Travelling and digestion

Disrupted routines can upset our digestion and consequently affect our bowels. Here are a couple of simple tricks to manage this when you're on holiday.

Have you ever noticed how easily we talk to complete strangers about our bowels? A recent tramping holiday, requiring 'close-to-nature' living in the bush and just such a discussion, caused me to ponder this unusual phenomenon.

This is probably because on holiday or when travelling are times when our bowels are often disrupted. Our gut is still striving to maintain the status quo. It therefore struggles when the food and drink it receives suddenly changes, or it's expected to lie on the beach for a week almost motionless.

If your bowels behave unexpectedly, reflect on how their life has changed since leaving home.

It would have been easy to think looser stools at the end of my tramping holiday could have been suspect drinking water or substandard refrigeration facilities. In reality, bag after bag of nuts and scroggin was probably the determining factor. An unusually high daily dose of fibre in a desperate attempt to lighten our packs!

Holiday/travelling checklist:

• Movement: walking around the plane or airport can do more than help prevent DVT; movement is also good to keep our bowels functioning well.
• Drinking: dehydration is a common problem with air travel; take all the water offered to you in-flight. When on holiday, try to mirror your normal daily drinking habits, remembering you'll need more in hot climates.
• Food: take some fruit and scroggin (just not too much!) as handy fibre-rich snacks.