Your Trade Show Physical and Mental Health Checklist (Part 1)

It is easy to get preoccupied by work around trade show time. Yet the cardinal sin of trade show survival is to be tuckered out before the exhibit hall even opens. 

At Verdure Sciences, we have developed a simple checklist that helps keep us refreshed and ready to make the most of our Marketplace experience.   

Promote foot health. For us office dwellers, trade shows are nothing less than extreme wilderness sports. The key part of our survival kit is a pair of good, comfortable shoes. And not new, never-before-worn shoes: we all know what that person bounding with blisters on their feet looks like. Not pretty!

Im not sure if anyone under the age of 80 still uses Epsom salts or cider vinegar as footbath remedies anymore, but lets just say that whatever you do to maintain health within the confines of your hotel room is your prerogative. 

Note: Marketplace Bonus Points are awarded to those who keep their flip-flops in their briefcase. Additional points go to those who wear them on the show floor. (And, yes, there is someone on the exhibit hall floor whose job is to keep track of Bonus Points. I think.)   

Go to bootcamp. It is not such a bad idea to do some physical training in advance for Marketplace. Try standing at your office PC every day for the next few weeks. Youll be looked at differently by your colleagues, maybe, but just tell them that looking funny at work is a small price to pay for the reward of trade show attendance.

Eat a balanced diet. The overwhelming amount of research data suggests exercise and diet together work synergistically for your health. Caloric restriction may offer a longer lifespan, but who wants to live that life anyway! So you have to eat, and you are in the right place to eat well. The food at the Javits Center is not bad for basic sustenance, and your average survivorman in the Alaskan wilderness would consider it a veritable feast.  But you are in Manhattan, where a whole world of wonderful food awaits. The midsection of town west of Broadway and between 14th St. and the south edge of Central Park (59th St.) are typically just a five-minute cab ride away from Javits, at least outside of prime rush hour. Use Yelp or Urbanspoon to find a suitable lunch spot close by in Chelsea, and great sandwiches are two blocks south of Javits on 11th Ave, at Tom Colicchios wichcraft.  

Later, the best dinner that youve never had is just a cab ride away in every NYC neighborhood.  It would take something like 52 years (I am told) to eat at all the restaurants in New York City, so just pick one.  The highbrow dining experience most likely to offer a medicinal plant you have not previously consumed is Atera in Lower Manhattan, which according to New York magazine melds the disparate worlds of molecular gastronomy and haute foraging. Euell Gibbons might be proud. Make reservations far in advance.