How Travel and Exploration Can Boost your Mental Health #MentalHealthMatters #Explore #SelfDiscovery

Ever wondered how a simple act like exploring your neighborhood or traveling to a new city could unlock a treasure trove of mental health benefits? On this episode of the Bella Grace podcast, I unravel the incredible ways travel can boost creativity, happiness, and overall well-being. I share personal tales from my recent adventures in New Hampshire, Chicago, and Los Angeles, illustrating how breaking free from the mundane can instill confidence, enrich relationships, and stave off burnout. We dive into the fascinating science behind travel's ability to unleash dopamine, igniting a sense of curiosity and adventure that beckons us to explore further.

Travel isn't just about seeing new places—it's a portal to diverse cultures and profound personal growth. Join me as I recount how immersing in vibrant communities, from Little Italy to Chinatown, taught me empathy, understanding, and an appreciation for the world's rich diversity. Through stories of overcoming fears and bonding during trips, you'll hear how travel has transformed my life, bridging connections with loved ones and fostering self-discovery. Whether navigating the nuances of a European journey with my husband or exploring Chicago with my daughter, each experience underscores the true power of stepping outside our comfort zones. Tune in to uncover how these travel tales could inspire your own journey to self-discovery and enriched relationships.

Chapters

• 0:05 Benefits of Travel and Exploration
• 16:11 Embracing Cultural Exploration Through Travel
• 20:52 Building Bonds Through Travel'experiences

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Bella Grace podcast. Whether you are struggling to find balance, using unhealthy behaviors or substances to cope, or you just want to unlock the root cause of what's holding you back from living your best life, bella Grace coaching can help you transform your life mind, body and soul. Coaching can help you transform your life mind, body and soul and this week we are doing that by talking about how traveling and exploration can boost your mental health. So there are so many benefits of travel. I do want to stop here and just take a second to acknowledge that travel is not really available to everyone, whether it's financial constraints or personal obligations. Not everybody can just pick up and go travel, and I understand that and I want to encourage you.

Speaker 1: 0:58

As I talk about travel and as I use the word travel, I want you to imagine that it is synonymous with exploration, because we can all explore our neighborhoods, explore our city, explore our town and the places around us without having to break the bank on quote unquote travel. So I lived in the same place for the first 30 something years of my life and while I did travel, I didn't always have the financial means to actually get up and go somewhere. So I always laugh because, yes, I lived there for 30 something years, but to this day, there are still parks and places of that town that I did not explore. There are parts of parks that I've never walked through and back roads that I've never traversed, and there are apparently, like sand dunes and cliffs, that I've never seen because I live right off of the Cap Rock in Texas, and so there are places around my hometown that I never knew existed and now I see pictures of them and I'm like where was that? So I want you to encourage I want to encourage you to keep that in mind as we go through this podcast that when I say travel, it doesn't mean hopping on a plane and going across the country or across the globe to explore new exotic places. You can explore in your backyard and that is perfectly fine. You will still get all of the benefits we are going to talk about today. Okay, so I recently I took time off from the podcast because I was traveling. The last episode was about giving back and volunteering, because I went on a trip to New Hampshire and that trip was all about volunteering and giving back, and so since then I have been in Chicago and the Los Angeles area, and I am back now and I'm excited and I really want to use my experience as an opportunity to share some of the benefits that are proven and some of the benefits that I personally had over the course of the last two trips that I've taken.

Speaker 1: 3:19

And so the science behind travel and mental health is abundant. There are two sides of this coin, right, there's two sides to everything. Where one person might feel stress relief and a reset button from travel, others might get super high anxiety about thinking about planning a trip, and so again, I want you to understand that I know travel is not for everybody, and if it's not for you, that's fine. Maybe this looks like exploring the world around you, trying a new restaurant, going to a new pub or whatever. It is like trying a new food. So just keep that in mind. I know travel is not for everybody, so you can fill in the blank with whatever travel quote unquote travel and exploration means to you.

