Forget the staycation. Research reveals that travel can build stress resilience, sharpen cognitive health and ward off depression far better than staying home
By Heidi Mitchell, The Wall Street Journal
The next time you book a trip to some faraway city, don’t think of it as just a vacation.
Think of it as preventive medicine. A growing body of research suggests travel is more than a luxury or an escape. It may be a legitimate tool for improving mental health, one whose effects scientists are only beginning to understand.
Researchers say travel away from our usual environments exposes the brain to novel experiences that require greater mental engagement than during our everyday routines. At home, the brain is essentially on cruise control. We passively pick out something to wear, we follow the same commute, we work alongside the same people in the same office, and make relatively few new decisions.
Travel forces the opposite—new food, new streets, new people, new decisions—and that friction is what builds confidence, sharpens memory, and gives us a sense of satisfaction that enhances cognitive well-being. No doctor is writing prescriptions for a week in Portugal, yet. But the case is building.
A review of recent travel studies found that the psychological benefits of a vacation, like improved mood and sleep, don’t vanish the moment you’re back at your desk. Even the anticipation of a trip leads to feeling happier about your family, your health, and your finances than when you have no travel planned. Similarly, a meta-analysis of 55 controlled clinical trials involving more than 4,400 participants over three decades found that the same ingredients that comprise a good vacation—passive, peaceful activities, like time in nature or active pastimes such as hiking—are good for our mental health.
