According to recent research from Texas A&M University, travel might be something more than just a fun hobby: It might actually improve your health. As part of a study into how travel affects heart health, results showed that traveling can strengthen the heart, make us more productive, and reduce stress.
“I think it’s more than just memories and joy,” said Dr. James Petrick, a professor and researcher with A&M’s hospitality, hotel management, and tourism department, via a press release. “What our research has shown is that if we travel, our relationships with others get strengthened. Travel makes us more educated than if we don’t travel, and we become healthier.”
Part of the study included monitoring 20 students taking a cruise, utilizing smartwatches and a specially designed app to track activity, heartbeat, and movement. Students also were asked to keep hourly diaries outlining their activities, allowing researchers to match up the date on their heart health with what they were doing at that moment. The data indicated a surprising connection between heart strength and how people vacation.
“Travel, from what we’ve learned, is similar to how a good athlete trains, where you work out hard in short intervals, let your heart relax, do short intervals, relax. Vacations have a similar effect. Our hearts react to exciting and novel experiences, then rest as we relax and wind down,” continues Petrick. “That’s how vacations make our hearts stronger.”
Petrick also says that research indicates longer trips should have even more profound effects in relation to shorter ones. The longer a trip, the longer the stress reduction. But more research is needed into the long-term effects of travel.
“What we don’t know is what happens long term while people are on vacations,” Petrick explains. “We’re assuming that after too many days outside our usual environment, we get stressed, because we miss being home and get behind at work.”
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