Keeping the Routine When You Fly Every Week
Medically reviewed by
4 independent reviewers
Andrew Conrad Barile, PT, DPT
Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) | Licensed Physical Therapist (PT) | CEO and Founder, Xtreem Pulse LLC
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Dr. Andrew Conrad Barile is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and the CEO and Founder of Xtreem Pulse LLC, the engineering company behind PureLift. He earned his Doctorate in Physical Therapy from Daemen College and is a licensed physical therapist.
He brings over two decades of clinical and entrepreneurial experience across physical therapy, craniosacral therapy and medical device innovation, built on a working knowledge of human anatomy and muscle physiology.
For PureLift LAB he reviews how current is delivered across all ten levels, from sub-sensory nanocurrent and skin-level microcurrent to motor-level EMS, and how the Infuse pass fits into the same ten-minute routine.
Bertica M. Rubio, M.D.
Board-Certified Physician, Dartmouth Medical School | Medical Director, Antiaging Regenerative Medicine Clinic
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Dr. Bertica M. Rubio is a board-certified physician and Medical Director of the Antiaging Regenerative Medicine Clinic in Redlands, California. She earned her Doctor of Medicine from Dartmouth Medical School and completed her pediatrics residency at UC Irvine Medical Center.
With decades of clinical experience, she specialises in age management medicine, regenerative medicine, wound healing and growth factor therapies, and her practice integrates evidence-based medical science with advanced aesthetic treatment.
For PureLift LAB she reviews articles for medical accuracy across the whole dial, from the gentle nanocurrent and microcurrent settings through to muscle-level EMS and the Infuse pass.
Daniel Grinberg, MD, FACS
Board-Certified Otolaryngologist | Head and Neck Surgeon | Fellow, American College of Surgeons | Mount Sinai
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Daniel Grinberg, MD, FACS is a board-certified otolaryngologist and head and neck surgeon at ENT and Allergy Associates in West Nyack, New York. He earned his medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
He completed his otolaryngology residency at New York University Medical Center, serves as Assistant Clinical Professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and is a Fellow of both the American College of Surgeons and the American Academy of Otolaryngology.
For PureLift LAB he brings a wider clinical lens, connecting at-home facial stimulation from microcurrent to EMS to the anatomy underneath, with the same rigour we apply to every device specification.
Prof. Dr. med. Ivo Buschmann
Chair of Angiology, Medizinische Hochschule Brandenburg | Clinic Director, University Clinic for Angiology
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Prof. Dr. med. Ivo Buschmann is Chair of Angiology at the Medizinische Hochschule Brandenburg Theodor Fontane and Clinic Director of the University Clinic for Angiology at the Brandenburg University Hospital.
He trained at the University of Hamburg, was a Max Planck Society Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research, and held senior consultant posts at the Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin before his appointment as Chair in 2016.
One of Europe's leading authorities on arteriogenesis, with over 150 peer-reviewed publications and US and EU patents, he reviews for PureLift LAB how the evidence on electrical stimulation is read and where its limits lie.
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If you fly most weeks, the problem is not any individual flight; it is that a habit needs a fixed cue and yours keeps moving between hotels.
This article walks through the routine step by step, such as:
- The real problem is the cue, not the travel
- The permanent travel kit
- The shortened session
- What not to do
- The cabin, briefly
and many more!
Four sessions a week that follow you beats seven that stay in your bathroom.
Key Points:
Anchor the session to an event rather than a place: after the shower, whichever bathroom it is.
Decant a small bottle of serum you keep permanently in the bag rather than packing it each time.
Charge before you leave; hotel sockets and adapters are where routines die.
Carry it in hand luggage in a case, not loose in a wash bag in the hold.
Do not use it on the plane, and do not double up to make up for missed days.
The real problem is the cue, not the travel
Habits fire from a fixed trigger, and most people anchor a facial routine to a place: this sink, this mirror, this time. Change the bathroom every week and the trigger stops working, which is why frequent travellers lose routines that people at home keep effortlessly.
Anchor it to an event instead. After the evening shower, whatever room the shower is in. Before you open the laptop in the morning, wherever the desk is.
An event-based cue travels; a place-based one does not.
The permanent travel kit
Keep a second set packed all the time rather than transferring things before each trip, since the transfer step is where it gets forgotten.
The device in a hard case, a small decanted bottle of the water-based serum you normally use, a plug adapter if you cross regions, and a cloth for cleaning the probe.
Check voltage and plug type for where you are going, once, and keep the right adapter in the bag permanently.
Charge before you leave home. A flat device in a hotel room with the wrong adapter is the single most common reason a travelling week becomes a missed week.
The shortened session
On a travelling day, do the jaw and the neck and skip the rest. That is the area where a change is most visible and it takes four minutes.
Use your normal working level rather than dropping it, since the point is to keep the muscle work going rather than to be gentle.
Finish down the neck. Even a short session should end at the collarbone.
Three minutes per side is the maximum on any PureLift model, and the ten minute session ends on its own whether or not you are in your own bathroom.
What not to do
Do not use it on the plane. Dry cabin air, bad light and no privacy make it a worse session than no session.
Do not double up on the days you are home to compensate. The muscle does not bank work, and Kavanagh and colleagues ran a 12-week protocol where consistency across the span was the point (10.1111/jocd.12007), not intensity in bursts.
Do not pack it in the hold loose in a wash bag. A hard case in hand luggage, every time.
The cabin, briefly
Cabin humidity sits around ten to twenty percent, drier than most deserts, so skin loses water and your serum evaporates faster for a day afterwards. Expect to reapply more often in the session after a flight.
Sitting still for hours means lymph has almost nothing moving it, which is why you land puffy. Walking the aisle every couple of hours does more than anything in your bag.
On arrival, rehydrate and do a drainage pass at a low level rather than a full muscle session, and pick the normal routine back up the following day.
Setting the expectation
You will miss sessions. Someone flying weekly will average four a week rather than six, and four a week sustained for three months beats six a week abandoned in February.
Missing two days costs nothing, and treating a missed week as a failed attempt is what actually ends routines.
Photograph monthly in the same light when you are home, so the comparison is not confounded by four different hotel bathrooms.
For the post-flight specifics, see what a long flight does to your face.