That trip you’ve been planning may have more benefits than you think.
A new study by researchers at Edith Cowan University in Australia, published in Science Daily, found that traveling can potentially slow down signs of aging and give you positive health benefits.
While aging is irreversible and no one can turn back time, travel can slow it down by improving your physical and mental health.
“This research is conceptual and employs the principle of entropy increase to explore how tourism might impact human health, both positively and negatively. This principle, originally from physics, refers to the natural tendency of systems to move towards disorder or chaos, a process that is irreversible but can be mitigated,” Fangli Hu, PhD, the lead author of the study, told Scripps News.
When you leave your day-to-day life and go on vacation, you are often trying things you usually don’t do. This could include meeting new people, participating in more relaxing activities or physical exercise, and getting more sleep.
All of these factors can be beneficial and help with premature aging.
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Researchers looked at the positive and negative impacts of tourism on physical, metal and social health.
Some of their findings included that new settings and environments can elevate metabolic rates, which can impact your body’s metabolism.
More calming travel-related activities like yoga, relaxing, or the spa can help with chronic stress.
Travel can also improve your self-defense system.
“Our hope is that this research can motivate people to see travel not just as a leisure and recreation activity but as a valuable part of a healthy lifestyle,” Hu said.
“We are particularly interested in empirically investigating how exactly travel could contribute to the health and well-being of aging individuals, especially those with chronic diseases such as dementia and depression,” Hu said.
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A 2020 survey by the U.S. Travel Association found that 97% of survey respondents reported having a trip planned makes them happier. Nearly 3 in 4 respondents said they have greater levels of energy knowing they have a trip planned in the next 6 months.
This summer broke travel records. On top of record-breaking holiday travel weekends, on July 7 the Transportation Security Administration broke the record for most people screened on a single day at more than 3 million people.
