Frequent Trips Can Create Nonstop Stress Even When the Traveler’s Not on the Road

“Two weeks ago, I was in Japan for a week, then I was in San Francisco for a day, and then I went to Paris for a week, and I just got back yesterday. Now here I am at work trying to figure out what day it is.”

In other words, a typical Monday at the office for Tom di Maria. The 42-year-old executive director of Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland travels 200,000 miles a year on business, mostly to Europe and Asia.

Speaking from his office earlier this month, Di Maria sounded jet-lagged as he described the travel-related stress in his life: fatigue, friendships taxed by his frequent work trips, threatened transit strikes and missed opportunities at the office, to name just a few.

“But mostly, there’s a feeling of compressed time. Coming back today, I have quite a pile of paper mail, e-mail, faxes, people needing to meet with me,” he lamented. “Everything gets compressed, and then suddenly I’m supposed to find all this time to do everything.”

A subculture of long-haul business travelers has existed in America since at least 1869, when the transcontinental railroad connected the coasts. Since then a planeload of studies has been done on the health risks associated with business travel. But until recently, surprisingly little research has focused on the mental tolls travel takes on suit-wearing nomads like Di Maria or their loved ones.

Recent studies confirm what business travelers knew all along: Business trips often are positive experiences, offering close collaborations with distant colleagues, the stimulation of different environments and a change of routine. But they also are a source of stress, and they often exact emotional payments from families and friends.

Bruce Merrell knows the personal costs too well. Speaking from a cell phone recently as he waited to board a plane at San Francisco International Airport, the frequently flying start-up-company consultant said his family often seems like “a fast train, and you’re trying to catch up to whatever’s going on in their lives. They’re up to date and you’re not, and you realize it isn’t their fault.”

Reflecting on his relationships with his two sons, who are now in college, he said, “The children often didn’t understand why their father was away. Then sometimes I don’t either.”

Di Maria doesn’t have a wife or children, but he says all his travel has had an enormous negative effect on his friendships. He spoke with a flight attendant while crossing the Atlantic earlier this month and realized he’d had a longer conversation with this stranger than he’d had with any friend in many weeks.

“I know some flight attendants better than I know some of my friends,” he said.

Robert Werner, past president of Timex India and current president of Dua Consulting Inc., the U.S. arm of a New Delhi-based consulting group, flew in excess of 200,000 miles a year for more than a decade until he left Timex two years ago and curbed his annual jaunts to a mere 25,000 miles. As a financial officer at Timex and W.R. Grace & Co. before that, he often had to spend the month of September far from his family as he worked on budgets for the new fiscal year.

“My wife’s birthday is on the 2nd of September, and our anniversary is the 22nd of the month,” he said earlier this month from his office in Wallingford, Conn. “There were many years when I was not home for either of those occasions. And yes, that took a toll on our relationship.”

His wife, Beth Werner, hasn’t forgotten those absences. But what most upsets her is the damage all his time away did to his relationships with their sons, particularly their eldest, Chip, who is two years out of college and temporarily living at home. Since Werner left Timex, he and Chip have spent a lot of time under the same roof.

“But they very rarely do something together,” she said. “It’s like the Cat Stevens song, where his father never really had time for the son and when he does the son is too busy. . . . If we could do it over, I’m not sure we would do it the way we did.”

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Recent studies indicate that business travel anxiety has three main causes: the effect of travel on the family, cumulative fatigue and the logistics of travel. The studies also found that as many as one in every three business travelers experiences high levels of stress before, during or after a trip.

A recent study of health insurance claims filed by World Bank employees who traveled regularly on international business trips found that they were up to three times as likely as their office-bound counterparts to use health insurance for treatment of psychological disorders. Moreover, the study found a direct correlation between the number of trips taken and the frequency of World Bank business travelers seeking mental help.

These disorders are often founded in the logistics of travel, or, as Merrell put it: “Wanting to be someplace and being afraid that you’re not going to be able to get there on time and having no control over the situation--it’s the mother of stress.”