Speaker 1: 4:14

Okay, so there is science that shows that travel promotes better creativity, it boosts happiness. You have increased mental motivation, it enhances mindfulness, it can boost your mood, it can lower anxiety, it can increase productivity. It will relieve some stress, reduce some stress. It can create better relationships. It can boost your confidence. You can experience less burnout when you travel or explore. It can have a shift in your perspective. So there have been several studies done, and one in particular that sticks out to me is one that was done in 2013. And it says that 80% of respondents said that travel improves their general mood and 75% said that travel helps them reduce stress. So I mean, why not A little bit of stress in the beginning around traveling and planning for a huge payoff at the end? Right, like I know, I get nervous when I have to go into a new restaurant where I've never been there before, but most of the time I leave there having a new appreciation for a new type of food or learning that I don't like that place. But I never would have known. If I wouldn't have tried it, if I would not have overcome the stress and the anticipation of going to somewhere new and unknown, I would never know that, a I didn't like it. Or B that was phenomenal and I have a new favorite food. So, all right, let's see.

Speaker 1: 6:13

Traveling promotes a sense of adventure and curiosity. Again, travel and exploration If you don't ever try it, you're never going to know. If you don't ever try it, you're never going to know. Travel also stimulates dopamine, which is our feel good neurotransmitter. So, a way back when I talked about the daily dose, right, and I talked about how the daily dose is dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins and so I want to talk about how travel helps you get your daily dose. So we are going to start with dopamine. So dopamine is the feel-good neurotransmitter and whenever you are experiencing new things, you are trying new food, you are going to new places, it is going and you are feeling good about these things. That is your brain being stimulated to release dopamine and we, when we experience those things, our brain wants more. It's like, yes, I want to do that again. And it knows that you have received that boosted dopamine from travel, because travel, like I said, promotes a sense of adventure and curiosity. So your brain is going to be more adventurous and curious outside of the travel experience because it correlates adventure and curiosity with a surge, with a release of dopamine. So oxytocin is the dopamine, or, sorry, is the neurotransmitter hormone that is released whenever we feel closeness to people. It's released whenever mamas are breastfeeding. It's released whenever mamas are giving birth. It's released whenever you have a hug with someone that you love or when you have a long conversation with somebody that you love. And when we travel with friends and family, you can get that boost of oxytocin because you're sharing an experience with people that you care about Serotonin Serotonin is in charge of a lot of things in our body it's in charge of our sex drive, it's in charge of our digestion, it helps with boosting our moods and a sense of well-being.

Speaker 1: 8:45

And whenever we travel, travel exposes our brain to new sights, new sounds, new spells, which excites our senses, and then it triggers a release of serotonin. So not only is it a break from the mundane, a break from routine and stressors, but it also gives us a surge of serotonin and that helps with digestion, that helps with bone health, that helps with your mood. So we want to make sure that we are getting that serotonin. And last, but with the science, this is the last piece is endorphins. So endorphins are released whenever we're working out or doing something physically exerting, and so when we travel, we probably walk a lot. We walk around the airport, we are trying new experiences, maybe you go for a hike, like we did in California, and all of that is going to boost those endorphins. So that's kind of the science behind travel and exploration Traveling as a form of self-care.

Speaker 1: 9:59

So, as I've said several times, traveling encourages a break from our daily responsibilities and allows for some self-reflection. When I'm traveling and crap hits the fan, or when I'm exploring and crap hits the fan, I really try to reflect on what I did in this situation. How could it have been better? What could I have done differently? And it also gives me some space. So my daughter and I found ourselves on an hour-long train ride from Chicago O'Hare Airport to downtown Chicago and on that train ride I really just sat and thought about the fact that my daughter is a senior in high school and how our journey has gotten us here.

Speaker 1: 10:53

And for those of you who don't know, my daughter's dad was incarcerated when she was an infant and he was sentenced to 15 years. Infants and he was sentenced to 15 years. And I was gutted. No-transcript. A, he didn't do what he was accused of. And B he had fought so hard to fight that case because it was important to him to be there for his kids. And suddenly he wasn't. And suddenly I was a single mom and my worst nightmare was for my daughter to grow up with no dad and a single mom, like I did, because it was tough and I wanted nothing more than for my daughter to always have her dad. And so getting that sentence was like a kick to the chest, like it knocked me to my knees almost literally. I was in the courtroom and yeah, it was awful courtroom and yeah, it was, it was awful.

