Are you a businessperson with a consistently full diary? Or do you have your hands full looking after your family? Whatever your story, leading a hectic lifestyle can mean not spending enough time focusing on your mental health and well-being.
Between juggling work, and social and family responsibilities, it can feel hard to find the time – but practising self-care is vital to avoid burning out.
Luckily, one effective way to boost your well-being is to pack your bags and head off on vacation.
The idea of the travelling benefits varies from one person to another, but the health benefits of travelling are unlimited. It’s important to know them and to know how is important for you to travel!
Here are some of the hidden health benefits of travelling:
- Travel Relieves Stress
- Exposure to Nature
- Keeps Your Mind Sharp
- Wards Off Burnout
- Lowers Risk of Heart Disease
- Travel Makes You Happier
- Helps Your Listening Skills
- Strengthen Your Relationships
- Promotes Physical Activity
- Boosts Creativity
- Helps Aging in a Healthy Way
- Helps Get back in shape
- Improves self-confidence
- Boosts Your Mood
- Shifts Perspective
- Boosts Immune System
- Helps Expand Your Mindset
- Increases Productivity
- Improves Cognitive Function
- Boosts Weight Loss Efforts
Top 20 Remarkable Health Benefits of Traveling (Explained)
Now, that you have known the main points I am going to talk about. Let’s dig deep and explain every single travel health benefit in-depth:
1. Travel Relieves Stress
How often have you gone on vacation and returned feeling relaxed and rejuvenated? Travelling is one of the best ways to release stress because it takes you away from your mental and physical problems.
Just planning a vacation can help take your mind off issues that cause anxiety and tension. Dreaming about where you’d like to visit and what you’d like to do when you get there can offer a welcome distraction from tedious day-to-day annoyances.
People often get overwhelmed with work, daily chores, and routines filled with obligations. On the other hand, vacations offer an opportunity to spend a relaxing time with family and loved ones. Even a solo trip can allow individuals to enjoy time away from the everyday pressures of life.
Just a short furlough can provide relaxation time and recovery. So, stress relief is probably one of the most remarkable both health and mental benefits of travelling.
2. Exposure to Nature
Most workspaces are designed to be compact and functional. Although this is practical in one sense, it can leave people without exposure to any natural elements for extended periods.
Travelling and vacation time allow you to experience outdoor elements such as sunshine that they have been missing.
Exposure to the outdoors is good for your health. Being outside, immersed in natural elements and green spaces, can decrease blood pressure, increase attention, and even reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety.
Fresh air can increase your alertness and reduce symptoms of nausea. Not to mention that sunshine is a mood elevator and can help travellers increase their vitamin D intake.
3. Keep Your Mind Sharp
When you travel, you meet new people, discover new places, adapt to new situations, and become more socially aware. New experiences help you keep your mind sharp and improve your cognitive flexibility, which all help you manage stress.
The research found that those who travel are more likely to be open and emotionally stable. At the same time, other studies have shown that travel can increase creativity and cultural and personal awareness and introduce new ways of thinking.
You can use creativity to improve your daily routine, organise your life and figure out ways to reduce stress. Which all makes you a better healthy version of yourself.
4. Wards Off Burnout
Burnout happens when we’re overworked and overstressed. One of the best ways to avoid burnout is to take regular time out to relax and recharge.
And what better way to unwind than with a holiday?
Whether it’s a weekend trip or a getaway to tropical shores, a holiday is an enriching act of self-care. From the excitement of planning the trip to having the freedom to rest, be present and do what you love, travel reduces stress and helps to maintain a healthy mindset.
So, if you’re someone who works hard and is burned out travel will help you escape, practice self-care and get back fully energized.
5. Lowers Risk of Heart Disease
High blood pressure and the risk of heart disease are real issues for many people. It’s a well-known fact that a healthy diet, exercise, and positive lifestyle changes can help with this health condition.
But did you know that travelling is also attributed to decreased risk of heart disease?
Even if you have a pre-existing condition or health risk factor, such as high blood pressure, embarking on an annual vacation to a new destination can reduce your risk of developing this condition.
A joint study from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies and the U.S. Travel Association concluded that women who vacation at least twice yearly significantly lowered their risk of a heart attack compared to those who only travelled once every six years.
The same study also concluded that men who don’t take vacations at least once a year increased their risk of heart disease by 30% and their risk of death by 20%.
6. Travel Makes You Happier
A recent study in the Journal of “Tourism Analysis” shows that people who travel frequently are 7% happier than those who rarely or never travel. You don’t have to travel far to benefit. Study participants reported greater happiness levels when they travelled 75 miles or more from home.
