Why Travel and Training Often Don't Mix
Tuesday, June 26, 2012 at 9:46AM Traveling from Texas to San Jose, CA and back last weekend, I kept in mind what I have recentely learned about how the brain and body works while traveling. You may think you are just passively sitting there, whatching the world go by, but things are not quite what they seem.
When a task is new, your brain dedicates a lot of power to figuring out how to get it done. Kind of like learning to ride a bicycle, you get exhausted quickly and demonstrate a lot of ineffeciency. After you master a task, your brain has shifted the skills needed to execute it to a lower-intensity area of your noggin.
You can execute many routine, mastered tasks at once. Walk, chew gum, and sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" all at the same time? Easy. But ask a friend to walk with you and then tell him he has 30 seconds to figure out 37 x 79 and watch what happens. Your friend will stop dead in his tracks, not even able to walk at the same time he's figuring out the math problem.
When challenged with something new, your brain shifts into overdrive, grabbing all resources available and also burning quite a lot of its only fuel; glycogen (carbs). Guess what happens when you're traveling? You're doing something new... all day long.
Drive the same route to work and you can daydream, text message, make phone calls, lots of stuff. Drive the same distance through a new town to find a store you've never been to before and you can't do anything else. This is actually how people get themselves into trouble - thinking they can still text message while driving. They get a message that says something very important, focus on that, lose focus on driving, and then plow into a phone pole.
When you drive, then fly, then drive an unfamiliar rental car, then try to make sense of a new hotel room and where to eat dinner, it's really no mystery why you are exhausted by the end of it all. Your brain has been working like a fiend all day trying to make sense of all the new stuff. And not only do you not feel like working out, you're more prone to making bad decisions. Studies show that people asked to do hard math questions were more likely to eat junk food afterwards than those that had to do easy ones. Their willpower was used up!
If you have had a long day on the road, don't be hard on yourself about not being able to work out as much as before. Let it go. If it's a long trip, you'll settle into a routine soon enough, your brain shifting all the new stuff to "habit land" and allowing you to train again. You also can pack healthy food and find gyms ahead of time. Now, the decisions are already made and your overtaxed brain doesn't have to sputter to a stop just to figure out what you usually do.
Reader Comments (4)
Wow that sure hit home as I started a new job and my workouts suffered....I will give myself a break and get back into my workout routine...thanks for the post
Great piece and it's true that travel can be exhausting. I think exercise can help you get into a routine faster and make you feel more settled.
Very Interesting. I can relate to this in every way. When I know I am traveling somewhere new, I end up using Google Earth to learn the lay of the land so its not so foreign.. For some of the Triathlons I am doing I use Google Street view to scout out the bike and run courses. Then when I am out there on race day, my brain says "Oh, this is familiar" and I can relax a bit.
does it get easier? I have been travelling almost weekly for 6 months. I can fall asleep pretty easily on airplanes, so maybe my brain has adapted to that part of travel. Still, I get wiped after a day or 2!