Finding Wellness : The surprising Benefits of finding yourself in the Air.

Ever catch yourself wishing you could put your phone down more often? Do you worry in the back of your mind about not having enough down time? Do you dream of a digital detox? Do you nod along when people talk about wellness but secretly wonder how anyone finds the time? What you need is a place where you don’t have a choice, where you have to put everything down and no one can disturb you. Sound good? Here’s why a good place to find wellness, might just be in the air.  

The Overstimulation Era

You wouldn’t be too off the mark if you feel like even everyday life can be quite overwhelming. For many of us, we can all too easily find ourselves reaching peak absorption of stimuli and information. Our usual daily pattern includes non-stop emails, calls, push notifications and more, all of which saturates our consciousness in increasingly detrimental ways. A recent podcast expertly detailed the realities of the dopamine detox and how overstimulation can leave us feeling deflated, further underlining the importance of finding or creating stimuli-free environments.  

A Time for Wellness

Wellness might be a vast umbrella term, but its rise in societal prominence is a reflection of how important it is to our overall mental and physical health. Ultimately it is about finding specific ways to improve the way we live in order to achieve better states of wellbeing. With such busy lives and stressful challenges, both as individuals and in our communities, the more steps we can take to prioritise self-care, the better equipped we are to handle the upheavals life can throw at us. One of the most frequent options that gets talked about is the importance of ‘unplugging’. This is the idea that we can glean lasting value from periods where we disconnect from the busy online world and, where possible, external communications altogether. In these instances, we can rest properly and recharge, unencumbered by interruptions and demands on our time. The only problem – this is incredibly hard to achieve. One place that makes it a lot easier is in the air.

The Inflight Cocoon

The unique attributes of the inflight environment are unlike anything you can find on the ground. You are probably very familiar with the set up already. When you fly, your connectivity to the ground is generally very limited, especially in terms of social media and constant notifications. You often find yourself with several hours were scrolling isn’t an option and your emails are guaranteed not to start pinging. This is more than likely a welcome relief. The forced separation you experience when flying could provide an opportunity for relaxation, a much-needed snooze or catching up on some amazing content you simply haven’t had the time to get to. It is one of the last places on earth that you can ‘switch off’ and rest. Both individuals and brands are becoming more aware of the prevalence of the ‘attention economy’ in the 21st century and how difficult it can be to manage our attention spans or capture them. The low stimuli environment that is unique to the aviation industry provides a rare opportunity for us to rebalance and drastically reduces the number of things competing for our valuable attention. The right combination of inflight entertainment and passenger experience can be restorative when done right and leave frequent flyers wishing they could adopt some of its ‘restrictions’ in more areas of their daily lives.

Limiting the Damage

Ultimately, we are all aware of just how damaging constant connectivity can be for the human condition. Whilst there are undoubtable benefits to the technological advancements in communications and connectivity, being ‘on the grid’ non-stop isn’t a healthy state of affairs. Unplugging as much as possible, as often as possible, is one of the most effective ways to manage and improve our overall wellbeing. That is why the inflight environment can be especially beneficial to our mental health, as here we can’t be bombarded with social media notifications or work emails, we are at the mercy of being up above the clouds and experiencing a brief moment of calm where our main concerns are what to order for lunch and what we want to watch on the inflight content library.  

Wellness is one of the more critical topics we face today, heightened by the unique times in which we live. Finding avenues to support our wellness journey, especially ones that include disconnecting from the noise, are vital. If you are looking for the opportunity to take a break and don’t have the time to sign up for a strict no-electronics retreat in the wilderness somewhere, it might be time to hop on a flight……

I spend well over a 100 hours a year in a plane and strangely over time I've started to appreciate not being reachable. Am I the only one appreciating the catch up time?

Edouard