When we are depressed all we can think about is the current situation, how the hell are you going to change it, it feels like it will never end! Travel can be an escape from the depressive life you are living and give you so much from even a week or two week experience of travelling even in your own country. In this blog post the founder of Seek A Therapy discusses why travelling is so good for you and how travelling helps overcome depression.




1. Travelling By Aeroplane

When the Seek A Therapy founder was in his initial stages of recovering from severe depression and anxiety he took the audacious step of travelling to Colombia. He travelled from Manchester,UK, alone to meet a girl he had first met in London and learnt Spanish with.

It was a total contrast of the reality of what his life had become. This was surely the turning point for him and his health. It became the catalyst to him finding work. Moved 200 miles away from his hometown for work. Travelling to Colombia gave him a complete new lease of life!

Perspective

As the plane took off and he looked down at the earth, he saw the ground getting smaller and smaller. The trees becoming more broccoli than trees. Cars looking no bigger than toys. It changed his perspective on his own problems. He began to think : –

Are my problems really as bad as they seem? Am I making them bigger than they need to be? Look how small we are? Even the most powerful person on the planet is so small in comparison to the earth and if you look up the earth is even small in comparison to the universe and the universe to galaxy! This is silly!

Being able to take an aeroplane lets you not only lets you travel far but also makes you realise that we are small in the grand scheme of things. We are here for such a short period of time. Taking time out of your difficult situation like travelling allows you to see ‘the big picture’ on the world and your life. Although it often doesn’t feel like it, it never is as bad as it seems.

Don’t take my word for it. To gain a perspective of how small our problems are just take a glimpse at this video. This video demonstrates the infinity of the universe whilst showing our size. It could open your mind to the fact, none of our problems are as big as they may seem.

2. Travel Allows You To Meet inspirational People

Travelling across the other side of the world alone may have been the best thing the founder could have done.

Along the way he met many people whom he spoke to on his travels. One particular gentleman from South Africa, a pensioner who had lived a full and varied life. He was on his flight from Manchester to Madrid, the halfway point to Colombia. This man happened to sit next to me and tell me all his life stories.

He was a man that was nearly murdered by burglars for some of his belongings. Luckily he managed to escape. Taken part in a civil war of South Africa, and seen his friends blown to pieces in front of his eyes. Became a semi professional football (soccer) player and been a part of the radio industry technology when it was in its infancy.

He had seen so much and experienced many different scenarios in his life. For this moment, the Seek A Therapy founder was in awe. What an amazing person.

To think, seven months ago prior to this conversation the founder was considering taking his own life. This man was showing me how much he had been through but also the achievements he had accomplished. He showed me life is precious and one hell of a journey. Life doesn’t always give you what you want to happen. There are many challenges along the way, but as long as you keep trying and you never give up…

travelling shows you that your life can be an incredible story.

2. Traveling Teaches You To Live An Adventure

When you are travelling, unless you have a package holiday, everything is new. You make quicker decisions and have to rely on yourself and your own ability to get about.

The uncertainty of where you are, where you need to go or how best to reach a destination makes you find your independence. You discover your inner Indiana Jones, prepared to take risks. There is new experiences around every corner, new spectacles, a danger or a friendly face. It makes life much more exciting and less of a problem than you thought it was before.

Around every corner is a new adventure

3. Different Country Different Culture

Rome Italy

Around these corners you travel you will find many different cultures. Different customs and different values. What each of us deem important in life and in human relations differs slightly from country to country. Experiencing different cultures opens your mind to realising just because you have lived a certain way and been taught that ‘this is the way to live’ is not necessarily correct, for you. Life should be lived how is best for your situation, not the status quo. Not what everyone else does just to fit in, travelling opens your eyes to the conformity of the society in which you have been brought up in. You also notice different cultures may well suit your personality better than the one you have come to know so well.

Travelling will help you realise that although we live differently we are all in fact very similar. We all seek very similar life goals of love, family, relationships and comfort.

World cultures are one of the greatest riches of the world we can experience

4. Traveling Helps You Encounter Compassion

Tibetan Rally Paris

When you travel you see people who are in dire need of help and support. It can really tug at your heart strings. The founder saw children begging in the streets of Colombia, possibly from gangs who put them there. Disabled people and young children desperate to sell me a pack of tissues in Morocco as there is no support form them. You realise how much many people need love and compassion regardless of their situation.

Travelling makes you awaken to human suffering and to your human instincts to help others. When you return from your journeys you realise that petty little squabbles that maybe someone has insulted you or tried to bring you down is very small. It allows you to open your heart more to the plight of others.

Travelling can put your heart and focus firmly in the right place 

5. Travelling Helps Overcome Depression By Building Your Confidence

Doing something where you know no one, you don’t know what places to avoid, you don’t speak the language and the food is down right bizarre pushes you outside your comfort zone. It forces a new world onto you that once experienced, nothing will take you back to who you once were. Increasing your ability to face the strange and the difficulties that life brings. It will make change seem less difficult than before.

