Have you ever taken a flight felt great about getting to your destination only to start feeling a cold coming on a day or two later? Well, you’re not alone. In fact, there may be up to an 80% greater chance of you getting sick on a flight, depending on where you’re sitting.

There are a few factors at play but you can reduce your chances of getting sick on your next flight with a little preparation and seating strategy. I show you how in the video above with some tips below.

The Myths, First

Let’s dispel some myths and airplane air, which a lot of people attribute to getting post flight coughs and sniffles. The air that is circulated on planes goes through high efficiency particulate air or HEPA filters and planes do in take some amount of fresh air during the flight. About 50% of the air you breathe on a flight is recycled with HEPA filters capturing about 99.97% of airborne particles over .3 microns in size. That’s enough to filter pretty much all bacteria and a lot of viruses.

HEPA filtration and passenger ventilation systems so good that sitting next to someone on a flight is like standing 2 meters away from someone in an office, grocery store, or… airport. Check in lines, security queues, bathrooms, lounges, there are a lot of people you come into contact with at an airport so that’s where you’re more likely to catch a cold. If catching a cold is something you’re especially concerned about a mask is a good precaution but there are other steps you can take.

Wash Hands And Watch Seats

Make sure to sanitize or wash your hands often and be mindful about where you pick a seat. A study conducted by Boeing, Emory University and Georgia Tech in 2018 indicated there may be a greater chance of getting sick on a flight, with some caveats. Researchers found that sitting in a row with a sick passenger or in front of or behind a sick passenger increased chances of getting sick.

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The study was examining flights with 3 seat rows but a person directly on the other side of the aisle isn’t entirely safe – they had an 80% higher chance of getting sick. For the people across the aisle in the middle or window seat had a 10-30% chance increase of becoming ill.

Gasping For Health

According to Dr. Mark Gendreau, you can create an air curtain using the gaspers if they’re available on your next flight. Gaspers are the name of those adjustable personal air vents familiar to many fliers. Doctor Gendreau says angling them at medium flow so the air is blowing just in front of your face, can create some additional turbulence that might push away airborne germs just enough to keep you from inhaling them or landing on you.

Of course nothing is completely going to eliminate your chances of getting sick right after a flight. And some of the congestion you feel could come down to how dry the air is in cabin. Most plane cabins have 10-20% humidity whereas for most people something 30-60% is more comfortable. When the air gets drier, your body produces more mucus to keep you from drying out too much but as soon as you get off the plane, there’s now too much mucus because it’s more humid all of a sudden, that mucus has to go somewhere and often it’s in the form of a runny nose.

For clogged ears and noses though be sure to use the safe method to equalize pressure again to avoid hearing problems.

The post How To Avoid Getting Sick After Your Next Flight (And Why You Do) appeared first on foXnoMad.

Mosquitos are the worst. Seriously, even many scientists are wondering if we shouldn’t just kill them all. Until then though, the pesky blood suckers have a way of getting indoors, despite your best efforts. And nothing, I mean nothing, is worse than hearing the annoying buzzing of a mosquito near your ear at 3am.

Fortunately, there are a few ways to kill indoor mosquitos by mainly using water. You can watch the video above or read on for the highlights.

Use Your Hands

Well, duh is what you’re probably thinking. But ever notice how mosquitos tend to always be just out of reach when you try to slap them out of existence? There are some theories as to why this happens – from a cushion of air or the mosquito simply bouncing off your hand – but either way, having wet hands solves the issue. Have a bottle of water nearby or if there’s a faucet close, wet your hands and grab mosquitos out of the sky (i.e. smoosh them).

Manage Pools Of Water

Drains, that odd bit of water under the toilet scrubber, any sitting water you can eliminate the better. And for drains where it might not be possible, if you can, close their doors. Bathrooms, kitchens, wherever there might be standing water, try to create a barrier between you and that area.

You can also use smelly socks as mosquito traps or make use of that leftover vodka from the night before.

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We’ve all had a new outdoor jacket that can wick away rain better than you can handle most problems in your life but like your existence, over time its ability to remain resilient fades. Fortunately for your jackets and other water resistant gear, unlike your life, there’s a relatively simple fix.

Here’s the only way to properly wash your waterproof or resistant hats, jackets, pants, and other clothing.

Water Resistance Comes From Two Places

Tiny threads that are finely woven together are your first line of defense against water. The way this works is those threads are close enough to effectively act as a barrier against water droplets, which have a tendency to stick together (a phenomena known as cohesion). As you wear and potentially stretch those fabrics, the small gaps between the fibers tend to widen over time. Another ally to the physical barrier, which can also get broken down if it’s wet long enough, giving the water time to absorb, is a water resistant coating.

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This coating, which can be a mix of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS, breaks down with washing. You can however restore water resistance and do it without PFAS as well.

How To Wash Your Clothes

For anything that you bought which has or had water resistance, you’ll want to wash that separately but not with regular laundry detergent. The supplies you’ll use are Nikwax Tech Wash and TX Direct. The Tech Wash is used to actually clean your clothing so depending on the size of the load (try to limit to 2-4 large items at most) use the measurement suggestions (100-150mL) on the bottle and then wash using warm water on a gentle or synthetics cycle.