Speaker 1: 12:03

And so, as I was on that train ride, I was just reflecting on all the ways that God had held us in the last 17 years. I never thought that I would be able to take my daughter out of state for the weekend to not only do the college tour but to just have a girls weekend away. I never thought that was in the cards. I thought I would forever be a struggling single mom and that is the furthest thing from our reality now. And I just reflected on all the ways that God has held us in his hands over the last 17 years and how my daughter is literally walking in my answered prayers. And it was so great.

Speaker 1: 12:48

And had we not traveled, had we not had that train ride, I would not have been able to have that moment of reflection and gratitude for everything that we've been through good, bad and ugly. Like all of it, I was so thankful for every bit of it, because every bit of it has shaped her and me into the people that we are today and I'm so thankful for it. And I'm thankful for the time that we had on that trip for me to truly sit and reflect on that, because it has changed the way that I think about her college experience and planning for college and all the things that come along with it. And so, yeah, it gives you a time to break away from daily responsibilities and allows for self-reflection. And so that takes me to the second point of travel as a form of self-care, which is it allows us to disconnect from work and technology and to reset mentally and emotionally. And to reset mentally and emotionally.

Speaker 1: 13:57

So, while I don't 100% disconnect when I am on vacation I know some people do but I am a lot slower to respond to text messages. I don't respond to work emails. If it's not a dire emergency, I don't respond to it. I usually wait to post to social media until the moment has passed and we're just sitting around or resting for a while. And that time away from technology and day-to-day responsibilities really is an opportunity for me to reset. I know the work will be waiting for me when I am done and sometimes that can be a little bit stressful, but I have created ways to deal with that stress after the fact. So I have a triage system where I deal with the most important emails first, or I'll work through my inbox backwards to top. That way I'm dealing with the older stuff first and then I just knock it out. So I try not to let the stress of the work that's waiting steal from my peace and my joy in the present moment.

Speaker 1: 15:19

Practice mindfulness while you travel is to take some quiet time, to go for a walk before the family gets up and everyone hits the ground running to go to Six Flags or Disney or to the beach or whatever it is. Take some time for yourself. Take a quick walk around the block, sit at the table and have your cup of coffee. Sit out on the back porch or on the balcony in the hotel room and have a quiet cup of tea Journal, read your Bible. These are all ways that you can practice mindfulness while you travel, to make the most of your self-care on that trip One of my favorite things to do when traveling wasn't in the cards for me was to just go find a quiet park and let my daughter play on the playground while I sat on a blanket next to the lake or the pond and just journaled or just wrote a letter to my future self.

Speaker 1: 16:11

That was one of my favorite things to do. I would write a letter in my journal and just capture the moment and what I was feeling and where I hoped to be one day. And I have to tell you, I'm pretty dang close to being where I hoped I would be one day and that makes me incredibly proud. But if it weren't for those moments of mindfulness and reflecting, I never would have been able to appreciate it now, because it would have been a fleeting thought, right Like if I hadn't taken the time to write down what was going on in the moment, the stresses, the anxiety, the hopes, the fears, the dreams. If I hadn't written them down, they would have just been a fleeting thought and now I wouldn't have them to reflect on and say, teresa, you did it Like, you worked hard, you fought the battles and now you get to sit back and live the life that you dreamed of. And yeah, this life that I dreamed of is not easy. I'm always busy, I'm always doing things. It's not all nice and pretty and happy and sunshine and rainbows all the time, but I am living in the dreams and hopes that I had 10 years ago, 15 years ago. So I just want to encourage you to take some time to practice mindfulness while you explore and travel. So exploring new cultures is another thing that happens whenever we travel.

Speaker 1: 17:39

I grew up in a place where you were either black, white or Mexican. It didn't matter if you were actually Argentinian or Mexican or Spanish. If you were brown, you were Mexican. Didn't matter if you were actually Nigerian or Ethiopian or actually a black American, you were just black. It didn't matter if you were Norwegian or German or Irish. In my hometown, if you were white, you were white. It was literally black, white, mexican, and so I didn't really discover what it meant to have culture until I started traveling, and that's when I was exposed to Cuban culture and Puerto Rican culture and Ethiopian culture and Nigerian culture and Irish food and German food and Spanish food versus Mexican food, and so none of those concepts would have happened for me had I started exploring and traveling and really getting outside of my bubble to understand these people, and by traveling, not only have I introduced myself to their food because people are much more than just their cuisine.

