Travel stress is a common side effect of business trips. Learn how to maintain your mental health in our guide on coping with anxiety.
While traveling for work brings excitement and opportunity, business trip anxiety can dampen these benefits. Shifting time zones, breaking routines, and the burden of expectations take their toll on frequent business travelers, potentially causing stress, anxiety, and even burnout.
It’s important for HR teams to consider this impact and plan accordingly, with strategies to support employees throughout their trips. With adequate planning strategies and mindfulness techniques, it’s possible to stay calm and content during business travel while achieving company goals.
In this guide, we’ll provide some helpful methods to offset the physical and mental toll of business travel, so the positive health impacts outweigh any stressors.
Travel on its own can be stressful. It may involve flight cancellations, lost luggage, or tight connection times. Even when everything runs according to plan, travelers may experience jet lag and disorientation in an unfamiliar place.
With business travel, an extra layer of workplace stress is added on top of this baseline. When a flight’s delayed, it could mean missing an important meeting. When you’re tired from traveling, you might not perform at your best. Frequent business travel can cause fatigue, lack of work-life balance, and longer-term burnout.
According to a World Travel Protection survey, 32% of business travelers felt exhausted during and after their trips, while 30% felt stressed, and 29% felt homesick. Anxiety was also highly reported at 28% of those surveyed, making it clear that traveling for work can directly impact mental health.
When the stress of business travel transitions to medical travel anxiety—and even panic attacks—it’s called hodophobia. It’s believed that hodophobia stems from past negative experiences during travel. Hodophobia can also be caused by negative events in the news, such as pandemics or terrorist attacks. By identifying the root cause, this type of travel anxiety can be overcome with treatment.
For many workers, business trip anxiety is caused by a fear of the unknown. If you’re feeling nervous about an upcoming work trip, some of the best mental health strategies involve pre-departure preparation.
A company’s travel policy serves as a framework for all aspects of business travel. It explains everything travelers need to know about travel booking and approvals, along with safety measures, expenses, payments, and useful contacts.
When drafting a corporate travel policy, planners should take employee wellbeing and inclusion into account, weighing the impact of travel on mental health. For example, when selecting company-approved brands and properties, look for ones offering wellness facilities, fitness centers, and healthy dining options. You can also empower travelers with a flexible policy that gives them some control over their own bookings.
For travelers, referring to this document before and during travel ensures they’ll know who to contact in your organization when they need assistance. Simply knowing your company’s there to support you with a duty of care can often reduce business travel stress.
Your company’s travel policy will explain the booking process in full detail. Many companies prefer to use a central business travel management system to keep itineraries organized. For example, Tripeden.com for Business allows team members to book and manage their trips, share itineraries, and manage any changes through a central dashboard.
Travel coordinators and HR teams can give travelers input on itineraries to reduce anxieties over upcoming trips. If you’re a manager, consider leading tutorials on how to best use the company’s booking systems.
With a sense of control over an upcoming business trip, travelers will feel better prepared and less anxious. That way, they’ll be able to book approved flights and hotels that fit their own preferences for a more comfortable travel experience.
On top of the stress of regular travel, unexpected challenges may arise during a business trip. Whether it’s an issue with your visa or a canceled flight, changes to plans are a major source of business travel anxiety.
Companies should provide a contact for 24/7 emergency support, making travelers feel at ease if they encounter any issues. Before departure, write down the contact info for your travel manager.
A comprehensive travel itinerary will include details like:
Review this as soon as you receive it, then refer to it before and during your trip to feel more prepared. Knowing exactly what’s expected of you at every stage will minimize stress and ensure you get to your destination on time.
Travel apps are packed with useful information, whether it’s locating the nearest business class lounge, translating a foreign menu when entertaining clients, or converting currency with real-time market values. Before you depart, make sure you have essential business travel apps like:
Passport control and international customs are another common source of travel anxiety. With business travel, this should be managed on your behalf by your company’s travel coordinator. However, it’s still helpful to keep all your essential documents in one folder.
Travel coordinators should also have a backup copy stored in the cloud for extra employee security.
Essential documents for business travel may include things like:
Keeping everything in one place minimizes uncertainty and airport stress before you travel.
When you’re getting everything ready for your trip, pack your carry-on luggage the night before. Include a change of clothing, toiletry essentials, work-related devices, and electronic adapters. That way, even if your luggage gets lost, you’ll be able to get by on arrival.
For travelers, advance preparation is one of the best ways to manage business travel stress. You know what to pack, who to contact for help, and what your trip entails. However, many people still experience anxiety when traveling away from home and main office.
Here’s how to deal with anxiety while you’re traveling.
For some, it’s a fear of flying. For others, it’s a fear of not knowing the language. At times, travel anxiety triggers are physical, such as dehydration, long periods of sitting, or unhealthy food. Identifying your usual triggers from past business trips will help you address them.
