As someone who has suffered periodically from both anxiety and depression, I can vouch for everyone else who's ever been through it that it is not something we would wish upon our worst enemies. For those lucky few who've never experienced clinical depression or anxiety, allow me to shed some light on the subject. Depression is essentially characterized by feelings of apathy, sadness, and hopelessness. Anxiety, though it comes in different forms, is characterized by feelings of panic or fear. I remember a particularly terrible point in my life when I experienced both, in all their "glory." I would tell you all about it, but my editor told me to save the sob stories for my autobiography.
My point is, I understand the importance of mental health. And after my study abroad experience, I firmly believe in the power of travel as a healing agent. With that, here are three ways travel can improve your mental health:
1. Travel broadens your perspective.
It forces you to realize there is more to life than yourself and your personal experience. You would think that this depersonalization would be more harmful than helpful, but the way travel opens your mind is one of the most beautiful and life-changing experiences you can ever feel. I arrived in Italy full of fear that my depression and anxiety would negatively affect a potentially amazing experience in Italy. But the moment I got off the plane and began interacting with people and practicing my Italian, everything else seemed irrelevant.
2. Travel gives you an escape.
Now, I'm definitely NOT saying you should try and escape your problems instead of dealing with them in a safe manner. I'm saying that taking a break from home, and work, and people who bring you down can be one of the best medicines for depression out there. I've always suffered from wanderlust, always craved to travel and meet people and share experiences and see beautiful things, all things I felt I couldn't do at home, and finally having that freedom made me somehow feel better about myself. It made me believe in my abilities and in myself.
3. Travel makes you appreciate everything.
It makes you appreciate humans and how fascinating and beautiful and unique each and every one of us is. It makes you appreciate the world, like how can things as beautiful as the island of Capri even exist? It makes you appreciate your home, when even though you thought you would never miss it, you remember the smell of your mom's homemade Indian food. But most importantly, travel forces you to appreciate yourself. Just you, how you are. Not how you wish to be or wish you weren't. It's sort of a feeling in your heart of belonging in the world and among people. A peace within yourself that can only be discovered when you're, like, a thousand feet in the air looking over the GORGEOUS city of Gubbio from a mountain monorail.
The importance of this last part just can't be expressed. Because I feel that the root of depression (not counting biological ones) is you under-appreciating yourself. Under-appreciating your intelligence, capability, and the amount of self-worth you have. Below are some pictures to show you my experience and hopefully, it will urge you yourself to travel and relieve yourself of the pain you don't deserve to feel.
(Capri, Italy)
(Gubbio, Italy)
(Perugia, Italy)
