Turns out, going on a vacation or generally travelling a lot isn’t just good for you on a short term basis, it adds bona fide plus points to your mental, physical and emotional health as well. Getting out, experiencing new things, meeting new people, and learning about different cultures is an educational, enlightening journey. So next time you’re about to go back to the city from the beach, don’t bawl your brains out and give in to vacation withdrawal, remember the ways the trip has helped you instead!
Here are some ways travelling can soothe that worried mind.
1. Travelling can help keep you fit and healthy
Travelling usually forces you to change your routine, even if it’s for a short period. This results in a break in unhealthy habits and rapid periods of healthy behaviour.
2. Travelling can increase life expectancy
Research has shown that travel helps reduce stress, keeps your body healthy and boosts brain health, all important factors in increasing the longevity of your life.
3. It helps create meaningful relationships around the world
Apart from building a circle of friends outside of the ones in your hometown, you also end up having people around the world you can visit later on, and who can visit you in turn.
4. It improves your sex drive
Studies have suggested that travelling leads to a rise in body confidence and improves a person’s mood, making you more inclined towards physical intimacy and a heightened sexual drive. They didn’t name the drink sex on the beach for nothing.
5. It helps build confidence and a strong sense of self
Dealing with unexpected and unsuspecting situations forces you to take action, which in turn helps you realise your hidden strengths. In the long run, this helps build confidence and a belief in oneself.
6. Travelling can make you more positive and content
The effects of travelling aren’t just short-term, they linger, and mostly help instill you with zest and a lust for life, both of which are key necessities to being content and positive.
7. It can make you more creative
This one is pretty obvious, I mean writers and artists of all kinds travel far and wide to seek out inspiration and experience. Scientists have also backed this idea, claiming that travelling enhances the release of serotonin, which in turn gives us positivity, creativity and open mindedness.
8. It can improve our cognitive abilities
Apart from helping you adapt to different situations, travelling also makes you more aware of happenings around the world. Moulding your mind to this constant state of motion helps keep mental inertia at bay.
9. It can help you find inner peace
It’s a fact that travelling makes you happy, even journeys that may not work out as you’d planned. The feeling of looking forward to a trip and the inner peace a holiday offers does wonders for a person’s quality of life.
10. It helps reduce stress
As stated earlier, travelling instills a sense of positivity, which wouldn’t be possible without a reduction in a certain pesky hormone named cortisol, which is responsible for stress. Travelling reduces cortisol levels, and in turn lowers anxiety.
11. It helps you get in touch with your adventurous side
Almost everyone has an adventurous side, even if they don’t know it. Being stuck in a rut doesn’t exactly help realise that side’s potential however, but travelling does. Even booking a trip gives you a bit of an adrenaline rush, so imagine what going skiing in the Alps or ziplining in the forest could do for you.
12. It helps us develop new skills
Travelling somehow opens our minds up to learning news things more easily, so whether it’s making Kimbap in Korea or learning to climb a glacier, you’ll have educated yourself and retained information and skills you otherwise might never have known.
Go on, get outta town, have a little fun while you’re gone, and just come back in one piece!