There are lots of things you can’t control on a business trip. What you can control are your own expectations and reactions. Looking at your itinerary, make sure there’s enough leeway in case something goes wrong. When traveling to deliver an important sales pitch, for example, make sure you’ll still arrive in time if you miss the first flight or train.
Traveling to a new place for work is exciting, and after spending the day in meetings you may want to explore with colleagues. However, overcommitting can lead to burnout. Build some time into your itinerary to relax and follow a schedule that keeps you feeling balanced.
If you start to feel the symptoms of anxiety—such as increased heart rate, irritability, or rising panic—just pause and take a breath. Breathing exercises are a common recommendation for general anxiety, and work equally well for business travel anxiety.
According to the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, breathing exercises and mindfulness alleviate stress and anxiety, while also helping you think more clearly. This is because our brains associate breathing patterns with specific emotions. When you’re feeling scared or stressed, your breathing becomes shallow and irregular. A calm, happy mindset results in regular, steady breathing.
With deep breathing techniques, you can trick your brain into feeling calm again, reducing cortisol levels and resulting stress. A simple technique is to inhale for four counts, then exhale for eight. Pair this with mindfulness exercises for the best results. For example, clear your mind and focus on nothing but the feeling of air passing in and out of your nose, noting each sensation. This fast, effective technique can calm you even amid airport chaos.
Bring calming pillow sprays, your favorite playlists, and noise-canceling headphones to relax on your trip. If your itinerary includes a layover, make the most of it by finding one of the airport’s lounges. They’ll have comfortable seating, complimentary food and drinks, and sometimes even wellness facilities to help you relax.
If you’re prone to travel anxiety, it’s better to travel with a colleague or group rather than alone. Talking to your fellow travelers provides a useful distraction from airport stress, while also lending a sense of security in numbers. Plus, you’ll have someone there if something goes wrong. On shorter trips, you can use your transit time to get ahead on work or brainstorm.
While there’s a link between business travel and mental health, it also takes a toll on your physical health. Use some of your unscheduled downtime to stick to your usual fitness routine. Take a morning walk or run before starting your daily work session and use your business hotel’s fitness center. Regular exercise not only helps you sleep better and fight jetlag, but it also boosts your endorphins and reduces cortisol. This all leads to better resilience in the workplace.
Traveling for work often involves networking with clients and indulging in local delicacies, all of which can impact mood and energy levels. When you aren’t entertaining colleagues, look for fresh, healthy options and drink plenty of water to stay hydrated.
Take control of your mental health while traveling with digital self-care tools, designed to use anywhere in the world.
Business travelers can benefit from apps like:
Download these before you leave to keep a self-care toolkit in your pocket.
A major cause of business trip anxiety is worrying about the workload waiting for you back home. To alleviate this stress, check in with your team back at the office to keep track of any changes. Build some time into your daily routine to respond to emails and take notes so you’re ready to share results and accomplishments from your trip.
Even when traveling with colleagues, business trips can feel lonely if you’re missing friends and family back home. Bring a few mementos from home, such as photos or desk items, to create a sense of familiarity. Create a better work-life balance on the road through connection with loved ones, whether it’s a Facetime call or quick WhatsApp message. Connecting with your home support system improves mental wellbeing.
Around a third of adults experience some form of anxiety while flying. If you’re scared of flying but still need to travel for business, your company may pay for a fear of flying course. These professionally designed courses, available in-person and online, explain the science behind flying while providing helpful tips for coping with flight anxiety.
For example, British Airways’ Flying with Confidence module explains how pilots are selected and trained, takes the mystery out of turbulence, and offers controlled breathing techniques to reduce travel stress.
For a serious phobia of flying, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an effective solution for many business travelers. Once on the plane, you can use your deep breathing techniques to calm your nervous system while distracting yourself with in-flight entertainment.
Some business travelers use medications that have a sedative effect to stay calm during travel. You’ll need to speak to your doctor for advice on managing symptoms with medication.
While there are plenty of self-help tips for nervous business travelers, stress management also begins with a strategic organizational safety net.
Integrating aspects of employee health and wellbeing into the corporate travel policy, including setting clear expectations and giving travelers some control over their own itineraries, can reduce many of the anxieties associated with business travel.
The good news is that for most business travelers, anxiety decreases with exposure. In other words, the more business trips you take, the less fearful you’ll be about them. In the meantime, there’s lots of assistance out there for corporate travelers, from airport stress relief apps to deep breathing exercises.
From the admin side, a well-written travel policy and convenient travel management platform can prevent travel anxiety by eliminating unknowns. Using Tripeden.com for Business, employees will be able to book and manage their own flights, accommodations, and car rentals from a centralized system. And with free 24/7 travel support as well as an integrated traveler map, they’ll feel supported and safe on the road.
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