Another interesting study found that money spent on experiences provides longer-lasting happiness than material purchases. This is because people experience more happiness from anticipating experiences rather than from waiting to obtain a material possession.
You’ll be happier if you spend your money on a plane ticket to Thailand rather than a new iPhone.
There are many other reasons why travel can lead to happiness. For one, it allows you to step out of your comfort zone and experience new and exciting things. Travel allows you to escape the daily grind of work and other responsibilities.
Travel allows you to meet new people and create lasting memories with friends or family. Alternatively, it can give you some time away from your parents, kids, or spouse. All of this can bring happiness.
7. Helps Your Listening Skills
When travelling with a group, you must actively listen to the directions to keep safe. Further, if you are meeting people who do not have diverse language skills, listening is vitally important.
You will have to listen carefully when a language barrier is an issue. In addition, when travelling, we often listen to the tales of the culture and are open to many learning opportunities.
Listening is a vital interpersonal skill useful for psychologists, doctors, and social workers. Being a good listener will also strengthen personal relationships, allowing us to listen to our friends’ concerns and issues and potentially support them.
By travelling abroad you get the opportunity to develop many skills including listening and survival.
8. Strengthen Your Relationships
Travelling can have its challenges if you travel with those close to you. There can be stressful periods, and there can be connecting moments.
When travelling creates stressful periods, it can cause tension in relationships. However, this can be a great test for the relationship. It allows individuals to learn healthy coping strategies together and overcome similar stresses in the future.
Travelling can also be very inspiring and connecting. It is likely a new experience for relationships and, in turn, brings individuals together. Travelling can show people’s weaknesses and strengths.
It can reveal the qualities of individuals. Therefore, travelling can strengthen not only your interpersonal skills when it comes to career choices but also your personal life.
9. Promotes Physical Activity
It’s so easy to get stuck in a rut when you’re following the same routine regularly. Even if you’ve implemented an exercise routine into your daily schedule, you may only stay physically active for an hour or less each day.
Travel allows you to be active throughout the day, visiting local attractions, participating in fun activities, or just generally exploring.
Most of the time, you probably won’t notice that you’re working your muscles more frequently because you’re so excited to learn about your new destination.
When you book a trip to a new place, whether a beautiful resort in Maui or a quaint bed and breakfast in London, be prepared to get in many more steps and movement than you usually do at home, a stroll down the beach at sunset or a walk through the bustling city at night.
It is an exhilarating way to immerse yourself in your new destination and learn more about the culture while also getting extra exercise.
It’s important to remember that your actual travel days can be more passive than usual. You might have to sit on a plane, bus, or train for hours without much movement. Keep yourself energized and feeling good by eating healthy while travelling, so you don’t start your vacation with low energy.
10. Boosts Creativity
The ability to move around from one place to another is an individual’s main virtue. All living beings, including animals, have been blessed with this ability, but humans are always a step forward.
Nowadays, travelling has become a hobby for millions of people worldwide. But many people need help understanding that there are numerous benefits of travelling.
Travelling makes you come across new people from different cultures. It helps you get new experiences while creating lifetime memories. But most importantly, it boosts your creativity.
Yes, travelling makes you a completely new person and gives you a whole new perception of things. Travel can make you smarter and more creative if you have not decided where to go.
So how does travelling unleash your creativity?
When you visit a new place, it boosts your cognitive flexibility and thinking abilities. It makes you do new things like forming new connections, learning new cultures, adapting new things, and having multicultural engagement.
As we all know, creativity comes from new and exciting life experiences. But when you have only certain things in life, like going to the office and coming back or doing household chores, your mind’s ability to think and learn gets blocked.
You get bored with your monotonous life, deeply affecting your creative thinking abilities.
So how can you make your mind free from those synapses?
Well, travelling or vacationing in a new country or state is the answer to that. Travelling to a new place opens your mind. It boosts your creative abilities to a whole new level. But it makes you a creative person and helps you live your life much healthier and happier.
It is a well-known fact that travelling makes a person innovative. Still, the reasons may vary from individual to individual.
So next time you visit a new place don’t miss Interacting with the locals, participating in their events, learning about their culture, trying local cuisines and spending time with them. Doing this will make you a lot more creative.
11. Helps Aging In A Healthy Way
Who likes to get old?
That’s right, nobody! It is the drastic deterioration of your physical and mental state that has turned the process of ageing so very unpopular.
But what if we were to say that if you travel frequently, this process won’t take a toll on you?
Yes, a recent study has revealed to us that travel helps promote brain health and resilience throughout your life.
12. Helps Get Back In Shape
While some may not describe holidays as an opportunity to escalate their fitness routine, travellers are bound to be more active than sitting in an office chair all day.
