Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
Speaker 1: the podcast where we talk through some of the big
Speaker 1: life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
Speaker 1: mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Wherever
Speaker 1: you are in the world, it is so great to
Speaker 1: have you here back for another episode. Thanks for tuning in,
Speaker 1: Thanks for tagging along. If you have been following me
Speaker 1: on Instagram following my travels recently, you'll know that I
Speaker 1: decided to take two months off and just really like
Speaker 1: go on a holiday, somewhat of a holiday. Some of
Speaker 1: it was for work, but mainly for like kind of
Speaker 1: like leisure and pleasure and you know, just to kind
Speaker 1: of see new things. I feel like a lot of
Speaker 1: us are at this moment making up for the travel
Speaker 1: that we couldn't do during the pandemic, especially if you're
Speaker 1: in your twenties or even your thirties. There are so
Speaker 1: many people right now who I think are feeling almost
Speaker 1: like so many of their initial plans for what they
Speaker 1: wanted in their twenties were interrupted by COVID, by the pandemic.
Speaker 1: You know, naturally, people were super sick, people were dying.
Speaker 1: We did know what was going on. Everything was kind
Speaker 1: of shut down. And the thing is is that each
Speaker 1: of us individually had a plan during that time that
Speaker 1: maybe involved some form of travel, and that plan was restricted,
Speaker 1: it was interrupted, And so now we're kind of like
Speaker 1: making up for that time that we missed and like
Speaker 1: flocking overseas in our thousands, myself included, I went to
Speaker 1: the US for four weeks with my sister and then
Speaker 1: Japan for five weeks, the first week with my family,
Speaker 1: which honestly, traveling with family has its own unique psychology
Speaker 1: that is for another time, another day. But I then
Speaker 1: did the last remaining four weeks with my boyfriend. Well
Speaker 1: that was the intention, but we actually ended up leaving
Speaker 1: a week early, and the main reason for that was
Speaker 1: because of travel burnout and travel fatigue, which I didn't
Speaker 1: know was possible. I had never heard of this happening.
Speaker 1: And travel burnout, I have since learned essentially occurs when
Speaker 1: you have been traveling too hard for too long. You
Speaker 1: become incredibly tired, anxious, indecisive. You maybe resort to sleeping
Speaker 1: a lot more than you like to, avoiding parts of
Speaker 1: a city, crying a lot, more, an array of different symptoms,
Speaker 1: And I think what happened was that I pushed myself
Speaker 1: too hard. It was by far the longest trip I
Speaker 1: have ever done, almost double what I had done before,
Speaker 1: and I I was hit with basically what I can
Speaker 1: only describe as just intense mental, emotional, physical exhaustion. And
Speaker 1: I hit like a fork in the road, you know,
Speaker 1: stay and struggle and maybe not enjoy this, or leave
Speaker 1: and maybe resent my decision, but at least I'll be
Speaker 1: back home in my routine where I can kind of
Speaker 1: switch off for a few days before getting back to work.
Speaker 1: That was another component of it. We were like, we're
Speaker 1: gonna go on this like two month trip and then
Speaker 1: we're gonna go back to work two days later. You know.
Speaker 1: It was just like very I think for someone who
Speaker 1: loves routine and for someone who is such a planner
Speaker 1: and who really needs rest and who needs time for
Speaker 1: kind of like a mental reset, it was too much
Speaker 1: and we decided to leave early. Obviously, that is a
Speaker 1: very serious conclusion that we reached. But I think it
Speaker 1: really got to the point where because I had ignored
Speaker 1: so many of the signs and early indicators travel burnout.
Speaker 1: There really wasn't another solution. I just let so many
Speaker 1: small grievances build up. I didn't take time to rest.