It’s wondering whether your flight’s going to be delayed or, say, whether you’re going to arrive at Reagan National Airport in Washington and learn that your suitcase--and all your business attire--went to Dulles and you’re not going to get it in time for your meeting with important clients first thing in the morning.

Chris Garvey, managing director of the nonprofit Starbright Foundation, a national children’s charity based in Los Angeles, knows travel anxiety well. Garvey takes three or four business trips a month and loathes the arbitrary nature of flight delays, of lost baggage, of the prices attached to airline tickets.

“On Thursday I’m going to and from Kansas City for a 3:30 meeting,” she said recently. “My plane is supposed to arrive at 12:50, and that should allow more than enough time. But twice in the last four months when going to Kansas City, the flights were messed up, and I missed two meetings. So I’m thinking I really should go Wednesday night. But to go on Wednesday night for a 3:30 meeting is not a good use of time.”

Experts call this “pre-trip stress.” It’s a common malady. About as common, Garvey might say, as the sexist flight attendants who often irritate her when she uses her coveted upgrade points to fly business class.

“A man in a business suit and a woman in a business suit mean two different things,” Garvey said. “A man in a business suit means that he needs the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, and a woman in a business suit means, ‘Maybe she’s flying with her boss or something.’ Heaven forbid a woman might want to read a Wall Street Journal.”

It doesn’t end with newspapers. Who gets the coffee-tea-or-OJ question first? The businessman. Who gets the like-your-coat-hung-up question first? The businessman. “Come on, I know they have suits on, but so do I,” she said.

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At a symposium on travel stress held in Washington last year, Dr. Berhard Liese, former medical director of the World Bank, said a survey conducted by his organization found that many business travelers dread returning from a trip and confronting the work that awaits them at the office. A survey conducted by marketing research firm Roper Starch Worldwide found the same.

It’s not simply the work, but also post-trip accounting. A network TV news producer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he absolutely dreads completing expense reports following an assignment.

“Every time you go out of town for the company, it’s like filing a mini tax return when you get back,” he said. “In addition to the travel and the work, you have to become an accountant.”

If the news producer suffered from post-trip stress, Carren Soto probably qualified as an always-travel-stressed individual in her previous position as regional manager for the finance division of a leading for-profit hospital chain. She left that job because she was on the road more than 90% of her time.

“I used to count the sequential days that I had slept in my own bed,” she said last week. “The last year I traveled I spent a total of 30 days at home in an entire year. . . . Once I stopped traveling, I would notice that I still had anxiety on Sundays, thinking that I was about to leave and get on a plane.”

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Travel Stress Tips Box

Business travelers surveyed by travel-stress expert Jonathan Bricker of the University of Washington offer the following advice to fellow road warriors seeking to reduce their travel-related anxiety:

* Tell your spouse why you are traveling. If your spouse acknowledges that the trips are something you both value, your mate will be more understanding.

* Exchange itineraries with your loved ones. When you’re apart, you can imagine what they are doing and they can imagine what you are doing.

* If you feel lonely on the road, say so. Don’t be afraid to share your emotions and ask your loved ones how they feel.

* If possible, take it easy on your first day of travel. Give yourself a chance to unpack, have one leisurely paced meal, and try to go to bed early.

* Wake up earlier than usual during your business trip to have at least 20 minutes to relax in a quiet place such as your hotel room before tackling the rest of the day.

* Add some rewarding leisure activities to your itinerary. Look at Web sites, local newspapers or travel guidebooks to learn of the tourist attractions at your destination.

* Be nice to service personnel. Politely and firmly state your desires and complaints. Courtesy works.

* Choose airlines that have good on-time records. Ask the airline reservation agent or a travel agent to provide this information, which is also posted on the U.S. Department of Transportation Web site.

* Try to catch the first flight out as there’s a greater chance for later flights to be delayed. Remember: Flight delays are like snowballs; they get bigger as the day wears on.

* When flying, take toiletries and at least one set of business attire with you on the plane so you won’t have to worry about your luggage being lost.