Travel builds your ability to accept life’s challenges with ease

6. Travelling Helps Overcome Depression By Letting You Enjoy Life Again

Peddle Car In Rome Park

The activities you undertake whilst abroad whether sunbathing or taking in new vistas, architecture or camel trekking across the Sahara desert will help you enjoy life again. When you become depressed it is hard to see the wood through the trees and by choosing to take time to travel it can excite your senses. Even if only to a new village or city close to your own, it can take you out of your usual environment and help you realise the world  has many experiences to enjoy. You realise, you are the only person stopping yourself from seeing the beauty of the world.

Travelling allows you to enjoy life again

7. Allows You To Appreciate The Beauty Of The World That Sometimes Is Lost In Difficult Life Situations

The natural world in which we live IS beautiful. Yes we see our cities and hometowns all the time, lots of people and yes, people are beautiful too but, my word. Have you actually seen natures true beauty? When you travel and you look down over the earth from an aeroplane window and you see the curves of the mountains. The clouds floating on by. The turquoise seas of the Caribbean ocean or the farmed land that looks like a patchwork quilt it makes you realise. This planet is beautiful and that having depression is stopping you from enjoying the fruits that this world has to offer. Something has to change.

Travelling helps you appreciate nature and the planets diversity

8. You Can Allow Yourself To Relax And Destress

When we are constantly in a situation that is difficult in our minds we can’t seem to escape it. We are surrounded by the same four walls, the same city and the same people. We begin to think that this is all there is to the world and can be a very stressful experience.

When you travel you leave your cares and worries behind. If only for a week or two, if you cannot travel on a permanent basis. Travel allows you to become yourself again, relaxing and de-stressing as you do.

What I love most about travelling is that you realise how small you are in comparison to the world. To the universe and the galaxy. If you are that small then how small is your problem of depression that resides in your head? I know it feels massive when you are experiencing it but when you travel it really can become tiny!

Travel helps you relax and destress from worries and makes you realise the worry isn’t so big after all.


9. Travelling Helps Overcome Depression By Widening Your Knowledge & Opening Your Mind

John, founder of Seek A Therapy at Karnak Temple In Luxor. travelling helps overcome depression and opens your mind.

As you travel and see new places your knowledge expands. New sights, new sounds, new culture, new buildings, new ways of thinking, new philosophies, new ideas, new people, new everything!

When you start travelling your thirst for knowledge and culture opens. The more you consume, the more you need and the more it makes your brain buzz with excitement. The realisation there is more to life than what we first thought.

Travel widens your knowledge and opens your mind 

10. Memories that are golden

Travelling makes memories and also travelling helps overcome depression. John founder of seek a therapy in thailand

In life time is the most precious thing you can own. What you do with that precious gift is what makes the difference. By spending time travelling, seeing new things and meeting new people will give you memories captured in time that are set in stone. Everything material in this world IS perishable, NOTHING physical is permanent.

A house that you ‘own’ paying off each month until you retire is one day, not going to exist. Albeit it, it may be passed down through the generations and yes, a house can have memories. Travel is powerful and mind expanding. Travelling to as many countries as you possibly can in your life will one day allow you to look back on your life with a big smile and think, wow, how beautiful our world is.

Do you want to sit on your death bed, look back and say ‘I had a nice house and brought up good kids’ or do you want ot say ‘wow, i went to so many places, saw so many things, learnt so much and met some amazing people’.

Travel creates memories that will make you proud when old

11. New places help us become more resourceful

When we travel we have travel money. We have to budget, we have to consider what to do with our time. Needing to rely on ourselves and making quick decisions.

By travelling to new places we take ourselves out of that situation we live in. We instead start moving into a place of having to think about where we need to go, what we want to do and being aware of our surroundings.

Travelling makes us more resourceful with our money, decisions and thoughts

12. Travelling Helps Overcome Depression By Returning With New Perspectives

travelling helps overcome depression. A picture of the earth

Once your adventures are over and you are returning back to your homeland sometimes you come back with a new perspective on life. For the founder, after travelling to the other side of the world alone, he came back with more fire and determination to change his life than he did before travelling. The way in which he thought about his problems seemed smaller. His confidence was renewed, nothing was bothering him as much as it did before. Two weeks after returning home, he found a job and then moved 200 miles away for his next adventure…

The last sentence is a way of travelling even when finances don’t allow. By getting a job in a new city, with new people, in your own country, that too can be just as powerful as travelling for fun.

Travelling Helps Overcome Depression

You can see why we believe travelling helps overcome depression .

For the founder of Seek A Therapy, travelling may have been one of the biggest catalyst for change in his life. For you it may not be, but whether it is or not I can say with confidence that travel can only do wonders for your health. Your life changes forever after a real exploration of a new country. I believe travel must be an important part of anyones agenda to live a full meaningful life.

Has travel changed your life? Have you had similar experiences of? Please comment in the box below.



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