When (and How) to Trust Your Gut on the Road

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Travel Tips from The Empath’s Survival Guide

The stress of traveling can expose you to toxic energy that may not normally enter your everyday life. You’re dealing with airports, cramped planes and trains, strange hotels, and new people. Here are some tips from my book The Empath’s Survival Guide to help you travel more comfortably and not get overwhelmed by crowds and close quarters.

How to Stay Centered in Airports and Planes

Airports can be especially difficult for empaths because they’re noisy, crowded, rushed, and there are all kinds of crude, hard-to-take energies swirling around. Being on a plane may induce sensory overload too. The closeness and density of people in such a confined space can provoke anxiety in empaths because there is no escape. Some tips to make your flight easier include:

• Check your luggage so you don’t have to fight for overhead bins.
• Choose an aisle seat so you get out easily and take refuge in the bathroom if necessary.
• To avoid the masses boarding the plane, wait until other passengers go in, then casually walk on to take your seat.
• Bring clothes to stay warm; the air conditioning can be chilly.
• Bring water to stay hydrated.
• You can try wearing an air purifier around your neck that generates negative ion to purify the stale recirculated air.
• Noise canceling earbuds are great to use when listening to positive music or uplifting audiobooks.
• Avoid draining conversations with others (strangers tend tell their life stories to empaths). Unless you are drawn to talk to someone, create a cone of silence around you that communicates “I’m not available.”
• To center yourself on a flight, practice meditating.

How to Stay Centered in Hotel Rooms

To clear the energy left behind by previous guests in hotel rooms, I suggest spraying rose water or lavender essential oil (or both) to purify the space. I also practice the 3 Minute Heart Meditation to remove negative energy.

When traveling, always be sure to stay hydrated and eat regular protein meals for grounding. You can get into trouble if you skip meals, binge on sugar, and don’t get enough rest–choices which weaken your defenses and set you up to absorb unwanted energies. If you’re taking on stress from others, practice breathing it out. If you start feeling overstimulated or drained, meditate to re-center yourself wherever it’s convenient–on park benches, under a tree, or even in bathrooms.

With all these options available, you can feel more at ease to have fun on your travel adventures–which is the great reward of self-care. Enjoy the new cultures and terrain. Feel. See. Sense. Learn. Revel in the benefits of being an empath.

Judith Orloff, MD is a New York Times bestselling author with the upcoming book The Genius of Empathy: Practical Skills to Heal Yourself, Your Relationships and the World (Foreword by the Dalai Lama). She has also written The Empath’s Survival Guide and Thriving as an Empath, which offers daily self-care tools for sensitive people. She integrates the pearls of conventional medicine with cutting edge knowledge of intuition, empathy, energy medicine, and spirituality. Dr. Orloff specializes in treating empaths and highly sensitive people in her private practice and online internationally. Her work has been featured on The Today Show, CNN, Oprah Magazine, the New York Times and USA Today. Dr. Orloff has spoken at Google-LA, TEDx U.S. and TEDx Asia. More information about Dr. Orloff’s Empathy Training Programs for businesses, The Empath Survival Guide Online Course and speaking schedule at www.drjudithorloff.com.

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