The following Mark's Daily Apple article was written by Marksissons and is narrated by Brock Armstrong.

10 ways to stay healthy during holiday travel.

According to AAA, nearly 1 million Americans will be traveling during what

they call the year-end holiday season, December 23rd to January 4th. On the positive side, this

means possibly spending quality time with family and friends, experiencing new destinations or enjoying a break from

the routine of work and, at least some, domestic duties. On the other hand, it can mean a lot of

sedentary time, roadside food, poor sleep, collective stress, and airport crowds, with their accompanying germs.

When the hoopla ends, some of us will greet the new year relatively unscathed,

with little more than mild fatigue and gratitude for some peace and quiet.

Others, however, will succumb to the added pressures on physical and mental health and spend a portion of their travel time, or what was supposed to be travel time, nursing and illness.

It's little wonder, given the holidays offer the perfect setup with the intersection of extra everything, when we probably do better with less of, well, just about all of it.

It's a practical primal question. How can we keep ourselves healthy and sane when the best

intentions of the season turn on us? Those of you who have been sick during or following holiday travel likely

understand the logic of it all. There's the massive build-up of energy that goes into covering

all the bases at work before time off, as well as the trip preparation itself, not a small

feat, particularly with small children.

There's the stress of financial outlay and or logistical upheaval. Just the buildup itself

can result in lowered immunity, causing what one expert calls leisure sickness, or the

propensity to get sick during the times we worked so hard for in hopes of rest and relaxation.

That's right, the clinical manifestation of Murphy's Law, if you will.

If we tend to go treat life like a five-alarm fire, the body will interpret danger and stay on alert, running down reserves to maintain a heightened

state of caution. When we finally let down our defenses, however, it's another story. The body senses

...