A Little Science on Why You Should Travel

Kenzie Bradshaw
Jul 22, 2017 · 5 min read

There are many travel guides I have read that use the word “inexpensive” or “cheap” only to find that the actual amount is way out of my own definition of affordable. Alongside those guides are many inspiring works that will encourage you to travel while you are young. Now, I don’t have a statistic to support it, but I have to assume that there are many other 20-somethings out there that are viscerally being torn in-between these two things. We’re burnt out, saddled with college debt and trying to scrape by and yet at the same time we have this gut-wrenching desire to be doing something meaningful before we get too settled or it’s too late. All our music is talking about rebelling and fires burning inside and we’re trudging to our work day after day, struggling to look like we have it all together and asking about the why of everything. Let me tell you what I have learned so far, the things that I kept mulling over in my head when I should have been asleep, and the science that allowed me to objectively shut myself up and get on the plane:

That Dang Treadmill

There will never be a point in your life when everything gets easier and you have everything so well put together that traveling is going to be a perfect option. There will never be “the right time”. (Mantra for the month anybody?) There’s this neat thing called the hedonic treadmill that we have to come to terms with. I’m not a psychology professor (hence the link), but basically the idea is that when big events occur in our life- good or bad, we tend to return to the same level happiness over time.

Where that baseline is on people seems to vary, but the issue that this causes is that each time that we feel like we are getting a little bit ahead (running faster on the treadmill), in no time it seems like we have made no progress. It makes you feel like you have went backwards, like you’re coming down off of a high so that even if you just go back to normal good pace of happy it doesn’t seem as good. So the right time will never come, you will keep running in place sweating your butt off waiting for someday. Don’t think this is the end all though! There is good news, but I’m saving it for last.

Elasticity of Demand and Luxury Goods

There’s also this nifty phenomenon that happens in economics with luxury goods and the principle of elasticity of demand. There can be some equations but since we’re talking about happiness I’ll leave them out. Economists classify goods into certain categories based on how the quantities of those goods fluctuate with consumer’s income. Certain goods are classified as “luxury”, such as lobster or brand name toilet paper, because as our income increases we tend to purchase more of these items. I know that’s kind of a lot of big words for “I buy better stuff when I have more money”, but what’s not included is the non-monetary value of these things. Do the name brand Oreo’s change how happy you are? Or are you just pointlessly running faster on the hedonistic treadmill? You can break free of the luxury goods trap by good old fashion budgeting, and make yourself put something back every time the phrase “I work hard and deserve this” pops into your head.

There’s a nice little article I read by Andrew Hyde about living on $36 a month for groceries and it not being the most awful experience ever. If you keep saying you can’t travel cause you can’t afford it, it’s not your income or your job, it’s your way of thinking and prioritizing what’s important. Be realistic, but start thinking about cost vs worth. Is the extra expense worth the happiness return? After going through depression, and watching my family go through varying levels of anxiety issues and depression, being happy is a top priority to me. And Lord knows I am too dang busy to waste any more time on that dang treadmill!

Happiness on a Cellular Level

There’s a flipside to the Hedonic treadmill, called Eudemonic happiness. Eudemonia simply roots from the words “good” and “spirit”. Modern philosophy refers to it more as the happiness we derive from noble goals, or actions that move us toward self-actualization and the realization of our potential. Hedonism on the flip side is more simply about pleasure. For a simplified example, a hedonistic pleasure would be buying yourself a cookie, a eudemonic pleasure would be buying someone else a cookie that couldn’t afford one. Both things make you happy, but they make you happy in different ways.

The really cool part? A 2013 study found that our body actually distinguishes between these types of happiness. By looking at gene expression in our immune cells it was determined that eudemonic happiness reduced inflammation and made people physically healthier. Now this is just my theory but it seems to be that not feeling fulfilled, but not feeling down enough to take action against it by sustaining your happiness with hedonistic pleasures traps us on the treadmill. We need to expand our potential to be happy by expanding our perspective on the world. We’re tired, have no motivation, and our bodies ache, immediately we all want to blame our diets and exercise routines, but what if the best thing we could do for our bodies was to read a book, volunteer, or see the world? The studies done seem to show that hedonistic happiness can actually increase inflammation in our cells, we feel terrible so we buy ourselves something nice and nothing ever gets better. We’re on the treadmill. We need perspective, to feel connected, and to feel fulfilled. Taking a trip could be the reboot your body needs. The cost may seem daunting, but what’s it worth?

Oh and one final note, before everybody takes up arms against the hedonic treadmill, it’s theorized that people have this tendency as a safety net. So that when something terrible happens, you will tend to recover and stabilize. So if you’re down, take solace that the treadmill really is on your side, those luxury goods you can’t afford won’t really help you, and that a good deed and a good experience could change your life.

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Kenzie Bradshaw

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Hi! I’m a freelancer who loves picking up new skills and putting myself to the test. I especially love travel, psychology, health, and technology.

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