Entrepreneurs Who Travel Aren’t Leaving Money, Ideas, and Clarity on the Table
Travel has many benefits, some of them quite therapeutic and helpful for your mental health and well-being. Let’s take a look at five different ways you can use travel as a form of therapy and wander to heal yourself. Pay attention to each of them the next time you’re away from home and lean into these therapeutic powers of traveling. Entrepreneurs who travel regularly enjoy greater success. My travel as a new entrepreneur in 2006 started with visits to local venues.
Wander to Heal: The Therapeutic Powers of Traveling
Stress Reduction and Relaxation
The point of a vacation or a weekend getaway is to relax. Why is it easier to wind down and breathe when you’re not at home? Mainly because travel gives you a much deserved break from your daily routine and the stressors you encounter at work. Use the time while you’re away to relax and rejuvenate for maximum therapeutic benefits. Don’t over-schedule and make time to sleep, nap, and daydream. By maximizing stress reduction and relaxation, travel can greatly benefit both your physical and your mental health.
Enhanced Mood and Mental Clarity
Leaving on a trip exposes you to new environments. As you travel, you have different and exciting experiences, from what you see out the window of your car to the amazing meal you’re sharing at the little bistro within walking distance of your accommodations. All of this can lead to increased levels of dopamine, which naturally improves your mood. It’s why we love to travel and go on vacation so much. The change of scenery can also lead to mental clarity. Both are great ways to help combat depression and anxiety, even if it can be challenging to make yourself take the first few steps and leave home.
Physical Activity and Fitness
When we travel, we’re not tied to a sedentary job and we’re not tempted by our comfortable couch and our favorite streaming service. Instead, we tend to go out and explore more while we travel. Lean into these physical activities like walking, hiking and swimming. Not only will they improve your physical fitness, but help enhance your overall health and reduce your risk of chronic disease. And don’t forget, exercise is another natural mood enhancer.
Emotional Resilience and Personal Growth
Traveling is a lot of fun, but let’s be honest. It can also be challenging and sometimes quite exhausting. Long flights, delays, cancelations … all of them present their own challenges that you need to overcome before you get to your destination. Once there, you have to figure out how to function in an unfamiliar environment. Sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it? Here’s the thing, though. As you work through everything in your path and deal with the unpredictability of travel, you’re building emotional resilience. Think of it as a different type of workout that will help you manage emotional distress more effectively with each trip you take. Entrepreneurs who travel have a much more optimistic view of life, I believe.
Cultural Engagement and Social Interaction
Last but not least, let’s talk about how travel brings us together. As you explore a new area and as you move around on your way to your destination, you’re bound to meet new people. Some of them may even be from different cultures. Engaging and interacting with them will enrich and improve your social skills. This will come in handy when you return home and is an important aspect of mental health therapy. Who knows, you may make a new friend who will provide emotional support for years to come. Go out there, explore, and meet some amazing people.
Breathing Space: The Mental Health Benefits of Exploring New Horizons
There’s nothing like a change of scenery and a different routine to help you heal from whatever ails you. While traveling isn’t possible in every situation, I encourage you to consider taking a quick trip to recoup and recharge when you can. Let’s take a look at the healing benefits of travel both for your body and your mind. The first time I traveled to Europe was life-changing. I was 39 years old and had never had the desire to cross the pond until I knew people who lived there.
Being in a different environment will stimulate the mind and distract you from daily worries and even pain. In other words, a change of scenery is a great way to change your frame of mind. Why is this important when you’re healing? Because this positive distraction can ease stress and anxiety. Depending on your condition, you want to make sure you’re not pushing yourself too hard. Having plans and backup plans in place can be helpful here. Even better, put someone else in charge of the itinerary so you can focus on relaxing and healing while you take in the new scenery.
One of the biggest challenges to our mental health and well-being can be cycles of negative thoughts. When you find yourself spiraling through those types of patterns, head out. Even if it’s just for a few days. Changing your environment and your routine will usually do the trick. It forces you out of your usual thought patterns by providing fresh stimuli. Engage in activities you don’t usually do and you’ll be surprised how quickly you can break cycles of negative thinking that are often associated with anxiety and depression.
