Strategies To Reduce Nausea At The Start Of A Days Hiking

In this video, we explore some simple strategies a hiker can use if they often find themselves nauseous at the start of a day's hiking.

Inside We Cover:

• 3 of the most common contributing factors to feeling a bit gross at the start of hiking
• How training can help reduce nausea (as a long-term solution)
• A few simple strategies a hiker can put in place immediately, which can reduce the risk of nausea and help you feel much more comfortable on the trail 

Video Transcript:

​[0:00] So reducing nausea at the start of hikes. A really, really common thing that a lot of hikers will face when they just start an adventure, they start a hike, and within 20 minutes, 30 minutes, they start feeling a bit

[0:10] gross, a bit nasty, they need to have a little bit of a break. Now, this sort of came up with someone we were talking with the other day, and they were just mentioning, look, this tends to happen quite a bit for me. You know, within the first 30 minutes of a hike, I do feel a little bit sick to my stomach and lightheaded, and I find that if I stop and rest and eat a banana, drink a bit of water, I tend to recover in about 15 minutes or so.

[0:31] Realistically, in any situation with your hiking, whether this is immediately in the beginnings of your hiking, further down the line in tougher sections, if you are getting to the stage where you're getting nauseous, you're getting sick, you're feeling grossing your stomach or whatever it may be, something does need to change. Because ultimately, hiking shouldn't really be getting you to this time point. Hiking is technically a lower intensity occupation. Yes, it is challenging. Yes, it does have as a situations where it can really push the body, but typically it should be lower intensity. On top of that, hiking is something that we should be fun. We shouldn't be getting to this point where we feel gross, where we feel nasty. We want to make sure we are being smart about this and working around. Now, if you're in this situation where you are getting a little bit nauseous, there's a few things which can make a bit of a difference, both in the longer term and the shorter term. Now, before we even get to that, let's just talk about where this nausea typically comes from. And this won't be in every situation, but for the most part,

[1:27] usually it's one of three things or a combination of three things. Number one, intensity. Ultimately, if we are walking at a pace and if we are hiking at a pace, which is just a bit too quick for us, we're going a pace which gets us huffed and bathed, gets the heart rate up really high or whatever it may be. This can often be a side of saying, we are going a little bit too quick. So instead of using our aerobic energy systems, which is our aerobic energy system designed for a low intensity, long duration exercise, which we want for a hiking.

[1:57] Instead of using that, we are going at a speed where we're actually pushing into our anaerobic energy systems, which are designed for short bursts of speed. The tricky thing with these anaerobic energy systems is because they are designed for short bursts of speed, they're not designed to sustain for really long periods of time. They do have things that are associated with those energy systems which can make us feel a bit gross, make us feel a bit nasty.

[2:20] So where we're walking at a speed, where we're actually pushing these higher intensities and working these anaerobic energy systems more and more and more, this can be a factor which can lead into nausea. So number one, it could be a factor of intensity. Number two, it could be fueling. Ultimately, if you're in a situation where you are pushing your speed and you are going a bit quicker than usual, the body will be churning through fuel quite a bit. The body will be wanting carbohydrates. The harder we push, the quicker we go, the more intense we do exercise, the body wants more and more and more carbohydrates and in this situation if we're hiking say first thing in the morning and we don't really like to eat breakfast and we're starting the day and we have an empty stomach and then we're trying to push these speeds and the body's like hey i really want carbohydrates but i don't have enough here this can lead to us feeling a little bit gross so that could be a factor or on the flip side of that it also could be digestion you know in one situation it could be hey we don't have enough food alternatively if again if it's a morning hike and you've had breakfast, but you've maybe had breakfast which is still digesting and you're starting this hike and you're pushing the speed, this can actually lead to a little bit of that nausea. So it could go the other way. So it's usually a combination of one or two of these factors when it comes down on.

[3:34] So talking solutions, let's talk about long-term solutions first.

[3:38] Now, in all honesty, the simplest or the most effective way to make a difference here is your training in the sense that over the long term, if we can do the right training and develop the right things in our body, we can make this much more comfortable. Number one, what we can do is we can reduce the relative intensity of what we're doing. What that means, if we're entering our hikes and our aerobic fitness is a little bit underdeveloped and we're going at these speeds and it's pushing more and more and more into the anaerobic stuff, well, with our training, if we can actually develop our aerobic energy system, if we can increase it, make it more efficient, make it more effective, we can actually rely on that more and more and more at these higher intensities. Meaning when we're pushing these speeds and we're walking on the trail, we can rely on aerobic energy system. We don't get that gross feeling and it can be very beneficial. This is literally just improving our fitness in this capacity.

[4:30] How do we do this? Well, simplest thing, lower intensity, long duration cardio, pack walking, cycling, elliptical, gentle hiking, which doesn't get us feeling gross or whatever it may be, just periods where we can just go for long periods at low intensity. Very, very simple, but very, very effective. Now, on top of that, with our training, we can also improve our body's ability to tolerate these intensities a little bit more. So if we do get a little bit gross when we're going at these speeds, we can actually teach the body to handle these speeds and handle these things a little bit better. So the things that make us feel a little bit gross, they don't actually affect us quite as much. So essentially what this does, it just allows us to go with these higher intensity things, just feeling a bit more comfortable. So essentially we can do this by again, just training, like doing things like stairs or hills, where we are going at slightly quicker speeds or higher intensities, sustaining this, enduring this and developing things in the body to help us get through. And we might do interval training, hop on a bike or a rower or an elliptical and do periods where you're going relatively quick for three or four minutes, have a bit of a rest and do it again. You know, this type of stuff can be very, very effective here. Now, all the training side of stuff, like that's the typical stuff we would approach any type of hiker, whether you are getting nauseous or not, all of this stuff would go into a normal training for hiking program.

