“The World Is a Book and Those Who Do Not Travel Read Only One Page”
A quote attributed to Saint Augustine of Hippo and expounds on the idea that so many fantastic things can be learned from breaking out from our known limitations and discovering the world around us. Sometimes travel is not possible for all of us but even short distances, to places we’ve never been before, can be eye-opening as it offers up new experiences and allows us to see life from a different point of view from those who live it in a different manner. It tells us that our life experience is not the only one. This sounds all well and good, but few of us have the provision to be constantly traveling and perhaps think investing in items over travel is the best course of action to take so why should travel be so highly revered? Here we look at what exploration can offer up and how it can be measured through its positive aspects. As Mark Twain Said:
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
Psychological Benefits
Studies have found that people are more satisfied with experience purchases over those of physical items. This is because of enhanced social relations, more opportunity for personal growth, and less competition in terms of social status and so it has a greater impact on your identity than a physical accouterment or accessory might. According to Human Behavior Expert Ph.D. and creator of SRTT Therapy Patrick Wanis:
“Experiences incite greater and more intense emotional responses than do possessions, Experiences tend to include other people and thus connections and interactions with other people can also generate great satisfaction. Experiences can also become hypnotic when they engage all of our senses. Because human nature tends to take things for granted, we also quickly tire of possessions once they lose that ‘sparkle.’”
Travel also forces us into different, perhaps unexpected challenges, which not only challenges our perceptions of the world but also our own creativity, inner strength and personality as we react and learn to interact with these new situations. It also provides us with a greater array of humanity so that we might view more of what life is to others and how they help themselves, others and even you along the way. This makes us more empathetic to others in their plights and joys that they experience and we can gain new ways of approaching them. This, in turn, increases our emotional intelligence as we discover more about ourselves and the world.
It’s Good For The Head and The Heart
It has been said that travel is a cure-all for a broken heart as it provides distance and life experience given you an instant relief from wallowing in the waters of sorrow as you plunge yourself into the greater wide world. There is actually significant evidence to suggest that this may well true as well because when a person feels isolated, unincluded or at a loss, there is a change of blood flow about the brain with the anterior cingulate cortex (responsible for regulating physical pain distress) becomes more active during these times.This, in turn, can have a negative effect on the body as well. By changing that situation into one where the brain has to focus on other things, not only does it offer a distraction but it also can give perspective due to distance and new surroundings. Aside from this, blood flow around the brain can be redirected by learning, so learning of a new culture or even a few words in a new language can boost cognitive function, reroute that blood flow and make the head feel happier.
However, although it can aid with the healing of a broken heart, it cannot heal it and this advice should be acknowledged by all those considering it. Emotional wounds can only be overcome once you can move past them and this applies to love as well which can only be re-established once that person is comfortable with themselves. Travel sees that person discover more about themselves, find out more about what they need and want in life and so helps them see that, not only can they survive alone, but that they have opened their mind to the possibilities of the world and a narrow relationship may not be what they desire right now. Of course, the human experience is different for each individual but these things can help. It gives you the freedom to be you outside of a relationship and outside of set pattern and routine and that can provide enough of a new perspective to see what parts of your personality and lifestyle you wish to focus on.
It Can Make You More Creative
Creativity is born of new experiences and comes from the excitement of doing new things. New sights, sounds and smell spark the synapses in the brain as it reacts to things it has never previously had to before and so thought can become more in-depth, cognitively flexible and deep in its connections to other things. Many writers such as Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway used their travel experiences to shape and inform their work as it offered them new things to see, do and write about. To try and explain the world they saw and the things they felt to the people back home and many artists and painters have also done the same thing. Exposure to different experiences can heighten the creative sense as can immersing oneself in new, or uncommon environments.
It Makes You Happier
A study by the university of Surrey, in England, found that people are at their happiest when they know they have a trip coming up and therefore just the act of planning a vacation or time away from your regular routine can impact your mental health. Add to that that a Cornell University study found people are happier just knowing they are going on a vacation versus knowing they are going to be purchasing something and it becomes clear that the mind reacts positively to travel.A lot of this has to do with the excitement of planning or the anticipation of the unknown so let your mind absorb the tiny moments of planning and enjoying your trip because the anticipation is half of the fun.