Traveling gets us out of the house and out of the office. When exploring a new area, we often spend more time outside. Take it a step further by choosing a travel destination that involves stunning natural settings. Go for a walk in the woods, along the shore of a lake, or dip your toes into the sand by the ocean. Being outside, in nature, has been scientifically shown to reduce stress hormones in the body and improve overall mood and well-being. And all the extra oxygen doesn’t hurt either, no matter what you’re recovering from.
We also often increase our physical activity when we travel. Whether it’s exploring a city on foot, hiking in nature, or going for a dip in the closest body of water, we tend to exercise more while we’re on vacation. Lean into this. Take a walk in the cool morning air. Rent a bike and go for a ride in the afternoon. Go for a midnight swim. Release those endorphins as you exercise and move your body. You’ll sleep better and improve your mental and physical health at the same time.
Let’s wrap it up by talking about the therapeutic benefits of sunlight for a moment. Even if you don’t feel like going for a run or even a short stroll after dinner, simply being outside in the fresh air and sunshine will help you recover faster. Get out in the sun, traveling to a climate that allows you to do this when possible. Why? Because exposure to sunlight boosts your Vitamin D levels, which have been shown to be beneficial in mood regulation and boosting your immune system.
Creative Adventures: How Entrepreneurs Who Travel Sharpens Their Minds and Gain Confidence
Could you use a little boost in confidence and creativity? There’s nothing like taking a trip to sharpen the mind and get fresh ideas. It’s why we often get a lot more done and come up with solutions to problems that have stumped us for weeks after a vacation. Let’s take a look at why that happens and why this is one of the often overlooked benefits of taking a trip.
Exposing yourself to different cultures and environments will almost always stimulate fresh and creative ideas. By traveling to new cities, states, or countries, you see things in a new light. Different settings, different ways of lives, and immersing yourself into other cultures challenges preconceptions and encourages you to think outside the box. This, in turn, will do wonders for your creativity. Give it a try.
And don’t miss the chance to learn something new about yourself and others while experiencing this cultural diversity. When you face and adapt to new cultural norms and practices, you can’t help but pick up new insights that can broaden your understanding. Learn from those around you. Try a new recipe, pick a new food, accept that there’s more than one right way to live life. Go with the flow. Travel does wonders for enhancing cognitive flexibility. All of this will come in handy as you return home and deal with challenges, old and new.
An important component of living your life creatively and putting yourself out there is confidence. Nothing builds self-confidence more quickly than overcoming challenges. Travel will do that for you on a daily and sometimes hourly basis as you navigate foreign environments, overcome language barriers, and deal with cultural differences. Go out there, explore, and come back as a more self-reliant and confident person who’s ready to tap into their creative side.
As you maneuver those challenges and build your confidence, you’re simultaneously working on another skill – adaptability. Little else teaches you to adapt quickly to changing circumstances. Something as simple as falling asleep in a different environment and trying new foods will fundamentally change you. It will make you more adaptable. This is a skill set that will become invaluable to you in your personal and professional life. Try it for yourself.
Go out there and explore. Change the path your life is taking and watch how the journey changes you at the same time. It will be exciting to see the person you become after your travels.
Diverse Encounters: How Travel Brings People Together
One of the best things about traveling is that it brings people together. You meet new people during your trip and get closer to any travel companions as well. Having a strong network of others around you to support you and interact with you is extremely beneficial to your health. Let’s take a closer look at how exactly this happens. Entrepreneurs who travel will be amazed at the friendships that happen easily.
Traveling, particularly when you do it in a group setting, gives you wonderful opportunities to meet and bond with others. This is particularly true when you join a tour or attend a conference based on a specific interest or hobby. For example, if you’re a bit of a foodie, signing up for a restaurant tour might be a great way to meet like-minded people. Or how about a conference or festival based on a hobby, fandom or other passion of yours? This makes it easy to meet and bond with people who share your interests.
Of course, not everyone you meet on your travels will be like-minded, even if you share a common interest. And that’s a good thing. When you engage with people from different backgrounds and cultures, you can gain fresh insights into a variety of different topics. This, in turn, will lead to a deeper understanding of the world around and everything that makes it up. It gives you not only a fresh perspective, but various reverse ones that broaden your understanding. Learn from those you meet and come back with views and ideas that will enhance both your personal and your professional life.
