It’s a scientific fact: Travel is good for your health. Even short trips have shown to reduce stress for weeks after travelers return home. Giving your brain a break and changing your state of mind can boost creativity and make you more productive.
“Traveling provides our minds with time to relax and heal, easing worries and anxiety and improving mood,” Dr. Kristin McKitish of Evolved Science told Travel + Leisure. “These benefits are not only seen during travel, but for sometime thereafter, which can lead to an improvement in focus, productivity, and mental health upon returning.”
Think about your fondest memories. Odds are at least a few of them are from vacations with your favorite people. You don’t remember all the stress you had from work or daily life at the time, you remember the pure joy you had in the moment.
Even just thinking about traveling does wonders for us. “The mere idea of getting away can bring a sense of immediate happiness,” clinical psychologist Dr. Carla Marie Manly told Well + Good. “In essence, the simple act of imagining a future positive event can induce a sense of joy and well-being.”
Planning a trip, and the anticipation of going on it boosts serotonin levels and reduces stress, which has innumerable benefits for health. We daydream to escape the humdrum and the aggravating. It’s exciting to imagine exploring new places and meeting new people. Even before we leave, we get the feeling of freedom that comes from having no obligations and leaving our cares behind to go off on an adventure.
Working with a travel advisor makes it easier to turn that fantasy into reality because an advisor does the work of smoothing the bumps that come up along the way, allowing you to revel more in good feelings. You know things are taken care of, instead of traveling adding a new set of stressors for you to deal with. And if taking an active role in the planning gives you those good feelings, you can be as hands-on as you want in the trip designing process.
Research has also shown that experiences give us more long-term satisfaction than material goods do. The act of seeking out a new experience, stimulating our brains and bodies, makes us feel alive. There’s really nothing like it. That’s especially now, when supply chain disruptions have made it increasingly more difficult to get a lot of goods, while countries all over the world are reopening to visitors. Travel, it’s one of the best parts of life, and it’s back in a big way. We couldn’t be happier about that.