Speaker 1: 19:02

However, I can tell you that you can learn a lot about people by eating their food and sharing a meal with them, but I have learned cultural practices and beliefs, and so whenever I interact with someone from a different culture and their behavior isn't quite what I would deem socially acceptable in that situation, I can have some empathy for them, I can have some level of understanding because I understand their culture a little bit more, because I've immersed myself in their culture through travel and exploration immersed myself in their culture through travel and exploration, and so that is one of the biggest things I think that travel has done for me, as I have explored different neighborhoods and different countries and different areas. If you go to little Italy or if you go to Chinatown, like, you really get immersed in a culture and you see little things that are unique to them and you can appreciate it. I always love when I go to a Chinatown in a different city and literally everyone, all of the vendors, they all know each other and they're like yelling at each other, talking to each other from their booths. It is a big community and I love that they have such a collectivism culture and it is beautiful to me. But I wouldn't know that if I hadn't immersed myself in that culture and gotten to know Chinese people and what they hold as valuable to them. Then you understand what these little trinkets are that they're selling. But you've really got to open yourself up to exploring new cultures and stepping out of your own comfort zone to develop empathy and understanding of people who don't look like you or sound like you or eat like you.

Speaker 1: 20:52

So adventure and overcoming fears with travel. So adventure and overcoming fears with travel. So travel can be scary. The first time I went to Europe it was terrifying. My husband and I were dating at the time we weren't married yet and we got off the plane. In the airport A lot of stuff was in English plane. In the airport A lot of stuff was in English. But then we got to the train station to take the train to our Airbnb and suddenly I couldn't read any of the signs. I had no idea where we were going and all I could do was hope and pray that my husband did. Hope and pray that my husband did. That's my boyfriend at the time. Keep that in mind. So it really pushed my comfort limits.

Speaker 1: 21:49

As a single mom, I had always been in control of travel. I had been the one to plan the trips that my daughter and I took. I was the one that was solely responsible for getting us to and from when she always tells this story. But when she was about to be five years old, I took her to Disneyland for the first time, and we flew out of Denver to LAX, and if you've ever been to the Denver airport, you know how insane it is, and LAX can be just as crazy. I was terrified that I was going to lose her. She was tiny at that age, and so I wrote my information on her luggage tag and I made her wear her luggage tag attached to her shirt the entire time we traveled. I had her wear the luggage tag at the airports. I had her wear the luggage tag at Disney. I had her wear it at the beach. I literally have a picture of her with her luggage tag at Laguna Beach with it attached to the back of her bathing suit. But I needed to. I was the one that was in charge of all that.

Speaker 1: 22:54

So when I started traveling with my husband, I was suddenly relinquishing control the need to control to my husband, and that was anxiety inducing for me. He was taking me to places I'd never been. We were traveling a lot when we were dating, and so I was immersed in places where I didn't know the language, I couldn't read the signs and I had to trust that he would get us to where we were going. And as we traveled together, I began to grow my confidence in his abilities and my own abilities in navigating unusual and unknown situations. And that is one of the biggest things that I'm grateful for when it comes to traveling is that it has shown me that I can overcome my fears, I can push past my own, my self-inflicted limits, and I can do more than I ever thought that I could. And that sense of achievement and accomplishment goes a long way, because when I am in an everyday life situation that I don't think I can handle, I remember, hey, teresa, you traversed a train station in a country where you could not read the signs and you got to your Airbnb safe, right, I can handle this thing right. It gives you a sense of accomplishment and that translates to confidence in other areas of your life. Okay, so now we're going to move on to solo traveling and how it can boost a stronger sense of connection.

