If You Start To Travel More Often, You Can Grow Your Brain

Ready to expand your mind?  Give you brain a boost in power? Then it is time to pack your bags and take a trip. Venture out of the concrete jungles and get ready to explore. As your flight takes off and you know what is next. Trillions of new experiences.You just cannot wait. Life is awesome! The world waits. Neurogenesis sprouts out when you travel to complex, novel, and new surroundings.

But First Off, Stop with the Excuses

When people hear about traveling experiences they enviously spurt out ‘You are so lucky, I wish I could…’ and follow up with excuses of paying their bills, etc. What it amounts to is just that–excuses.

Many may think traveling is way out of range for them, expensive and out of financial barriers. Agreed that it is not free, however you do not have to be a millionaire to see many places and build up a wealth of lifetime memories. It is not an impossible fantasy exclusively for the rich.

Some Practical Saving Tips

If you cannot take a trip to Vietnam why not explore a town nearby or tour your own town? Analyze your bank statements; there should be at least something on your monthly expenditure list that you can sacrifice if you save the amounts you spend on weekend takeaways for a year; it will afford a trip you always dreamt about. But if you just work, eat, sleep and pay bills never making time to travel or even share time with friends and family what does your existence amount to?

How Traveling Impacts You

Traveling is about close encounters with an unusual and new situation. It may be simply finding your way around the surroundings or ordering a meal in a language you not very familiar with. Studies have confirmed^[1]the physical and mental benefits of traveling: social engagement, cognitive stimulation, and physical activity.

Traveling will awaken you to the realization that there are many different cultures and ways of life. You burst with new experiences and insight. New experiences boost cognitive health; your active brain creates new connections as it programs the unusual stimuli into categories. Plunging to explore the world will be an exercise you will not regret.

Paul Nussbaum from the University of Pittsburg, a neurological surgery professor has affirmed that traveling grows the capacity of the brain as the challenges start to sprout dendrites, which are extensions. Surprisingly, travel relays the stress of being thrust out of normal daily routines, as your brain is ignited to react and engage attentively.

Where to Start

Although reaching mountain summits or strolling medieval cities can entice you, start with a simple weekend trip away from work or home. The experience and memories stay engraved and unforgettable.

Travel Opens up Our Minds

According to William Maddux, Ph.D. and his party found that people are more creative when they are integrated into new cultures^[2]. When your mind opens up into the realms of different ideas, you become more creative.

Toby Israel the author of Someplace like Home iterates that traveling is about reflecting on our lives from a physical and metaphorical distance. This helps us to assess our lives clearly.

Just How Amazing Travel is for your Brain

Anticipating a vacation sprouts a higher level of happiness than a new shirt according to a Psychological Science Journal. Researchers affirm that waiting for experiences equals to a higher level of happiness than mere material objects.^[3]

A  US Travel Association recent study found that people who take vacation days have higher chances of being promoted at work than those rigidly staying behind their desks.^[4]

Travel is about meeting people, intellectual stimulation via exploring new and interesting things, and new information stretching our understanding of the world. It increases the neural connections and enhances stimulating activity like problem-solving, education, occupational learning. Studies reveal that students living abroad are more likely to solve computer tasks than students who did not travel. ^[5]

We’ll leave you with a quote by Mark Twain, “Innocents Abroad”

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

Featured photo credit: pixabay via cdn.pixabay.com

Reference

[1]	^	Chicago Tribune: Travel as a health regimen
[2]	^	Academy of Management: Fashion with a Foreign Flair: Professional Experiences Abroad Facilitate the Creative Innovations of Organizations
[3]	^	Association for Psychological Science: Anticipating Experience-Based Purchases More Enjoyable Than Material Ones
[4]	^	Harvard Business Review: Are the People Who Take Vacations the Ones Who Get Promoted?
[5]	^	American Psychological Association: Cultural Borders and Mental Barriers: The Relationship Between Living Abroad and Creativity

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Source: Lifehack.org