How Travel is Helpful for Your Personality

Taking a trip is a wonderful way to gain new experiences and perspectives. We are fortunate to live in a time when travel has never been simpler or more affordable. At present, an estimated 1.18 billion people visit foreign countries each year.

Reasons for traveling vary from person to person. As a means of escape, in search of excitement, adventure, inspiration, relaxation, motivation, or just to chill out, the reasons to travel can be manifold.

Studies demonstrate that the correct kind of travel—immersive, slightly demanding, and longer-term—can physically rewire your brain and alter how you see the world, even if sometimes a relaxing beach trip is just what your doctor or therapist suggests. It has the potential to improve your character.

There have been a number of studies done, and the results all point to the fact that long-term travel is good for your character. In this article, we will talk about how traveling can enhance your personality in different ways. Let’s have a look at some of the ways traveling is helpful for your personality.

 

Fosters Compassion

Empathy is a fundamental human trait; it is encoded into our brains and forms the basis of all meaningful relationships. But, as with so many other things in life, it takes consistent effort.

A professor of psychology at Harvard University, Steven Pinker, argues that the expansion of mass media (both journalism and inexpensive fiction) over the past two centuries has widened this “circle of empathy” by making lives on the other side of the world more accessible and sympathetic.

While cell phones have made the world accessible at our fingertips, it is easy to become overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data at our fingertips. The ability to empathize with people from other backgrounds is honed through travel, which compels us to “escape the insulation of our comfort zone,” as Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times put it.

Learning a new language and becoming bilingual, especially at a young age, has been demonstrated to boost our ability to empathize by normalizing the brain’s switch between languages and, by extension, perspectives. This is yet another way in which travel and discovery contribute to our capacity for empathy.

 

Enhances Self-Awareness

By letting others in, we might learn to let ourselves in as well. Traveling overseas has been observed to raise a person’s self-awareness and stress levels due to the increased chance for introspection provided by everyday exposure to unfamiliar situations and people. Although this research focused on long-term expatriate life, similar results could be expected from shorter trips.

The ability to switch gears between different lines of thought, or “cognitive flexibility,” is closely associated with maturing in self-awareness and experiencing a diversity of viewpoints. By constantly testing our assumptions and routines, travel helps us maintain a “flexible” mindset. In turn, this fosters the growth of one’s imagination, which is arguably the most valuable skill of all.

 

Increases Creativity

Creativity will be the defining characteristic of individuals who survive the coming age of automation and the radical transformation of the working environment. It will also be crucial for making progress on different global issues and fueling ongoing technological and scientific advancements.

Adam Galinsky, a professor at Columbia University, has performed studies showing that executives who have spent time abroad and been exposed to other cultures and languages are more likely to take risks and innovate in the workplace.

Researchers in the Netherlands and Singapore found that frequent flyers had a greater capacity for creative problem-solving. Researchers in Israel found that in 2012, those who were less welcoming of people from other cultural backgrounds scored lower on tests of innovative problem-solving.

 

Cultivates Trust

If conflicting opinions and isolated instances of narrow-mindedness characterize our era, then a general lack of trust is another defining feature. In many parts of the world, trust in others has been dropping for years, in contrast to the Nordic countries, especially Finland, where levels of trust in everything from governmental institutions to other individuals, including migrants, continue to be high.

Finland led the 2018 World Happiness Index, while the United States ranked 18th; this suggests that investing in people’s ability to trust one another pays dividends in terms of overall happiness.

One of the greatest benefits of traveling is that it increases the likelihood of developing trusting relationships with people from many walks of life and cultural backgrounds. Research carried out in both China and the United States has repeatedly demonstrated this. Broader trust is developed, as is what Galinsky has termed a “general faith in humanity,”  the feeling that we are “all in this together” and working towards similar goals.

 

Gets You More Grounded

Moments of clarity that occur to us on trips make us more grounded. It can be uncomfortable to try to use your (still limited) language abilities with a Parisian cab driver who doesn’t quite grasp how you’re saying “Champs-Elysées” or a new airport where you can’t read the signage and struggle to find your way. But it also teaches us to accept challenges and persevere in the face of adversity.

The power of travel lies in the fact that it enables us to see humanity in others and, by extension, in ourselves.

 

Helps to Value Time and Practice Patience

The experience of traveling forces you out of your comfort zone, which prepares you like a firm anchor. Waiting for service at a restaurant or checking bags at the airport becomes a minor inconvenience after that.

Also, when on vacation, it’s important to make the most of the time you have. Since you can’t afford to lose it, you learn how to make the most of its convenience. In an effort to disconnect and rediscover your true nature, you begin to seize each day.

 

Helps You Learn How to Find Solutions

Another study of students was published in the same issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Two sets of students were given assignments to complete. The first set of people had done extensive traveling or lived overseas, while the second set had not. The study participants who had visited or lived abroad were 20% more likely to perform well on the tasks than the control group. Based on their findings, the researchers concluded that long-term international experience facilitated the development of “out-of-the-box” thinking skills.

 

Humbles You

You come to joyfully embrace the differences and value the company of others. You develop a more accepting attitude towards others’ ideas and perspectives, which helps you find value in the smallest of everyday pleasures and discover a treasure trove of happiness in the natural world. Discovering new places is one of the best parts of any trip. The more you travel, the more you learn about other cultures and the more you appreciate them; this increases the worth of your brand.

 

Boosts Your Mood

A study found that people are happier when they are ‘anticipating’ a good travel experience than when they are ‘anticipating’ more concrete things like money or a purchase of some kind. We wholeheartedly agree since the many trips and vacations we have planned have brought us more joy than anything else we have bought.

 

Gets You More Productive

We’ll never understand why some people still don’t use all their vacation days, but science says it’s good for you. A study by the US Travel Association found that employees who used all of their vacation days were 6.5% more likely to be promoted than those who didn’t. This is due to the fact that taking breaks increases productivity. The same rule applies to lunch breaks, which can be tricky to schedule.

 

Final Words

The nicest part about trips is the stories they bring to light. There is no such thing as a pleasant or unpleasant voyage. Your experience stack will grow with every trip you take. Indeed, once a traveler, always a traveler holds true One such opportunity is travel, which can be transformed into a profoundly moving educational adventure.

“Not all those who wander and travel are lost,” J.R.R. Tolkien wrote. Those who are willing to wander and journey are rewarded with many exciting and formative encounters.

Travel leaves us feeling richer and more fulfilled than before. So, make sure to go ahead and increase your wealth. This trip is all about getting away from it all and spending quality “me time” in a new environment. Dress in your comfiest pajamas and coolest trainers, grab your travel luggage, and get ready for a trip you won’t soon forget!

 

 

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