Speaker 1: I wanted to just really soak as much of the
Speaker 1: trip up as possible, and I just didn't have the
Speaker 1: travel experience to know that you could overdo it, right, Like,
Speaker 1: holidays and travel are always something in our minds to
Speaker 1: look forward to, but that kind of means that we
Speaker 1: forget like the key principle of everything in life, which
Speaker 1: is that balance is key and even too much of
Speaker 1: a good thing can turn bad. And it's honestly given
Speaker 1: me such a new found appreciation for the people who
Speaker 1: can travel for months, even years at a time, living
Speaker 1: out of a backpack in hostels. One of my best friends, Gracie,
Speaker 1: is like one of those restless, roving spirits, and it
Speaker 1: just gave me like a complete new respect for what
Speaker 1: she does, how much mental energy it requires. Travel burnout
Speaker 1: got me really good, and I want to talk about it.
Speaker 1: It felt like at the time that my fatigue was
Speaker 1: like the ultimate ingratitude, you know. It was like feeling
Speaker 1: weary of this experience felt so almost like shameful and
Speaker 1: like embarrassing. I'm seeing a world that people dream about
Speaker 1: on like a once in a lifetime trip. But I'm
Speaker 1: also just so tired that I cannot even get out
Speaker 1: of bed. I cannot even enjoy it. Everything almost feels
Speaker 1: like a form of punishment. And I think with any
Speaker 1: experience like that, any emotional experience that seems a little
Speaker 1: bit contradictory or confusing, there's always going to be some
Speaker 1: interesting psychology and kind of perspective on it. There's always
Speaker 1: going to be an explanation. Of course. I went looking
Speaker 1: for it, and I was not disappointed by I think
Speaker 1: what some of the science reveals about our deeper human
Speaker 1: need and how that kind of translates into why we
Speaker 1: have this experience of being burned out from too much
Speaker 1: of a good thing. So I say we get into it. Firstly,
Speaker 1: I want to say one thing loud and clear before
Speaker 1: we begin. Travel is an absolute, without a doubt privilege.
Speaker 1: It is also just genuinely really good for us. Like
Speaker 1: I know in this episode we're going to be talking
Speaker 1: a lot more about the negative side of it, but really,
Speaker 1: if you can travel, if you have the ability, there
Speaker 1: is no reason why you shouldn't. It has been shown
Speaker 1: to improve so much about our lives and our self development,
Speaker 1: our resilience, our confidence, our happiness. It even lessens anxiety
Speaker 1: to an extent. It's a really big list of the benefits.
Speaker 1: It's obviously been lauded and celebrated for years. Is like
Speaker 1: a really amazing thing. It creates adventures, it creates new memories.
Speaker 1: I don't think I need to go on. There's no
Speaker 1: denying those things, right, And I think it goes without
Speaker 1: saying that I am incredibly grateful just for the opportunity
Speaker 1: to be able to consider travel as part of my life.
Speaker 1: So many people don't have that option. And maybe you're thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're talking about travel burnout, when you know there are
Speaker 1: millions of people suffering the world. And my biggest problem
Speaker 1: is that I have too much travel. I have thought
Speaker 1: about that extensively, trust me. But I also believe that
Speaker 1: that acknowledgment of the innate privilege of travel, and the
Speaker 1: subsequent guilt for not valuing it entirely even when you're exhausted,
Speaker 1: actually contributes to a deeper level of fatigue and a
Speaker 1: deeper level of I think, just overall exhaustion because you
Speaker 1: don't want to take it for granted, so you force
Speaker 1: yourself to endure a lot of situations and stress and
Speaker 1: experiences that actually maybe aren't that glamorous or aren't that
Speaker 1: good for you. Secondly, when I was thinking about this
Speaker 1: thing of like, is travel burnout even worth talking about
Speaker 1: considering that there are so many bigger problems, I think
Speaker 1: minimizing emotions by saying people have it worse or different
Speaker 1: does nobody any good. We know that, and when you're
Speaker 1: in the moment, in that moment of like really carrying
Speaker 1: some big emotions, someone else might have it worse. They
Speaker 1: probably do, But that doesn't in any way less than
