Seeing new places, meeting new people and experiencing new cultures is just amazing. I love to travel, and I always enjoy planning my trips down to the fine details to make sure that I get the most out of my trips. One thing that can have a big bearing on a trip though, especially to a faraway destination is jet lag, the effects that your body experiences as you change into a new time zone.
Sometimes I get off lightly but other on other occasions it can be days before I’m feeling like myself again. If it’s a short trip for work or pleasure, then this can have a big impact as you often don’t have the time to acclimatise. There are lots of hacks out there which claim to help but to be honest I’ve never found them to have made much of a difference to me personally.
The upscale hotel brand Pullman Hotels have just introduced a new programme though which aims to give their guests the tools needed to get off to a good start on arrival at one of their worldwide properties. They have enlisted Sarah Hoey, a yoga teacher and all-round wellness guru who rather handily is also Pullman’s brand ambassador. Sarah has been helping them to introduce a few new measures at their hotels that should be of use to guests who have just landed from a long-haul flight.
To experience the Anti Jet-Lag Programme for myself I was invited over to the Pullman Paris Roissy at Charles de Gaulle Airport a couple of weeks back. I got the chance to meet with Sarah and to try out some of her suggestions based on the four pillars of wellness – sleep, food, sport and spa.
As I arrived at the property, I was pleasantly surprised by my first impressions of the Pullman Paris Roissy at Charles de Gaulle Airport as it is an airport hotel, unlike most others. It’s modern, welcoming, bright, offers a fantastic food offering, has a lovely wellness area and is all housed within a very striking curved glass building – it’s the kind of structure that my good mate Nik Speller would go goo goo over!
I made my way up to my room and was greeted by a rather generously sized bed (that I’d later discover was one of the comfiest I’d ever spent the night in). As tempting as it can be to jump under the duvet after travelling, it’s important to feed and rehydrate your body so I instead headed downstairs to the hotel restaurant for a delicious healthy dinner in their open-plan show kitchen. I often find it difficult to locate tasty but healthy food when travelling but Pullman offers a really great menu that is crammed full of fresh ingredients, healthier options and local dishes so I had no issues here.
The following morning, I was woken up bright and breezy by the in-room Lumie alarm clock for a yoga class with Sarah in the hotel gym. This was the first time I had tried yoga, so I was a little apprehensive about it but when the flow got going, I really enjoyed it. The reason that yoga has been included as a key factor to help post travelling as it helps to open up your hips, loosen your joints and to get the blood moving. As someone who struggles a lot with lower back pain, I found that a lot of the yoga holds were beneficial in helping me to ease off that area too so it’s possibly something that I’ll take part in more often.
After a healthy buffet brunch at the hotel that featured a delicious banana smoothie (my favourite) it was down to the pool for a little more yoga, but this time it was on paddleboards. This turned out to be a really fun session and as well as being a challenging workout it was pretty relaxing. There’s just something about being on the water that really helps to chill me out.
In the real world, we are all busy and pushed for time, so devoting a day to wellness is often unlikely but what we can all do is to take snippets from this programme and use it when we travel. It could be a quick yoga flow in your hotel room, having an energy-boosting smoothie when you get to the hotel and listening to the needs of your body. Sometimes catching up on missed sleep is actually essential.
If you fancy checking out some of the Pullman Wellness hacks for yourself on your next trip then head over to the Pullman website to explore their collection of hotels. If you have any top travel tips or jet-lag beating hacks of your own then please get in touch in the comments section below or via my social channels.
This is a partnership post with Accor Hotels
Photos by wearestorytellers