Speaker 1: 24:41

So solo traveling is something that I've only done a couple of times. I usually travel with family friends, someone who is more in control than me. So I traveled with my daughter for the first time by ourselves in a very long time and and it was to Chicago and we had to kind of navigate our way around the city and we got lost. But we only got lost once we had been to Chicago enough times that we were able to navigate that. But it fostered a sense of connection between my daughter and me. I learned that she is capable to navigate a city on her own. It boosted both of our confidences in our ability to travel by ourselves, together and individually, and on that trip I really wanted my daughter to understand that she was capable of traveling with or without people. We have a friend who has gone on a multi-year adventure around the world and I watch her on Facebook and I'm just in awe of her resilience and her tenacity at solo traveling around the world, and that is something that I want my daughter to experience traveling around the world, and that is something that I want my daughter to experience. I want her to have the confidence in herself to be able to pick up and leave and not be full of fear. Right, there might be a little bit of anxiety, a little bit of fear, but I don't want her sense of exploration and discovery to be tamped down or drowned out by fear. And I think taking a few solo trips maybe start close by and then expanding those can help you boost your independence and your sense of self-discovery.

Speaker 1: 26:36

So my last trip was with friends, and it can be very tricky to travel with friends and family or even co-workers, because everyone is different, everyone has preferences and things they'll do and things they won't do. But traveling together is a way to nurture friendships and foster stronger communication. Friendships and foster stronger communication. So my friends and I had to learn to communicate in ways that were okay with each other. So we learned that one of our friends is not a morning person, whereas the other person and I are. So the other person and I were like, hey, sleep in as long as you want, we're going to do our thing. Like, we got up, we got dressed, we went for coffee, we sat out on the back patio and laughed and picked limes off the lime tree, like we just did our thing. And then we went inside and watched some TV show on the travel network or something and just sat there and enjoyed some quiet time. She read a magazine, I watched TV and then, when our friend was ready to get up, she got dressed, came out and said, hey, I'm, you know it takes me a little bit to get going. And we're like, hey, that's totally fine, but it's that level of understanding and respect that everyone is different and everyone processes vacation their own way right.

Speaker 1: 28:07

So when my husband and I first started traveling together, he is a morning person. I am not necessarily a morning person. I'm a morning person if I get enough sleep. That's the key for me. I have to get 10 hours of sleep or I am non-functioning in the morning.

Speaker 1: 28:25

Well, my husband wanted to stay up until two in the morning, but he also wanted to. We also had to wake up at 530 in the morning for an excursion. I was like, look, dude, you get one or the other, but I can't do both. So we're either staying up for the concert, or we're going to an after party, or we're going to bed early and going to the excursion. Like we can't do both. We either go to bed early and make the excursion or go to the after party and miss the excursion. It's up to you. So we ended up staying up pretty late and he still woke me up for the excursion. I did not speak to him for the hour-long ride it took to get to the jungle where our excursion was.

Speaker 1: 29:10

He learned very quickly that trip, that I need my beauty sleep. But these are things that you learn when you travel with people and it builds your bond, builds your ability to communicate with diverse populations, people who aren't exactly like you, and it builds your bonds together. So if you can just push through those hiccups and troublesome moments of travel, I promise you will have a deeper sense of understanding for people If you can look at it, have some empathy and look at it, put yourself in their shoes and see it from their point of view. So travel doesn't have to be expensive. Like I said, you can literally have a staycation. You can explore your own neighborhoods. There are hotels in every town. You can rent a hotel for the night, enjoy their pool, enjoy their amenities, enjoy their restaurant and act like you're not in your own hometown. For the night, you can go for a walk in the park. One of my favorite places to explore in Dallas is Cedar Hill Nature Preserve, because it feels like you're not in the city. It feels like you're somewhere in the hill country or in the Wichita Mountains.

Speaker 1: 30:35

So find places that are local to you, that you can explore and plan your next adventure. What are you waiting for? Even if it's a local experience, I want you to share your favorite travel experiences in the comments. How have they impacted your mental health or your social health? Sorry, and leave it down below. Comment on my Instagram. Comment on my Instagram. Comment on my Facebook. Comment in Spotify, Apple, whatever, wherever you get your podcasts, I want to know what has been your favorite travel experience and how has it impacted your mental health. So until next time, be well, be kind, and may you find some joy this week. Bye.