How traveling can improve your mindset and change your life
I love to travel, and for me, it’s an essential part of my identity in the way that I explore the world and engage in self-care. We all love a vacation, but did you know that traveling can improve your mindset? Engaging in regular exploration and adventuring can help you to not only feel better, but to live a fulfilling and prosperous life through different cultural lenses and experiences. If you’ve ever been curious as to how travel can change your life, there are many benefits to consider.
Traveling helps you to disconnect and recharge
The purpose of a vacation, simply, is to vacate your life, which is more easily done when you are out of your everyday surroundings and engaging in experiences that you might not have access to at home. Disconnecting from our own spaces and activities can help us feel refreshed to face our days when we return, because we’ll have had a break from the tasks we complete everyday. This break from our lives can help us feel recharged, renewed, and relaxed.
Traveling boosts happiness
There’s no doubt that traveling makes us feel good, and being in a new place with no true responsibilities for a while can help us to feel happier. Enjoying the sights, sounds, and even smells of a new place can not only help us feel grounded, but increase our appreciation for the experience we’ve had. When we feel gratitude, happiness often follows.
It exposes you to new perspectives
Taking a trip also opens us up to new ways of thinking and engaging with one another. When we see the way people live in other parts of the world, it helps us to think differently about our own life circumstances and activities. Thinking from the perspective of someone from another culture might give us new insight on our own lives and how we can make changes or appreciate our surroundings a little bit better.
Traveling opens your mind to new cultures
One of the best things about traveling to new places is the value we receive from learning about other cultures and their way of doing things. Going to new countries can expose us to new foods we might love, a lifestyle change, or the importance of rest in the middle of the day. By making comparisons to our own lives, we can take on practices that other cultures find successful in order to find wellbeing practices that meet our needs, even when we return from trips.
It increases creativity
As an art therapist, I’m always looking for new ways to be inspired to make art and to appreciate art. Visiting museums and galleries with famous art and architecture can help us feel re-inspired to create something meaningful in our own lives. We might consider engaging in a new art form after a trip. Or we might simply be aware of the beauty around us, including landscapes and people, which can help foster new ideas when we return. Increased creativity is a key way that traveling can improve your mindset.
If you’ve been seeking a reason to start traveling, improving your mental health could be a key reason to pack your suitcase. Consider the improvements that a worldly view can bring to your everyday life, and see if travel might be right for you!
Want to learn more about the author, Sam Nolan, LPC, ATR-P? Click here.
Photo by David Köhler on Unsplash