Once the first Tech Wash cycle is done, you’ll then do a cycle with TX Direct. The TX Direct replenishes the water resisting coating of your clothing and can be done using warm or cold water.

Air Dry For Best Results

Using a drying machine is not recommended as this can deter the coating from setting evenly on your clothing and also damage the threads, further reducing water proofing efficacy. For any stains you can spot clean with Tech Wash before throwing it in for the machine cycle. Remember, use these products for only your water resistant gear like a The North Face Triclimate and for shoes and boots, Nikwax makes a waterproofing spray.

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Garmin smartwatches can tell you a lot about your body with real-time updates of heart rate, stress, calories, respiration and more. The higher up you go in their line the more data you get and recently Garmin has introduced a Jet Lag Advisor that takes that information to help with every travelers headache.

I tried Garmin’s jet lag advisor for several months and over 50 time zones to find out if it really works. You can watch the video above and read the recap below.

What Jet Lag Advisor Does

For Garmin watches that do support jet lag advisor (Forerunners 265, 965, Fenix series, and others) when you have a trip coming up go into the Garmin Connect app on your phone – it’s the only way to enter your trip data – go into training and planning, and then Jet Lag Advisor. Once there you can enter in any number of flights you have coming up. Note that if you’re taking a long flight but don’t cross any time zones, Jet Lag Advisor won’t be used and will let you know (although you can still enable it anyway).

For flights that do cross time zones though, you enter in your departure and destination cities – Jet Lag Advisor tells you to ignore any layovers.

Before Your Flight

One the details are in Garmin Connect it will sync with your watch in the upcoming trip in the Jet Lag Advisor glance. A few days out Jet Lag Advisor will begin alerting you with recommendations on moving your body clock closer to your destination time. These notifications can be toggled on or off as you like with recommendations on when to avoid or seek light, take a nap, use caffeine, get some exercise or take melatonin as some examples.

When you’re actually traveling you’ll still get prompts but even more. A neat feature is the timeline both on your watch and in the Garmin Connect App that shows good times to eat or take a nap and at the beginning of each windows you’ll get a notification on your watch. It’s fun having the recommendations but when you’re traveling they often are just that – recommendations you can’t practically use at certain times when you’re actually in transit. Avoiding light when you’re waiting for your next flight on a layover wouldn’t be feasible for example. During these times I would put the Jet Lag Advisor as something fun rather than an actual coach you can use to adjust your body clock. But where it can actually help that I noticed, it when you finally arrive.

Kicking Jet Lag Upon Arrival

Once you’re at your destination Jet Lag Advisor reminds you of when you should sleep or not. It’s that common traveler dilemma when you get somewhere new and are tired but don’t know when you should sleep without completely throwing off your body clock. Jet Lag Advisor gives good guidance on getting your clock adjusted and coaches you during the first few days.

I use the Jet Lag Advisor most closely after I’ve arrived somewhere and will avoid napping or force myself to get outside or keep the lights on based on the watches recommendations. I’ve found Jet Lag Advisor does help reduce the amount of time you feel jet lagged. You’ll still feel jet lag of course but having a coach that keeps you on the schedule can help and if that doesn’t work, peanuts might be another jet lag cure.

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There are some better times of the year to buy a Garmin Forerunner that can save you money as well as let you know the best times to get other Garmin watches.

The Lineup

The Forerunner are Garmin’s running line of watches I’ve reviewed in the past, like the 165, 265, and 965. These are the current line at various price points and the other major differences being a few advanced tracking features, battery life, and size options.

When To Buy

Historically Garmin doesn’t have great Black Friday deals on Forerunners – typically around 10%. Now that’s not an insignificant discount, especially on the more expensive 965 (about $50 off the $600 price tag). At other times throughout the year though Garmin tends to run sales on Forerunners with better deals about double the discount of typical Black Friday sales.

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Those better deals tend to happen at some key points of the year, February, June, and September to align with marathon and running seasons. That means at the end of the year when many other electronics are released and put on sale, Garmin tends to hold off on the Forerunner line.

New Versions On The Way

The Forerunners tend to have a release cycle around March. Both the 265 and 965 were released in March or 2023 so an update to those versions is expected between March and June of 2025. So, which watch should you buy when? Let’s start with the 165.

If you have been eyeing the 165 you should wait for Black Friday and see if it goes on sale but other than that, go ahead and buy it. It’s the entry level Forerunner that in my original review I found had pretty much every useful feature for fitness tracking and it’s a great watch. It’s also not expecting to be updated any time soon and chances are if you’re looking at the 165, you don’t already have a recent Forerunner and it will be an upgrade.

For those of you looking at the 265 or 965, right now, here’s my advice.

If you already have a smart or fitness watch you’re happy with that’s tracking your runs, workouts, swims, whatever, then I would hold off until the next version of the Forerunner. It’s likely to be released in March and it’s almost certain there will be key upgrades. The latest Elevate 5 heart rate sensor found in the Venu 3 series, ECG support and hopefully even better battery life. The glass screen might be enhanced to Sapphire for more scratch resistance and almost certainly we’ll get a few new metrics and menu views.

If you don’t have a Forerunner or fitness watch and you want one, the 265 and 965 are great. Even if you buy one now and then the next version comes out in 5 months, there’s probably going to be nothing in those that you’re really going to be missing.

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