Speaker 1: your discomfort. It doesn't change your situation. It can still
Speaker 1: be subjectively hard. So we are going to move forward
Speaker 1: with just an acknowledgment that what we're talking about is
Speaker 1: based on something we are incredibly lucky to be able
Speaker 1: to do. But there are still hard moments. There are
Speaker 1: still hard points that impact us psychologically and mentally. So travel,
Speaker 1: going overseas, going on a going on a vacation, embarking
Speaker 1: on like this once in a lifetime adventure, seeing different
Speaker 1: cultures and environments, new people, new scenery. I think in
Speaker 1: our day and age, is one of those like quintessential
Speaker 1: experiences that many of us really want to have in
Speaker 1: our twenties. For many of us, it's part of that dream,
Speaker 1: the dream, the idea of the glamor that we perceive
Speaker 1: this decade as having. You know, it's this time to travel,
Speaker 1: It's this time to experience the world before life gets
Speaker 1: too big and too busy and there's children, and there's mortgages,
Speaker 1: and there's obligations. Our twenties are quite frankly, I talk
Speaker 1: about this a lot sold to us as a decade
Speaker 1: of freedom of adventure, and a core component of that
Speaker 1: is getting out there, seeing as many places as you can.
Speaker 1: And I think that comes in a bunch of different forms,
Speaker 1: a bunch of different versions of this stream, whether that
Speaker 1: is going on a gap year that's a huge one,
Speaker 1: studying abroad, or like the Big Trip is what I
Speaker 1: call it, like six months or more of backpacking, something
Speaker 1: of the sort. And I think there's a few main
Speaker 1: reasons why these kinds of g and adventures have really
Speaker 1: been romanticized. Firstly, a big part of it comes back
Speaker 1: to our parents. We think about the stories that they
Speaker 1: told us of their travels when they are our age,
Speaker 1: and we want that for ourselves. It looks really amazing,
Speaker 1: it looks really cool, it looks really identity for me,
Speaker 1: or if we had parents or families who didn't necessarily
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to do that. We kind of want
Speaker 1: to break that chain. We want to be the one
Speaker 1: who shows I don't know the world, that we can
Speaker 1: do it, Like who says that it doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: my family didn't grow up doing this, like I still
Speaker 1: have I still have a right to have this experience.
Speaker 1: We also see a lot of content these days about
Speaker 1: travel all over social media, friends, influences, celebrities. All of
Speaker 1: it is incredibly glamorized and it looks amazing, and I
Speaker 1: think that's what we want for ourselves. But anytime we
Speaker 1: base our expectations on someone else's experiences, I think we
Speaker 1: are unfortunately going to fall short of what we desire.
Speaker 1: I don't need to tell you that, but a lot
Speaker 1: of what we see online is far from the full truth.
Speaker 1: And with the stories that are passed down from parents
Speaker 1: and friends, they are told from the point of hindsight,
Speaker 1: and hindsight always makes everything look so much more beautiful.
Speaker 1: The stories are always going to be more golden because
Speaker 1: we only really remember the good things, so what we
Speaker 1: are basing our expectations on when we go traveling, when
Speaker 1: we embark on this huge trip of a lifetime or
Speaker 1: whatever it is that you're planning or doing. We base
Speaker 1: our expectations on a false narrative at times, and when
Speaker 1: reality is different, I think we can be really disappointed.
Speaker 1: And because it is so romanticized, we have so many expectations,
Speaker 1: not just in terms of the quality of the trip,
Speaker 1: that's one part of it, but also the quantity of
Speaker 1: ex experiences and how much we should be doing. We
Speaker 1: want to do everything. We want to make sure it's
Speaker 1: worth it. It's also because travel is expensive, you know,
Speaker 1: Like I have this problem where I can never justify
Speaker 1: rest days when I'm traveling because I've flown so far
Speaker 1: paid for such an expensive ticket, especially being from Australia,
Speaker 1: that it would be a waste to not finish every
Speaker 1: day with like twenty things ticked off my bucket list.
