The Life of a Showgirl allegedly does not include days off or upchucking onstage.
Taylor Swift recently revealed that she never took a sick day — or a bare minimum Monday — during her grueling 18-month Eras tour, which she described as the “most exciting, powerful, most challenging thing” she has ever done.
“I just make a decision at the beginning of the tour that there’s no option to not go on stage,” she told Stephen Colbert on the Dec. 10 episode of “The Late Show.” “That’s not an option, and it’s not an option to perform like, ‘I think I’ll do this show at a level six tonight.’ That’s not an option.”
The show did indeed go on, despite serious illness. Swift divulged that over the course of the 149 shows of the Eras tour, she had the stomach flu “multiple times.” Undaunted by nausea and fever, she favored a grin-and-bear-it approach.
“My goal was, like, never let them know you have the stomach flu,” she said.
While Swift did not specifically name-check any methods for masking her symptoms, a cheap, quick, and simple nurse’s trick can help you keep you from tossing your cookies — on and off stage.
Experts say placing a pad soaked in isopropyl alcohol under your nose can help treat nausea and prevent vomiting. The pads should be placed 1 to 2 centimeters below the nostrils, and patients should inhale as deeply and as frequently as needed to relieve nausea.
In a puke-y pinch, you can also try huffing some isopropanol-based hand sanitizer.
Research found that among patients admitted to the ER with nausea, those who inhaled isopropyl alcohol reported a reduction in nausea score from 50 out of 100 to 20, compared with those who received oral anti-nausea medication, whose score decreased from 50 to 40.
The relief could be attributed in part to the smell’s distracting quality, combined with the controlled, deep breathing required to inhale the medicine.
However, while isopropanol may alleviate symptoms of nausea and vomiting, unlike oral medications, it cannot prevent them.
Swift has not disclosed whether she relied on this huffing hack or any other cure during her bug-plagued performances. Still, she did say that putting on her first outfit of the night — a bedazzled Versace bodysuit —helped her push through the pain.
“I was constantly in a lot of physical pain, but when I put that on, I was just like, ‘No, this is popping. I’m doing it,” she said.
A rhinestone remedy, if you will.
Swift also shared that her perseverance in the face of pestilence is born from a deep knowledge of and devotion to her fanbase.
“These people have saved up their money, they have re-arranged their schedules, they have arranged transportation, they’ve had parties, they’ve created costumes, they’ve made sweatshirts, they’ve made friendship bracelets,” she said. “I’m doing the show.”
Her physical training for the Eras tour began months before the first show and included singing her entire set list out loud while running on a treadmill, as well as two hours of strength, conditioning, and core work per day, six days a week.
Designed to keep her in peak performance mode, the regimen is enough to make mere mortals pray to the porcelain gods.
Swift’s trainer, Kirk Myers, told Vogue, “It’s really hard; some people would probably throw up or have to lie down on the floor if they trained like her.”
