Have you ever returned home after a vacation feeling like you need another vacation? Travel is fun and exciting, but it can often feel stressful and overwhelming. This is especially true for trips involving long flights, navigating a new language, or dealing with hiccups like botched reservations and flight delays.
In this article, we’ll share how to use herbs to combat jet lag, boost immunity, reduce stress, and make your vacation more enjoyable.
1. How Herbs Can Support You While Traveling
Many of us have wellness routines we stick to daily, but the excitement of travel can cause these habits to fall by the wayside. However, traveling often comes with physical and emotional stress, making it more important than ever to maintain your wellness practices.
Herbs can be your secret weapon against common travel challenges like jet lag, immune suppression, and stress. By incorporating herbal remedies into your travel routine, you can stay energized, balanced, and ready to explore.
2. The Essential Herbal Travel Kit
After years of traveling, we’ve curated our list of herbal non-negotiables. The herbs we never leave home without include include:
- Herbs for jet lag
- Immunity boosters
- Relaxation remedies
- Herbs for overindulgence
Let’s break down how each category can support your travels:
Herbs for Jet Lag
- California Poppy
- Wild Lettuce
Instead of using stimulating adaptogens like rhodiola to adjust to new time zones, we prioritize herbs that promote restful sleep. A blend of hypnotic herbs like California Poppy and wild lettuce helps us catch quality Zzz’s.
Long plane and car rides leave us feeling super stiff and achy. California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) is a sedative nervine that also provides pain relief, making it a good choice for when muscle aches are keeping us from dozing off.
Wild lettuce (Lactuca virosa), another sedative nervine, also has pain relieving actions. Additionally, we find it helpful in mitigating feelings of overexcitement and overwhelm that can keep us from settling in comfortably to a new environment.
Together, these hypnotic herbs offer reliable support for quality sleep. Add in some dim lighting and a warm bath before bed and let vacation start to feel like a vacation!
Immunity Boosters
- Reishi
- Astragalus
Reishi and astragalus are our go-to herbs for long-term immune support. Unlike the popular immune stimulant echinacea, these herbs build your resilience over time. We recommend taking them consistently before, during, and after your trip.
Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum) offers unparalleled nervous system and adrenal support, which helps the body respond to stress. Additionally, reishi is an immune modulator. It differs from immune stimulants, which can cause an adverse effect in people with an auto-immune disorder, in that it is able to stimulate the immune response when there’s immunodeficiency and calm the immune response when there’s over-activity. A bonus is reishi’s ability to ease altitude sickness.
Astragalus (Astragalus membranaceus) is an adaptogenic herb with a long tradition of use as an immune building tonic in Traditional Chinese Medicine. In Western herbalism, we refer to this long-term building as trophorestorative. Astragalus also supports the adrenals and a healthy stress response. We like to think of astragalus as a shield against viruses and infections.
Relaxation Remedies
- Damiana
- Betony
Travel can bring unexpected stress, and relaxing nervine plants are perfect for maintaining your chill. Our Nice Time formula combines some of our favorite feel-good plants, including damiana and betony to reduce overwhelm so you can focus on enjoying the moment.
Damiana (Turnera diffusa) has a long held a reputation for being an aphrodisiac due to its warming, circulatory stimulating effects. We find these same actions to have a positive effect on our mood, livening our spirits, stimulating creativity, and banishing depressive states. We have a full article all about this magical plant here.
Wood Betony (Stachys officinalis) is a relaxing nervine that assists in quelling feelings of anxiety and restlessness. By melting away tension and agitation betony allows us to get out of our heads and into our experiences. You can read all about betony here.
Herbs for Overindulgence
- Digestive Bitters
- Milk Thistle
Exploring local cuisine (and washing it down with some grown-up drinks) is one of the best parts of travel, but it can challenge your digestion. Taking digestive bitters like burdock, dandelion, or blue vervain 20 minutes before meals can prevent discomfort.
Bitter herbs improve digestion by stimulating the secretion of digestive fluids. They essentially help to build up a stronger stomach and allow us to assimilate more nutrition from our food. They can also be helpful in stimulating your appetite when you find yourself in a different time zone and on a different eating schedule.
For those grown-up drinks, milk thistle (Silybum marianum) offers gentle and effective liver support to help mitigate the effects of overindulgence. Milk thistle nourishes the liver tissue protecting it from damage as well as repairing damage to liver cells that has already occurred. It is safe for literally everyone, including those taking pharmaceuticals.
3. How to Use Herbs on the Go
Traveling with herbs is easy, thanks to tinctures. These concentrated liquid extracts are compact and travel-friendly, typically available in 1–2 oz bottles that comply with TSA liquid restrictions.
Most of the herbs mentioned above are available as tinctures. To use:
- For most tinctures, you'll take 1–3 dropperfuls a few times per day as needed. Read the label for specific dosing instructions.
- Keep them handy in your day bag for quick access.
4. Additional Natural Wellness Tips for Travelers
In addition to herbs, these wellness strategies can help keep you feeling your best while traveling:
- Stay Hydrated: Travel can dehydrate you quickly, so aim to drink at least two quarts of water daily.
- Choose Herbal Tea Over Alcohol on Flights: Save the celebratory drink for touchdown. Throw some herbal tea bags into your carry on bag and ask the flight attendant for hot water—you’ll feel better upon landing.
- Pack a Sleep Mask and Noise-Canceling Headphones: Light pollution and noise can disrupt sleep. A sleep mask and white noise can come to the rescue.
- Stick to Your Routines: Try to incorporate as many of your at-home routines as possible into your travel schedule. Have a set sleep and wake time? Do you usually start your day with a walk and end with stretching? Do you make sure to stop eating at least 3 hours for bed? Keep up all of these practices and your body will thank you!
Prioritize Your Health on the Road
There’s nothing worse than feeling too jet-lagged, stressed, or under the weather to enjoy your trip. By incorporating herbs into your travel routine, you can stay energized and healthy throughout your journey.
Next time you’re packing, leave room in your toiletry bag for a couple bottles of Nice Time —you’ll be glad you did!