Without realising, you’ll end up walking ten miles on a sightseeing day in Europe or just visiting Disney World. Besides, trekking or hiking are just part of your trip to any hill station.
No wonder fitness has become something that the travel industry likes to capitalise on, indulging travellers in embracing a healthy lifestyle.
13. Improves Self-Confidence
When travelling, you’re likely to experience things that put you outside your comfort zone, especially discovering a new city, exploring a country that speaks another language, or taking part in adrenaline-fueled activities like skydiving.
Navigating new or stressful situations is a great way to overcome fears or learn new skills, giving you a great sense of accomplishment afterwards.
This will help boost your confidence and self-esteem, showing that you can achieve whatever you want. Increased self-esteem may help you to achieve in many areas of your life, from successfully securing a new business deal to hitting a personal objective.
14. Boosts Your Mood
Another way that travelling is good for mental health is it helps to boost your mood. During vacations, you can fill your days doing things you enjoy that you may not usually have time for with your busy schedule.
From taking a dip in the ocean to skiing on the slopes, discovering a new city, to hiking through a National Park – you can plan your trip around activities that make you happy.
This will inevitably improve your mood and give you an increased feeling of satisfaction with life.
15. Shifts Perspective
Travel broadens your perspectives, not only of the world but also of yourself.
When travelling, you may often find yourself in situations you wouldn’t be in otherwise. You face the reality of living outside your comfort zone, which, as uncomfortable as it is, allows you to transform how you see things.
Psychologists point out that people often have epiphanies while travelling, as they can view their problems more detachedly.
Watching firsthand how other people live, almost like viewing the world through someone else’s eyes, helps to broaden your view and leaves you with an opportunity for personal growth.
Watching how other cultures live can force you to challenge your assumptions and free your mind to experience alternative ways of being.
16. Boosts the Immune System
Travelling abroad might strengthen your immune system as well.
According to studies, when you travel to other countries, your health is exposed to various diseases, strengthening your immune system’s antibodies.
These antibodies strengthen your body’s immune system, making it more equipped to fend against illnesses and diseases.
How does moving from one location to another affect your immune system?
There is an easy solution. Your body is accustomed to the same bacteria and germs at home. You will come into touch with new creatures when you travel, many of which are absent from your nation.
17. Helps Expand Your Mindset
Being more understanding and tolerant of a different culture than yours is part of being smarter.
You may feel comfortable in your place, but that’s just a fraction of the world! If you’re a student, take advantage of programs like Erasmus to get to know more people, experience, and understand their culture.
Dare to travel to areas where you have a sceptical opinion. You will change your mind and realize that everything is not so bad outside.
18. Increases Productivity
While travelling around, you plan your entire day and do all the tasks promptly for maximum fun. This way, travelling makes you more productive, as you abandon all your stress and laziness.
A study conducted at a German university finds that while vacations disengage you from work, they give you more strength in stressful situations and increase your productivity and engagement at work.
While long trips provide great relief, even a two-day affair with a peaceful getaway provides appreciable work-stress recovery.
19. Improves Cognitive Function
Travelling for business and leisure changes your daily schedule, introducing new aspects to your mental focus.
For instance, understanding new routes, learning different office cultures, habituating yourselves to the new accommodation, and handling your trip budget while travelling all vitalize your mental capacities, giving your brain new or different tasks.
This way, you can develop better novel ideas after the trip, once you’re back home, and experience increased creativity.
Someone living abroad and not engaging with the locals will not get much of a creative boost compared to someone travelling abroad and genuinely engaging with them.
20. Boosts Weight Loss Efforts
Travel is exciting. Travel is enriching. Many get lost while travelling, and many end up finding themselves. You may have heard many things about travel and what it brings with it.
But has anyone ever told you that travel is way more effective at helping you lose weight than the several other popular techniques these days?
Sure, gymming and dieting are effective ways to shed those extra kilos, but how awesome would you feel if you just travelled, explored the world, had some of the best experiences of your life and also lost some weight in the duration?
Be it a long and tiring trek or a swim in the ocean, the activities help us burn those extra calories, which helps us reduce weight.
So you see?
Travel has more benefits than you know! Next time you think of putting yourself on a diet you do not like, go travelling instead. You will have loads of fun while losing those unwanted kilos.
More Travel Inspiration:
Final Thoughts
All in all, travel broadens the mind and exposes us to new cultures – but it turns out that there are plenty of health benefits of travel, too.
A break from our routine can reduce stress levels, help us sleep better, improve our heart health, and even make us happier and more productive when we return to work.
So if you’re looking for a way to boost your physical and mental health this year, maybe it’s time to start planning your next trip.
That’s it for this inspirational post. I hope you enjoyed reading it.
Thanks for reading. Stay awesome (:
Cheers!
