Fourteen years of long haul: what the body actually does over a career, the things I wish I had started at 25, and the honest version of the health cost

Virgin Atlantic, 14 years, purser, long haul only, 44 years old, and there is a lot of short term fatigue advice on here and almost nothing about what fourteen years of this does to a body, because the people who could write it have mostly left. I have not, so here it is.

Sleep

The headline. My sleep at 44 is worse than it was at 30, and the job is most of the reason. Fourteen years of crossing five to eight time zones several times a month has left me with a sleep pattern that is fragile: I sleep well on layovers and badly at home, I wake at 4am for no reason, and I need blackout and silence in a way I never did. The company's fatigue management is real and it is better than it was. It does not undo the physiology. Every senior long haul crew I know says a version of this.

The back and the knees

Trolleys, overhead bins, galley floors, standing for ten hours, the hotel mattress lottery. My lower back started complaining at 35 and I ignored it until 38. Physio, core strength and a proper pillow I carry in my bag fixed most of it. The crew who did not fix it have retired early or moved to the ground. The knees are the stairs on the big aircraft and the landing of a trolley brake for the ten thousandth time.

The skin and the gut

Cabin humidity is very low. Fourteen years of it and my skin is a full time project. The gut is worse: eating at strange hours, crew meals, layover restaurants, the hotel breakfast at 3pm body time. I had a year of stomach trouble at 40 that the doctor attributed to the pattern, and the fix was boring: regular meals on home time even when abroad, and less of the layover dinners.

The weight

Some crew gain, some lose. I gained slowly and then lost it when I stopped drinking on layovers at 39, which is the single best decision I have made in this job and which I should have made at 25.

The mental side

The loneliness of long layovers, the missed birthdays and Christmases, the relationships that ended because I was never there, the friends who stopped inviting me. These are real costs and they compound. What has kept me healthy: a partner who understands the job (she is ex crew), the crew community, and a rule that I do not sit in the hotel room alone for more than an hour awake.

What I wish I had started at 25

Core strength three times a week, not the gym for looks. No alcohol on layovers. Blackout curtains I own. A proper pillow. Regular medical checks including the ones nobody wants. Saving a percentage of every per diem. And a life outside flying, deliberately built, so that when the going phase comes (and it comes every few years) there is something else to hold.

Would I do it again

Yes. The world, the people, the not dreading Monday, the fact that at 44 I have been everywhere and worked with everyone. The costs are real and I have listed them. The job is still the best I can imagine having. But I would tell the 25 year old: start the boring habits now, because the body keeps the score and the score comes due at 40.