Dealing With Stress? It Might Be Time For A Vacation.
Sometimes removing yourself from your everyday environment may be the only way to assess and think about and gain perspective on a situation that may be weighing heavy on you.
Whether it is a recent breakup, a riff with family or friends or even conflict in the workplace; maintaining clarity, strength, and drive definitely requires a restart. So if you find yourself dragging your feet to finish simple tasks or dreading to see the people you love and adore, it may be time to get out of town.
From a psychological perspective, it’s not that crazy of an impulse. Jennifer Tanner, Ph.D., a developmental psychologist at the Institute for Health at Rutgers University, says that we are primed to want to hit the beach (or the slopes, or wherever your place of Zen is) when we feel stressed or overwhelmed. “At the micro-psychological level, when your brain has too much input and is overloaded, it naturally goes on vacation. It’s a defense mechanism, but another way of looking at it is as a coping mechanism.”
It works like this: We can’t deal with traumas or stressful situations, so our brains push whatever it can’t handle at the moment to our subconscious. It’s only when we are away from daily life (i.e. in vacation mode) that our brains finally have the space to process them, Tanner explains.
“Vacations also let you turn on a different set of senses. You smell new things and see new things, and the brain has to pay attention to what’s new,” she says. “It naturally changes your point of view and causes your brain to have to adapt to new surroundings.” That turns on your problem-solving skills, your sense of resilience, and your ability to adapt. “You have a sense of being empowered,” Tanner says.
Traveling should make you feel empowered. Whether it be in a few good books, or during an excursion or even just striking up a conversation with a stranger, its all about stepping away from your everyday life to gain valuable perspective and lessons for your life.
“Travel changes the lens from micro to macro,” Tanner says. “When you leave your problems at home, you have a chance to get some distance from them, and you can manipulate something that’s farther away from you better than something that’s close. You can say to yourself, “What if it were like this, or like that?”
See? Perspective. <3