Being a Digital Nomad often means irregular routines and we have to make time to look after our health and wellbeing.
How To Maintain Wellbeing When You're Location Independent
Being a Digital Nomad often means irregular routines and we have to make time to look after our health and wellbeing.
We may be working over various timezones and need to stay connected so our sleep patterns may be disrupted. We find ourselves in new cities searching out some home comforts and sampling local cuisines. Sometimes this means our diet becomes incredibly varied. Othertimes, we get tempted by the sweet treats in coffee shops we visit to work.
The three important things for us is to make sure we keep moving, exercising and also communicating.
We are fortunate enough to have a Yoga Teacher and Mindfulness Coach on board, our Marketing and Communication Director - Arjuna. Here we share some of our tips and tricks to maintaining balance and wellbeing when being a Digital Nomad.
Listen To Your Body
Sleep when you need to sleep, take naps if that suits you. Sleep helps us to process information and helps to repair our bodies. Traveling can often take its toll on our body and our immune system can weaken due to lack of sleep.
To keep healthy on the go with good sleep hygiene, make sure you leave a few good hours between eating and sleeping to allow the body to focus on relaxing recovery and not digestion. Eat well and wisely, don’t be tempted to consume too much coffee or eat too much fast food, search out the local markets and take some time to prepare your own food. Ease off a little bit on the caffinated coffee or tea allow your energy levels to stabilise so you can listen to your circadian rhythm. We talked more about circadian rythms in our article How To Get More Deep Work Done
Stretch Regularly
The most beneficial way of stretching is yoga, this can be a simple YouTube class for as long as you like or you can find a live class online or in person. This helps to build a community and many yogis are traveling like you too and appreciate the time coming together collectively.
Start really simply if you're new to it and experiment and find your prefered teacher and a style that suits you, there are many different forms of yoga to suit all energy levels from Power Yoga, to Yin and our favourite Integral Hatha.
Meditate
Meditation and breathing excercises are superpowers - they reduce stress and anxiety and have unlimited physical, mental and spiritual benefits, they are also huge buzz words that can often be intimidating.
Start small and build up, 1 minute conscious breathing followed by another minute of meditation is a great place to start. Allow the breath to become subtle and begin to observe the inhalation and exhalation.
The tension will begin to release and your mind will become calm, this is the perfect preparation for meditation. So set aside an undisturbed minute to become the witness to your mind and allow any thoughts to pass by like clouds on a summer day.
When you are ready gently bring your awareness back to the present moment and carry on with your day with peace and joy.
Communication
In this always connected world, it might feel like we have too much communication. What is important is the quality of communication.
A phone call with a relative far away will always leave you feeling better than an online argument, so make time to talk to people, to really connect. And when you call, spend time asking questions and listening to the answers. It's the interest people show in us that make connections, and being on the road is no reason to let those bonds slip.
With DropCall365 our phone works in any country, with any SIM card, and friends and family can call us, and we can call them back without worrying about the cost
Phone calls helps us all to feel more connected, and this really helps to improve mental wellbeing and decrease loneliness.
We hope you've enjoyed finding out about some of the ways that we maintain our wellbeing when we are travelling. We hope you'll be insipired and energised to try some of these ideas out if they are new to you, or to revisit them if you've taken a pause during your adventures. Wellbeing is available to all of us, we just need to know where to find it.