[5:46] Drawback to this and why I say this is long-term solutions, this can take a while to kick into effect. Fitness doesn't happen overnight. It takes a consistent application of training week after week and sometimes month after month for things to start to turn around.

[5:59] So in the short term, what can you do? Well, very, very simple. Number one, pacing. As I said, a lot of the factor with all of this is its intensity. If we are going at a speed which is just a bit too quick for us, if we can change that around and actually go at a speed which isn't quick for us, that can reduce that nausea. Really simple rule of thumb for pacing is going at a speed when you're hiking, where you can either comfortably breathe in and out through your nose, or if that's a little bit weird for you, if you've got a small nose or a blocked nose or whatever may be, at a pace where you can comfortably carry a conversation. If you're going at a pace where you're huffing and puffing in between words, or you're really quite out of breath or whatever may be, well, pull things back, slow it down. And I promise you, if you can just get a little bit better with the pacing, that'll make a dramatic difference to that nausea. Now, sometimes this can be a little bit tricky if we're going out with other people who may be a bit quicker than us. On top of that is if we are maybe a naturally slower hiker. So this does require a bit of a conversation with your hiking partners and just sort of say, hey, do you mind if I set the speed? Hey, do you mind if I can just go a little bit slower or whatever it may be? Sometimes it'll work. Sometimes it won't.

[7:08] Now, if this is just not super possible, maybe you're going out with a hiking tour group or a local hiking club or whatever it may be, or maybe you're just a bit self-conscious about having that kind of conversation, then another thing that can help here is just having a bit of a warm-up before you hike. For most hikers, you know, you can start hiking, just roll onto the trail and just start moving and that can count as your warm-up. But if you're in this situation where you kind of just immediately hit the trail and you start feeling a bit gross, sometimes just doing some things before you move can help. So in this situation, I'd recommend getting to the trailhead a little bit early. So if you've got your own transportation, trying to get there 15, 20 minutes before the hike actually starts, may not always be possible, but if so, and then just trying to do something before you actually start hiking, where you can stretch the legs, where you can get the blood moving,

[7:57] get things sort of the heart rate up a little bit. So essentially, you get to the trailhead, you get the body and the heart rate up you let it settle a little bit and then you start hiking and the idea behind that is it just prepares the body for the demands of hiking so instead of going from zero to 100 and all of a sudden feeling gross you can kind of go from zero to 50 to 100 if that makes sense so that can be an option logistically it doesn't always work but it definitely can be an option and then the other flip side of things is fueling just making sure we are getting the right balance of fuel leading into this type of stuff.

[8:30] Typically, I usually say try to get a bit of type of food into you before hiking. I'm trying to get some type of fuel in there because hiking is exercise. You can survive on an empty stomach, but it's not usually the best. So getting some type of fueling can definitely make a big difference. Typically, what we really want in this type of situation is some type of carbohydrates. When we are exercising, the body does have a limited storage of carbohydrates. And essentially, when we're exercising, we burn through them over a period of time. So we just want to make sure we are having plenty of carbs before we start and also as you go, typically topping that up. Now, usually in the morning, we may not want to sit down or wake up at the crack of dawn and have a really, really long breakfast. So generally what we want to be thinking about when we're looking at breakfast before hiking is just something easy and quick to digest. So something that's low protein, low fat, low fiber, high carbohydrate. The idea behind that, low protein, low fat, low fiber, all of those things slow down digestion which is fine if we're sitting around day-to-day life whatever may be but if we're trying to eat and then all of a sudden hike we don't want that food sit in the stomach so low protein low fiber low protein low fat so this may be a case of just having a piece of fruit or even like half a banana if you can't stomach much might be something like having a piece of white toast or a bagel or something like that or even just having like a handful of like breakfast cereal and literally without even the milk just like munching on some breakfast cereal as you go through, or anything like that.

[9:55] Or alternatively, if you do feel like even that is just a little bit hard to stomach, maybe some liquid calories. Liquid calories are generally easier to digest and get in as opposed to that. So it may be a case of saying, okay, in the morning, I'm just going to make up a little electrolyte supplement with some carbohydrates. We're just going to sip a little of that in the morning. Don't have to have a full-blown serving or whatever it may be, but just have a little bit of it. Or maybe have some fruit juice or something like that and just have a little bit of a drink.

[10:23] Um on the flip side as we sort of said before sometimes digestion can be the factor so if you're actually already eating in the morning but you're hitting the trail and you feel like hey my food is actually sitting in my stomach and it feels a bit gross and that's feeling a bit nasty then follow these similar guidelines as well maybe let's just maybe you're having quite a bit of protein in the morning which is usually fine but if we're trying to exercise right after it can sometimes sit in the stomach a little bit so just follow these guidelines again high carb low protein low fat, low fiber. Generally for breakfast, if we're just hitting the trail, that can work out pretty well. If you do have like an hour or two between breakfast and when you're hiking, then you can have a bit more flexibility, but sometimes crack a dawn hiking, you know, that can go a long way. And then finally, in this type of situation, we always do want to enter our hikes hydrated as well. So before you leave home, just go to the toilet, have a look at your urine color. If it's clear to straw colored, you're good to go. If it's a little bit darker than that, just have another a glass of water before you head off.

[11:20] So ultimately, if you are in this situation where you are getting a little bit nauseous at the start of hikes, long-term solution, your training is going to make a big difference. Short-term solution, look at your pacing, look at your fueling, look after those things can really make a big difference because ultimately, as I said before, hiking should be fun. We shouldn't really begin to that point where we're getting nasty, getting sick. So there are solutions out there. Play around with them. Some of it will take a little bit while to put into action or to figure out exactly what works best for you. But hopefully that gives you a little bit of advice and a little bit of help.

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