Sharing in the transformative experience of traveling together can forge deep bonds. Hit the road with a loved one, a partner, a good friend and see for yourself how the trip will deepen your relationship. Why does this happen and why are these friendships often long lasting? Because you have shared experiences, some good, some bad, that serve as a foundation for your relationship. As you interact and engage, the memories from that trip and how it has changed both of you, you’re moving from this strong bond that little will be able to break.
Next, let’s discuss how entrepreneurs who travel cultivate empathy. As you meet and connect with locals and travelers from around the world, you get to know their varied points of view. Engage in conversations about day-to-day life, the issues they face, and they overcome them. Keep your eyes and ears open. And don’t shy away from experiences because they seem strange or unfamiliar. There is much to be learned and discovered. Your travels and your interactions with those you meet along the way will result in a more inclusive and understanding world view.
All the conversations and interactions you have while you travel will help you grow as a human being. Get out there and get started on this fun and unique path to personal growth. Entrepreneurs who travel tend to be more well-rounded overall.
Travel Therapy: Embracing Reflection Over Escape
There are a lot of therapeutic benefits of traveling that will come almost automatically as soon as you head to your home away from home. But if you want to take it a step further and boost your benefits, there’s a lot you can do by embracing reflection and intentionality as you travel. Let’s take a look at how being intentional, engaging in reflection, embracing gratitude, avoiding escapism, and integrating experiences can help you make the most of each trip.
The best thing you can do to set yourself up for success when it comes to the mental and physical benefits of traveling is to set clear intentions before you leave home. Set some goals for yourself during the planning stages like seeking personal growth, learning something new about a place or culture, encouraging healing to name a few. From there, let this goal direct where you go, how you travel, and where you stay. This is a much more effective approach than using it as a way to escape the stresses and problems of everyday life. By setting intentions, you can ensure that your travel experience is enriching and therapeutic.
Let’s bookend this with what you want to do at the end of your trip, when you make it back home. Set aside some time for reflection. Looking back on your experiences can help you gain a better understanding of what has happened and whom you have encountered. What can you learn? What can you take away from those experiences? Entrepreneurs who travel often take up journaling. This can happen after the trip, or start a travel journal and write down your reflections at the end of every day.
Along with reflection and intention, practicing gratitude during your travels will be a beneficial exercise. It gives you a chance to appreciate both the opportunity to travel and the new experiences it brings. A gratitude journal can be a great tool here. Make it part of your travel journal, or use this as an opportunity to start a dedicated gratitude journal. Thinking about everything you appreciate has many mental health benefits, as you’ll discover when you start this practice. I encourage you to give it a try.
After talking a lot about what to do, let’s address something you want to avoid if you’re using travel as a form of therapy and that’s escapism. Don’t use your trip as an escape from your problems, no matter what they are. Why? Because going in with that as your intention can start a cycle of avoidance rather than addressing the underlying issues that cause the problems in the first place. Using travel as a mindfulness exercise instead can be a much more effective approach. Many entrepreneurs who travel use the time to think about what they want to change in their life. Use it as an opportunity to gain the physical and mental distance necessary to see your problems in a fresh light and then come up with a plan for improvement.
Last but not least, make sure you spend some time integrating all your amazing, wonderful, and sometimes challenging experiences. What have you learned? What can you take away? What have you gained during your travels? Most importantly, how will they change your life on a daily basis now that you are back home? The goal for entrepreneurs who travel is to promote a lasting change and personal improvement. That’s what makes travel a truly transformative form of therapy.
Perhaps you would benefit from a course I have co-created with Janice Dugas. The Entrepreneur’s Trifecta… Focus, Creativity, and Confidence is new and promises to make a difference for your life and business! Take a look at https://ConnieLoves.me/EntrepreneursTrifecta
I’m bestselling USA Today and Wall Street Journal author Connie Ragen Green. My goal is to help at least a thousand people to reach six-figures and beyond with an online business for time freedom and passive income and to simplify your life. Come along with me, if you will and let us discover how we may further connect to achieve all of your dreams and goals. This is also why I want you to think about living in the moment and becoming one of the entrepreneurs who travel. Perhaps my “Monthly Mentoring Program” is right for you.
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