DEAR DIANA

“Is it appropriate to ask a flight attendant for a shoulder rub? Recently, my shoulders and neck muscles were sore from lugging my catalogs. I am a guitar salesman. Five minutes of massage would have helped so much.”-Ed

DIANA RESPONDS

The key thing is your carry-on. Is it unnecessarily heavy?

• Can you pack your catalogs and send them as checked luggage?

• Or send the catalogs ahead by post?

• Test the weight of your carry-on before you leave home. Try hauling your carry-on around your house to simulate how things will play out en route. And remember there can be long walks and waits within airports. Your body will tell you if you must still do some fine-tuning on your luggage.

CHOOSE YOUR WORDING CAREFULLY

If you have prepared accordingly, and still find yourself in sharp pain during your flight, take a chance and make an overture for assistance from a flight attendant. You’ll find that on long-hauls, they have more time for personal interactions with pax.

Your request for a shoulder rub may fall flat, though, on a suspicious mind, but it may not.

• Fellow passengers may have more time and inclination to trade shoulder rubs with you. Choose your wording carefully. Perhaps you could say, “Want to trade 5-minute shoulder rubs?”

• If all else fails, do it yourself. A foot, hand or ear massage actually stimulates the entire body and can ease tightness in your shoulders even if you aren’t directly touching them.

• Find tender, hard, tight places. Take deep breaths while you work on them. Apply pressure for a moment, release it for a moment, then apply it again until the tenderness subsides.

• If the tenderness persists, see a professional body worker.

• For more on self massage, key terms are reflexology, acupressure and shiatsu.

AFTER LANDING

• After reaching your destination, massage yourself with a body oil or lotion to combat jet-induced dry skin. The oil or lotion penetrates more easily after a hot bath.

• Go for a professional massage. Bodywork can be very helpful after flying and involves more than touching the skin; it includes attentiveness to the energy pathways of the body. This is an often-neglected journey to the near reaches of the body/spirit borderlands. Energy blocks caused by tension, toxins and jetlag can be released through touch—along with endorphins, the feel-good hormones.

• A healing touch can help to discharge tension built up from flying, whether that touch comes from a professional body worker or even a loved one. After landing, passengers who are met and embraced by family and friends have a head start in overcoming jetlag—simply be being touched.

MEDIA QUOTE

In November 2000, a reporter called to ask me what the Backstreet Boys should do to get over jetlag when touring 6 continents in 4 days.

I told him, among a number of strategies, that being touched by someone who was grounded in each time zone, could certainly help.

“You mean being touched in sex could help with their jetlag?” the interviewer asked me excitedly.

“Certainly,” I replied

And here’s how the story went out around the globe: “The Backstreet Boys are attempting to visit six continents in 100 hours—but it could cause a complete loss of rhythm. Starting tomorrow, the Boys will kick off a 26,000-mile tour to perform concerts around the globe but Hawaii-based jetlag expert Diana Fairechild fears the stunt could wreak havoc on the band members’ body clocks. Fairechild says one remedy for jetlag is sex, so she suggests the Backstreet Boys get lucky with a local in each city. If that’s not an option, she says, they can get a massage.”