Acumula millas para tu mente…¿Cómo viajar puede reducir el estrés?
Author: Elina Panayides
“We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.”
– Hilaire Belloc
The power of traveling and experiencing different cultures, meeting new people, and exploring places one has never seen before is an adventure in and of itself; one which is never forgotten.
When life becomes repetitive and routine-like, where most people wake up in the morning, go to work, and return back home just to do it all again the next day, one’s mind tries to think of ways to escape from the monotony that life sometimes offers. Traveling is one way to break this monotony and add a little bit of colour and adventure in one’s days.
Many believe that traveling requires money, long distances, y many days off. That, however, is not necessarily true. Traveling can occur during a weekend and does not require one to get on a plane for hours on end to reach a new destination. Traveling can occur in one’s own country or even hometown by visiting a place they never had the opportunity to visit before.
Traveling allows for time away from life’s worries and stressors, providing an opportunity for a reset. Research has proven that traveling has several benefits to one’s mental health, such as the following:
- Calms One’s Mind: Traveling helps people to have some time with themselves and/or their loved ones, which brings calmness to the individual and allowing them to enjoy their time away from work and life’s routine.
- Increases Creativity & Problem-Solving Skills: By visiting new places, meeting new people, and experiencing new things, it enhances an individual’s creativity as well as their problem-solving skills. The process of traveling requires an individual to keep their mind sharp in order to ‘survive’ in a place they have never been to before, hence keeping their mind preoccupied in order to figure everything out.
- Increases Productivity: The experiences one gains through traveling as well as the reset they have the opportunity to go through, increases one’s productivity because they return to their lives with new perspectives and energy to work.
- Improves Fitness & Overall Health: Traveling can also help someone stay physically fit and healthy due to the lack of constant access to transportation in new countries/places (especially when one leaves their car at home), encouraging them to walk around. Hence, physical health goes hand in hand with mental health.
- Decreases Burnout: Traveling to the beach or the mountains provides instant relief due to the fresh air and the open space, as well as the peaceful environment that comes with listening to sound of the waves at the beach, or the calming sounds of nature up in the mountains.
Traveling has so much to offer to a person, way beyond just ticking countries and places off of one’s bucket list. The power of experiencing new things and meeting new people in places one has never visited before, offers a kind of peace which is hard to obtain through other means. Therefore, it is important not only to take the time to organise a trip with oneself or loved ones, but to also take the time to absorb the adventure which comes along with traveling.
References
- Bhandari, S. (2024, February 25). How Travel Affects Mental Health. WebMD.https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/how-travel-affects-mental-health
- Birtles, K. (2021, April 15). 7 ways travel is scientifically proven to reduce stress. Trafalgar Tours.https://www.trafalgar.com/real-word/scientifically-proven-travel-reduces-stress/