Speaker 1: But I think the downside of that is twofold we
Speaker 1: think that this is going to make our trip better.
Speaker 1: It can actually have the inverse effect. When you overplan
Speaker 1: a trip, I think you miss some of the best
Speaker 1: moments that are like hidden in the times in the
Speaker 1: place is where you take it easy, like the serendipity
Speaker 1: of taking a day to just walk the city like
Speaker 1: a local. One of my favorite days when we were
Speaker 1: in Curator was honestly when we were just like, we
Speaker 1: don't want to go to another temple, Like we don't
Speaker 1: want to stand in another queue of thousands of people,
Speaker 1: thousands of tourists. So we just explored. We just wanted
Speaker 1: We had nowhere to be, we had nowhere to go.
Speaker 1: We didn't use maps, and we saw the most beautiful,
Speaker 1: beautiful things. We found the most beautiful restaurants, And I
Speaker 1: think we would have missed that if we had stuck
Speaker 1: to the schedule, if we had let ourselves be really,
Speaker 1: I think held up by the fact that we needed
Speaker 1: to do all the things that everyone was recommending us.
Speaker 1: I think secondly, though, you also exhaust yourself to the
Speaker 1: point where you cannot even enjoy the experience anymore because
Speaker 1: you are doing too much and you are mentally drained.
Speaker 1: And then you feel guilty for not enjoying the experience
Speaker 1: because you have drained yourself from doing things every day.
Speaker 1: But that's the paradox, right, because the more you do,
Speaker 1: the more exhausted you are. The less you want to do,
Speaker 1: the more guilty you feel, the more you feel you
Speaker 1: need to do. Like it's a whole cycle where because
Speaker 1: we feel so much privilege around being able to travel,
Speaker 1: because it is such a glamorous experience, because it has
Speaker 1: sold to us as being this like life defying, like
Speaker 1: identity forming, incredible experience. Like if we're not getting everything,
Speaker 1: every possible morsel out of it, we're doing it wrong.
Speaker 1: And I think right there we have highlighted probably one
Speaker 1: of the main reasons we experience travel burnout. Quite simply,
Speaker 1: you are doing too much for whatever reason. Maybe you
Speaker 1: only have a short amount of time in each location.
Speaker 1: Maybe it is that guilt we were speaking about. You're
Speaker 1: with a big group of people who just want to
Speaker 1: cram everything in whatever it is. You will hit a
Speaker 1: mental wall and you'll probably hit a physical and an
Speaker 1: emotional wall pretty soon afterwards. Here is why that happens.
Speaker 1: Travel is so different to our daily kind of status quo.
Speaker 1: In your daily life, you would not be doing as
Speaker 1: much as you do whilst you're on holiday. I actually
Speaker 1: was thinking about this and I was talking about it
Speaker 1: with a friend. You probably do a maximum of three
Speaker 1: things you wake up, you have breakfast, you go to work,
Speaker 1: You come home, maybe you work out, maybe you see friends,
Speaker 1: you go to bed. That's about five days of a
Speaker 1: week if you're working full time, right and then on
Speaker 1: weekends you might do a little bit more, but it's
Speaker 1: only two days of a week, so you have time
Speaker 1: to recover. Then, when we are transported into kind of
Speaker 1: like our travel versions of ourselves, we are hitting multiple
Speaker 1: tourist attractions. We are shopping, we are walking twenty thousand
Speaker 1: steps a day. We are eating new food, meeting new people,
Speaker 1: people who might not speak the same language as us.
Speaker 1: We are learning a new city, a new environment, jumping
Speaker 1: from this place to that, and then you are jetla
Speaker 1: like onto that and things go wrong that At home,
Speaker 1: you would have time to deal with if your wallet
Speaker 1: got stolen, you got a nasty flu, you would know
Speaker 1: what to do, You would know what medications to buy,
Speaker 1: you go to the doctor. You have a safe space
Speaker 1: your home to come home to unrest, and we don't
Speaker 1: have that. When we're traveling. Everything is kind of uprooted.
