In this post I want to share with you the benefits of traveling specifically on your mental health. Traveling has so many benefits, but something we don’t often consider is the benefits that it has on our mental health. I’m going to be sharing 7 benefits of traveling, and I’d love to connect with you guys about how travel has benefited your mental health, in the comments or on Instagram (@lindseyannmorrison).
The Benefits of Traveling: Why taking a vacation is good for your mental health
What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of traveling? Is it the food you might try or the people you’ll meet? Well, the benefits of traveling go way beyond making new friends and trying your new favorite food. Travel can influence us quite positively in a lot of different ways. In fact, here are 7 ways that travel benefits your mental health specifically.
- Travel can help reduce stress
There have been plenty of times when going on vacation, and more specifically planning a vacation has been stressful for me. (That’s actually why I sometimes use a travel agency or consult another expert to book my trips.) Booking with a travel agency or travel expert (even though I am an experienced traveler myself) helps the stress get lifted off my shoulders, and instead I just get to enjoy the stress reducing benefits of travel.
When you’re traveling you get to play by your own rules. You get to have all the happy hours you want. You can lie around in the sun and if you want, spend the whole day doing nothing but swimming, sunbathing and reading. What better way to reduce stress?
Traveling takes you away from the normal stresses that you deal with everyday. It gives you a chance to reset, let someone else cook for you, let someone else drive you around, and simply wake up whenever you want. If you want some ideas of how to really make the most of stress relieving travel, check out this guide I have for you HERE.
- It can help you find new ways to relax
Secondly, travel can help you relax in ways that you can’t relax at home. How many times at home have you wanted to sit down and read or enjoy a glass of wine but then you start thinking about the emails you have to send, or the chores around the house that you have to do… It happens to me all the time.
When you’re traveling you don’t have to worry about any of that. Instead you can sit outside reading or journaling for the entire day if you’d like. Once while I was traveling I read 2 books in 2 days, simply because I wanted to lay outside by the pool and read all weekend. So I did.
Allow yourself to find your way to purely relax when you’re traveling. It’s one of the biggest benefits that traveling can have on your mental health.
- Traveling can help you stay fit
There are a few benefits to traveling that relate to our health. For one, traveling often helps us stay in better shape, but two, traveling takes away the stress of losing weight. You’re too busy enjoying vacation to worry about that extra pound that was stressing you out at home.
On top of that, travel can help us to stay in better shape. We’re way more likely to do more walking, hiking and swimming when we’re traveling. All of these things are going to contribute to your overall physical and mental health.
Consistent exercise also helps your mental health in so many ways. So even if you aren’t getting in a hotel workout, you are probably still doing a lot more physical activity than you normally do when you’re at home sitting at your desk to work.
- Traveling boosts your creativity
There’s nothing better for a creativity boost than travel. I almost always have my best ideas while I’m traveling! Getting into a new environment can spark a lot of creativity in you, and when you’re feeling your most creative and most relaxed self, it’s going to help your mental health of course. So let the creativity juices flow the next time you’re traveling. Trust me, it’s always a good idea.
- Traveling shakes up the status quo
Traveling puts you in new situations forcing you to talk to strangers and try new things (in other words, it shakes up your status quo). Some of us might feel a heightened sense of anxiety when we think about having to talk to strangers… it used to be really hard for me. What helps is if you remind yourself though that when you talk to strangers, they’re just that! Strangers! You’ll probably never see them again, so it doesn’t matter what they think of you. When you approach things like that, it takes away a lot of the anxieties around being outside of your comfort zone! We’ve met some pretty amazing people over the years through our travels. And to be honest, those are a lot of the stories and conversations that stick with us the most.
Travel is so good at shaking up the status quo and taking us out of our comfort zones. At the end of the day, that can help you develop new coping mechanisms and it alone can have a lot of benefits on your mental health. Allow yourself to be outside of your comfort zone and try to go with the flow when you’re traveling.
- Traveling gives you a new perspective
Another huge benefit of traveling for your mental health is that it gives you a new perspective. I’m not saying that a new perspective will fix how you’re feeling, but it really can boost your mental health and be a good reminder that you are doing alright.
Mental health is complex but sometimes a simple reminder that you’re doing alright, can do wonders for you. Traveling brings you a new perspective. Let that new perspective shape how you go home. I bet a new sense of perspective will also help bring you a new sense of calm.
- It’s an act of self-care!
Finally of course, traveling is a major form of self care. That’s why the last benefit of traveling that I want to share with you is self care. If you’re new around here, I talk a lot about self care and especially how we can incorporate self care into our travels. But now I’m here to tell you that travel in itself is a form of self care!
When you feel like you’re undeserving of nice things, treat yourself to a trip! The mere excitement will be enough to boost you out of any bad mood. In reality though, treating yourself to a trip when you feel the most undeserving, is one of the best things that you can do as an act of self care.
A great example is that right now we are limited in our travel, and I’ve been feeling quite ‘stuck’. It’s been impacting my mental health a LOT. So in order to treat myself, I finally booked a trip (with the possibility to cancel if travel is still restricted). This simple act of booking myself a trip has lifted my mood so much and really given myself something to look forward to.
Allow yourself to get carried away in the excitement of your trip. And when you’re on your trip, make sure that you spend plenty of time practicing self-care! You can find a lot of ways to practice self care when you’re traveling in a recent article I did, all about self-care practice and wellness while traveling. Find that article here.
Add travel to your plan for mental health care.
Are you feeling more excited to incorporate travel into your mental health care? I hope so! It’s so important to take care of your mental health and I really believe that travel can have some of the biggest benefits on mental health. What do you think? Let’s talk more about it in the comments below!
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