Travel and Mental Health: 5 Tips How To Find A Healthy Balance
Travel and mental health go hand in hand. Visiting new places and exposing ourselves to new environments is known to do wonders for our emotional health, confidence and self-esteem. For some who can afford to travel, it’s a good pastime hobby or a great way to enjoy time off work. However, for others, traveling might only be possible when work requires physically being in a different place.
Some of us even have to extensively travel for work, which isn’t the same as recreational travel. This is when traveling can take a toll on the body and mental health.
To prevent travel burnout, we’ll talk about how to keep yourself sane and grounded at the same time while balancing extensive traveling.
Take your time when you can afford it
One way to immediately exhaust yourself mentally when traveling is try to do everything all at once in a hurry. That means, quickly get through your itinerary in a short amount of time – rush to the subway, through the airport and then to get on a plane.
Sometimes these situations can be unavoidable, but the fact that they are mentally exhausting still remains. If you can afford to slow down, take your time and do things one at a time, do it. Your mental health will thank you for it.
You can even make stops along the way to enjoy the scenery or do something fun if you have the time. Having these breaks in between your travels is a great way to keep your mind relaxed even as you go on traveling the next day. This is how you bring travel and mental health together.
Read also: 12 Ideas How To Stay Fit While Traveling And Enjoy The Process
Retain communication with loved ones
Often when we travel extensively, we’re alone throughout the day. Be it alone in the car traveling for work or hopping airports when on a gap year.
It’s fine if it’s only a few days. But when you constantly travel, flying or driving from one place to another every week, being alone can be mentally exhausting. It can even lead to depression when you do it for a long time without taking breaks.
One thing you can do to prevent such loneliness is talk to your friends and family. You might not see them personally during your travels, but at least you can hear their voice or even see their faces on the screen.
Talk to your friends & family often. We already have the technology, so why not take advantage of it? When we fly all the time, it’s hard to be grounded, but not entirely impossible.
Keep a journal
Getting grounded is hard in a life where you move so fast constantly. We have little time for breaks, and we rarely have any chance to at least catch our breaths. Because of this, many things can be neglected, especially our mental health.
That said, to keep yourself up to date with your travel and mental health, you can write in a journal every day. In this journal, you can take note of your activities through bullet points, write about the emotions you feel during your journey, and express anything on your mind at the end of the day.
This way, you’ll feel less alien to yourself and your surroundings. This will also help you keep track of the emotions you’re going through and possibly do something about them. It will also help you reduce stress significantly since venting is very good for your mental health. It can do many more things to your mental health, so try it.
Put music to good use
We often feel stressed when we travel. Especially when we’re doing it constantly, like when travel for work. One thing you can do to lift your mood and combat stress & loneliness is to listen to some music. Especially if you have just a short time to listen to it, like on an airplane or the bus.
However, if you’re driving, make sure you’re extra careful that music does not put you to sleep otherwise you’ll end up in an accident.
Read also: Athlete Mental Health: 20 Ways To Overcome Burnout In Sports
Develop a solid sleep routine
When you travel a lot (including travel for work), there will definitely be a time when you didn’t have enough sleep or you have to wake up very early. Especially when you need to get to a certain place at specific hour or if there’s an emergency.
It can be draining over time, if you don’t have a solid sleep routine. And that’s where travel and mental health can part ways…
Driving stress is not only draining to mental health but is also one of the main reasons for road accidents. So always drive relaxed and focused – you can achieve that by always going sleep on time.
As a precaution, if you don’t have coverage for road accidents in your health insurance yet, you might want to look into putting one in your plan or switch plans instead.
Read also: Flying To Run A Race? Beat Jet Lag With These Expert Travel Tips
Final words
Traveling can do wonders for our mental health. However, when we travel for work or travel constantly it can be emotionally draining. Although it stresses our mental health a lot, there are things that we can do to keep the balance between travel and mental health.
Roxane Burks
Roxane is a freelance writer living the digital nomad life. Her frequent travels have helped her connect with the world around her, allowing her to see its raw beauty in both the scenery and culture she encounters. She shares her experiences with her readers, helping them make the most out of their travels. When she’s not writing, Roxane spends her day mingling with the locals.
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