Hone Stress To Improve Your Travels

• 16 years ago

Focus the stress that traveling can introduce into your life and turn it into a way to make your travels even better. Stress from being stuck at the airport, baggage fees, or not knowing the local language can not only age you quickly but also kill the fun no matter where you are.

Rather that letting these stresses throw you off (like making some rather confusing spelling mistakes) use the natural energy stress provides to improve your travels – which will reduce your stress at the same time.

Walk It Off

Traveling, ironically, involves a lot of sitting on your butt. Stress raises your blood pressure, leading to headaches that can be relieved with a simple walk down an airplane isle, around the block, or a swim in the hotel pool. To motivate yourself to get up, don’t just wander around aimlessly – set yourself a goal. Perhaps a distance (like the other end of an airport), a number of times up and down the train aisle, or the pub around the corner (my personal favorite).

• Walking is one of 3 fun things to do at the airport if you’ve got some extra time.
• Walking can help reduce your travelers constipation.
• Walking is one of the ways to prevent the development of blood clots in your legs that are caused by sitting for prolonged periods.

Focus Your Ideas

Stress gets our minds going, except that it usually fills it up with junk. Using just a tiny amount of will power you can use this mental burst to thunderstorm some ideas on where to go, some places to add to your itinerary, or just be spontaneous and harmonize with your busy schedule.

One of the easiest ways to reduce your travel stress is to let go of your itinerary, if just for a bit. This doesn’t require any additional thinking or effort just do it. Take a nap, go somewhere not on your 8 minute travel plan, or create a “to-stop” list as Matador Travel suggests in their 7 zen productivity tips for travelers.

If you’re not getting the results you want, chances are you don’t care much about the things you’re doing. The best way to change this is to create a “To-Stop” list.

Write About It

Go online and use the cause, the cure, or simply the experience of your stress and write about it. Writing about your personal experiences is a great way to build a successful travel blog, keep your travel blogging passion alive, and be interesting for your readers at the same time.

Those of you who don’t have travel blogs can vent, advise, and write on your existing online accounts like Facebook or Twitter.

Turn It Into A Positive

It’s been a crazy few weeks and I’ve seen my stress (partly from travel) increase steadily. That’s how stress works, it slowly creeps into your daily routine and traveling can make it all the more difficult to spot.

Travel mishaps, too much traveling, or not being able to travel are all opportunities to get creative instead of frustrated. Anytime you can flip stress on its head you not only get rid of it and feel better, but you accomplish something as well. That accomplishment can be anything, even if it’s enjoying a spring day on your hotel balcony, writing about other stressed travelers run from one place to another.

[photos by: deckchua, the trial]