AU
Travelling isn't just a respite from your everyday life – it can have a profound benefit on your long-term health. Travel has been clinically proven to reduce anxiety and depression by encouraging gratitude, boosting happiness, and increasing satisfaction. Here are three ways it can improve your mental health:
It can give you confidence
No matter how perfectly we plan a trip, there are always unexpected challenges. Whether it's getting lost without wifi, missing a flight, or struggling to communicate in the local language, something unexpected seems to happen on every trip. In most cases, we find solutions to these setbacks: navigating our way through a new city, securing a different flight, or communicating with body language. After meeting challenges in an unfamiliar destination, we have a renewed sense of confidence, and smaller challenges at home feel much easier to face.
It can make you happy
Booking hotels, finding the best flight, and packing our bags are all proven to make us happy! A study conducted by Cornell University found that planning and anticipating a trip can significantly improve our levels of happiness – even more so than the anticipation of obtaining material possessions, like new clothes or a new car. Time to relax and do what we wish, without thinking about the stresses of everyday life, increases happiness as well.
It can give you the opportunity for self-discovery
When we’re Travelling, we almost always push ourselves a bit outside our comfort zone. We try new foods and activities, we see new things, and we meet new people. These experiences may help us discover new hobbies or passions – or even a hidden talent – just because we had a chance to try things we never would’ve tried at home. Travelling helps us learn more about ourselves and grow as individuals, which in turn has a positive impact on our mental health.
Sounds like a trip is just what the doctor ordered!
