Holidays

Snaking queues just to enter an airport, day-long waits to get on a ferry, train strikes.   The travel chaos experienced by many so far this summer might put other off the idea of having a holiday at all – but I sincerely hope it doesn’t.

Taking a holiday is not just a chance to get away from it all; studies have uncovered some unexpected benefits, so much so that academics from Edith Cowan University in Australia last month published paper arguing that we should see holiday not as recreation but as a ‘travel therapy’.

They say getaways can be especially beneficial for your brain, as they provide sensory and cognitive stimulation, and could be viewed as an ‘intervention’ for those with dementia, for example, much like exercise or art therapy.

A general benefit is sleeping better.   This seems to be quite common.   In a 2006 study in New Zealand, a group of volunteers who were about to go away were put through a battery of tests and then asked to wear sleep monitors on their wrists.   After a few days of being on holiday, researchers found the volunteers were getting on average an extra hour of good quality sleep each night, compared with a normal night.   Their mood and reaction times also improved.   Part of this is probably down to the fact that after a few days on holiday you tend to feel less stressed, but it may also be because sleeping in a different bed and in a different environment helps break some of the negative connection that bad sleepers have with their beds at home.

Another important benefit of being on holiday is the impact it has on your heart.   In 2019, researchers from Syracuse University in the US invited 63 people to a laboratory where they had blood tests.   They also filled in details about holidays they had taken the previous year.

The researches were specifically testing for metabolic syndrome, a combination of high blood sugar, high blood pressure, high blood fats and a larger waist.   If you have metabolic syndrome you are at high risk of heart attack or stroke.   It turned out that the risk of having metabolic syndrome fell by nearly a quarter for each additional holiday people had taken.   The results were that going on holiday is good for our hearts.   Research on 16,000 people found those who had visited the coast within the past month reported high rates of happiness and lower rates of mental distress than those who hadn’t.

Wherever you go this summer, I hope your journey is hassle-free and, even if it isn’t, bear in mind the benefits to be had once your holiday truly begins.

Anita