Festival Health

Emerging sun-kissed and music-drenched is the ideal, but will be far from the case if your digestive system takes umbrage at the conditions. Hot weather, a disrupted schedule, too little sleep and too much takeaway food can all play havoc with your innards, leaving you in the queue for the loo instead of front of stage, or groaning in your tent instead of singing along with the crowd.

Hotting up

Little as we get of the sun, our bodies can struggle to adjust to all-day exposure, especially if we don’t up the water intake. Not wanting to leave the main stage to pee may make us wary of topping up the H₂O, but it’s absolutely vital to hydrate properly, to avoid headaches, low energy, anxiety and constipation. Having more alcohol than usual can play into a negative scenario here, as we think we’re slackening our thirst with a few beers, when in fact these are dehydrating us even more.

Fix: Identify the easiest water supply early on and programme a reminder on your phone so that you remember to top up, however much fun you may be having – more water means more fun long-term, and less of a legacy of constipation.

Rhythm disruption

If you operate to a fairly regular schedule in your everyday life, going to work or study at roughly the same time each day, eating your meals more or less at the same time and hitting the sack around the same time most nights, the complete disruption of a festival, when night turns to ‘more day’ and sleep and food arrive as and when, means your digestive system is unhooked from your circadian rhythm. Everything, including digestion, is less efficient and more prone to hitches.

Fix: Plan ahead so that you don’t miss any of your favourite performances, but also get snacking and sleeping at regular intervals. The upside to being organised is your stamina will surprise you and all those who fall by the disorganised wayside. Your digestive system is also far less likely to throw a hissy fit if food is arriving around the times it’s used to.

Sleep starvation

‘You can sleep when you’re dead’ is certainly an attitude we have all had at some point, but over several days of a festival, starving your body of sleep is more likely to see you picking up bugs and feeling distinctly off-colour. Immune function and digestive processes are all hard hit by sleep deprivation, meaning your summer gig memories may well be marred by aches, pains, bloating and windy bubbling.

Fix: Assume you need some sleep around the time you usually fall asleep. You may get away with a snooze and a surge back to life later on, but gracefully obey the sleep pressure message and support your body’s systems for free.

Foodie frights

Of necessity, you’ll be dependent on the food on offer onsite. This may be high quality, or it may leave a little to be desired, but cheap (ish) and cheerful is most likely, with fried offerings and sugary snacks omnipresent. Your gut may well object to being landed with greasy, processed bites, especially if also required to jump up and down and handle alcohol at the same time. Digestive mayhem may well ensue.

Fix: If you know your gut doesn’t react well to stodge or the deep fat fryer, take a few protein bars along with you, if possible, to get you over any gaps in the menu schedule. If this isn’t possible, spend a little time scouting out the options, early on. Identify your best/ least troublesome choices and plan around those. Take a few sachets of silicolgel^® (avogel.co.uk) with you (they slip easily into a pocket or bag), in case digestive discomfort strikes. Simple to take – just empty the sachet into your mouth – they can quell a surprising number of digestive complaints, so that you can enjoy the rest of the fest.