Today a link to a YouTube video landed in my inbox. It came from Brain HQ at Posit Science, and it’s about how travel impacts your brain. As John and I suspected, it’s GREAT to travel from a brain health perspective.
Here’s a link to the video:
Travel IS challenging. It pushes us outside of our comfort zones and shakes up the synapses and neurons that have grown bored from the same-old, same-old every day. Plus, it gives us new perspectives, new viewpoints to consider, and that challenges us even more.
Can’t afford to take a trip? You don’t have to. Read about a new location. We contemplated a cruise around New Zealand later this year and in preparation, I read a 500+ page tome on the history of the country. Granted, it was sometimes dry and academic, taking me back to when I was an academic. The sections on the fascinating Maoris were worth the pain.
Think you might someday visit a country that doesn’t speak your native language? Now’s the time to start – learn a new language. If your significant other or travel partner is learning too, you can declare a day “Spanish-only” (or whatever) and have fun practicing on each other. Commence the giggling!
Don’t like to go it alone in a foreign land? You don’t have to. Book a cruise or a tour to acclimitize. Off a ship, you have the convenience of new destinations with as much or as little guidance you want in a port. Land tour packages can be fully planned or only covering transportation. We’ve discovered a long list of places to return to someday from these sorts of adventures.
The point is, challenge your brain in a new place. Make it work, and it will reward you with more energy, curiosity, and humility, giving you new ways of looking at the world. As we always say, we travel to understand how we humans are more alike than we are different, and to learn about the beauty of the world, found even in its darkest corners.
How does your brain experience travel? Does travel make you feel more alive? Please let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Yvonne
Yvonne is a freelance writer, photographer, dedicated foodie, and gardening plantaholic. Travel is her passion and addiction. She writes fiction in romantic suspense and psychological thrillers, coaches creatives about their businesses and their books, and studies human behavior and the natural world as a nerdy lifelong learner.
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