week. Trust me, it works.
Do you have any tips on surviving frequent travel? I’d love to hear them and learn!
