Travel on the Mind for the Mind

Take a Journey Into Yourself

BY BEATRICE TATEM, PH.D., LPC-S, NCC, ACS

SEPTEMBER 2023 WAS THE FIRST TRIP I EXPERIENCED OUT of town and away from my home since March of 2020. This trip to visit family was a reawakening of a love that was only temporarily snuffed out by the pandemic. I am a travel enthusiast who finds traveling to be mentally and emotionally refreshing, rejuvenating and rewarding. Like millions of travel lovers around the globe I rejoiced when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lifted their stay-at-home orders and restrictions. For many it triggered memories of past trips, re-energized the desire to travel and served as a freeing journey from isolation to openness and connectedness. Travel motivates us to explore, to grow within ourselves while engaging those around us and the world at large. It invokes energy, creates joy, lifts our spirits, results in human understanding, and brings about all kinds of emotional reactions.

Travel on the mind for the mind. According to research done by mental health experts, people tend to feel healthier and happier after leisure travel. In fact, it has been found that having something to look forward to along with mere planning for a vacation creates happiness and excitement which boosts ones mental health and brain functioning. “I am so ready to spring forward into action” was a comment made by a colleague. She then jokingly stated, “I need travel therapy, I wish I could go on a trip during spring break and experience something new and different.” Spring is that time of the year when many students and those employed take an academic or professional break. Travel during spring break is often just long enough to whet the appetite for longer more in-depth travel during the summer. Whether for work or fun, travel can result in greater well-being, a positive mood, reduced stress, peace of mind and a better and happier you. Travel allows us to rest our brain resulting in improved mental power, enhanced productivity, and greater ability to focus and set goals. Traveling has the power to penetrate all our senses. It exposes us to sites we have never seen, promotes interaction with those unlike us, allows us to take in smells associated with the area, taste and indulge in local fare, hear sounds of the land while feeling the energy of the people. Travel can expand your mind in a way you never realized was possible as a result of living through new experiences and learning. It reduces biases, increases acceptance, appreciation, and empathy towards others, and strengthens one’s overall tolerance.

Travel for your well-being. Ways travel can make your mind healthy and happy. Take a mental health break away from work and the responsibilities of daily life to travel, it can do wonders to lessen stress. When life can feel as though you are merely going through the motions of existing; liven it up with a vacation. Maybe you have a place you look forward to visiting once a year, or perhaps you enjoy exploring new places. Get away close to home and have a staycation with yourself. Travel allows you to try new things in new places with new people, helping you to combat monotony. For example, consider experiential traveling abroad. Known to be transformative this immersion style traveling often helps one to re-evaluate and reinvent their lives. Whereas travel is good for one’s mental health be mindful it is not recommended that travel be taken in lieu of mental health therapy. A wellness trip in the form of a retreat can contribute to having better mental health. Learn and develop skills like relaxation, meditation, yoga and mindfulness and then bring them home and incorporate them into a wellness lifestyle.

I firmly believe travel is good for the psyche. Travel is “just what this doctor orders.” In my line of work travel is often seen as a means to maintaining a positive state of mind. I suggest travel to recharge, to relax, to become revitalized, to find meaning, to unwind and to take a break from the hustle and bustle associated with life these days. Traveling can enhance your mood, lessen the chaos you feel, and ultimately improve you. It can increase joy, help prevent depression, help you recover from burnout, heighten your creativity, and expand your horizons. Traveling helps our mental state, lifts our spirits, lessens challenges, improves sleep, removes us temporarily from societal burdens, giving us a break from day to day demands. Travel also offers us distance from a problem or situation, which can then give us the possibility of a new outlook.

Getting out and taking a vacation has multiple potential benefits for both your mental and physical health. Travel is educational, eye opening and expands the mind, which creates wonderful learning opportunities that motivates and empower us to live well. It positively affects a traveler’s perception, awareness, imagination, and reasoning. On a personal note, I love to travel because it allows me to discover a world so different from the world I have lived, while discovering myself. Traveling has often helped me to understand what formal education has not. Travel, whether in the mind, or in the world helps to direct, guide, expose and orient one’s attention towards the differences amongst others. It takes us from one place to another literally and figuratively, physically, and mentally. Simply put this travel lover recommends getting out and seeing the world and letting the world see you. One’s ability and desire met with the opportunity to travel is one of the best gifts one can experience. This spring encounter yourself through travel. Explore, dream, discover…travel and take a journey into yourself. Your mental health deserves it.

For more information on counseling and outreach services contact Dr. Beatrice Tatem at Wellness Initiatives, LLC, 2485 Tower Drive, Suite 10 Monroe, La 71201, 318-410-1555 or at btatem.bt@gmail.com.