Speaker 1: You are like turning the dial of your life from
Speaker 1: like ninety percent to like one hundred and fifty percent,
Speaker 1: Like you're just turning it all up. And it's really
Speaker 1: interesting because one of the only real papers written about
Speaker 1: travel burnout that is in the world, it explored that
Speaker 1: exact thing. When we are away from home, our sense
Speaker 1: of self efficacy is naturally lowered. So self efficacy is
Speaker 1: this concept in psychology that basically refers to our belief
Speaker 1: and our ability to solve problems, in our ability to
Speaker 1: overcome challenges. If you have high self efficacy, you have
Speaker 1: a strong belief in your ability to kind of exert
Speaker 1: control over your behaviors, your choices, your emotions, your environment.
Speaker 1: You feel mentally capable of dealing with things. And that
Speaker 1: self efficacy is bolstered by familiarity, by repetition, by practice,
Speaker 1: by confidence. But when we are away from home and
Speaker 1: the structure that it provides, that ability to solve problems
Speaker 1: is lowered once again because everything is so new to us.
Speaker 1: And I think that it is that novelty and all
Speaker 1: those new experiences that also becomes emotionally taxing after a while,
Speaker 1: each of us has an inbuilt limit around what we
Speaker 1: can tolerate, how much change we can tolerate, how much novelty,
Speaker 1: how much activity. It's different for everyone, but everyone has
Speaker 1: a limit here and after a certain time, maybe it's
Speaker 1: after three weeks, maybe it's after two months, six months,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, we are hardwired to crave home and
Speaker 1: to crave what we call creature comforts. There's been some
Speaker 1: really interesting research on this concept of a creature comfort,
Speaker 1: and basically one article it was written like almost ten
Speaker 1: years ago. What it explored was this kind of this
Speaker 1: safety that is provided by home, and it found that
Speaker 1: humans naturally need a space that is familiar to them.
Speaker 1: They are soothed by an environment that feels safe and normal,
Speaker 1: and at some stage we will want to return to
Speaker 1: that domestic environment for even a few days, because in
Speaker 1: that environment there is nothing new, there is nothing scary,
Speaker 1: there is nothing to be alert to. Everything is comfortable,
Speaker 1: and some people can suppress that urge, but it's still
Speaker 1: going to be there. The desire for routine, for familiarity,
Speaker 1: for security, that is always going to be something that
Speaker 1: is kind of contained in our DNA as humans. The
Speaker 1: call of home is kind of going to get louder.
Speaker 1: I also found it. I found this quite interesting though,
Speaker 1: because when I was looking into this, there are some
Speaker 1: people who sometimes just don't feel that way. As extremely
Speaker 1: rare as they are if you've ever seen the film
Speaker 1: Into the Wild, I would greatly recommend great it's amazing.
Speaker 1: But the main character, Chris, is actually a really good
Speaker 1: example of this. Some people I don't know whether they
Speaker 1: were born, whether they were made to be like almost nomads,
Speaker 1: they don't need a place to call home, but they
Speaker 1: are such rare individuals. And I think something I always say,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't just relate to travel burnout or travel
Speaker 1: or whatever, is that you can't force yourself into a
Speaker 1: version of you that belongs to someone else. So there
Speaker 1: are people out there who can live a nomadic, crazy
Speaker 1: like adventurous lifestyle, never needing to have a place to
Speaker 1: call home, always on the road, And you might like
Speaker 1: the idea of that, but it doesn't necessarily mean that
Speaker 1: you are that person. I think that it can still
Speaker 1: be incredibly lonely, and anybody that you talk to who
Speaker 1: has been traveling for a long time will tell you
Speaker 1: that it's not picture perfect, like they will have hard days.
Speaker 1: The second reason, though, that travel burnout will eventually hit
Speaker 1: kind of anyone who is on a long term, long
Speaker 1: term travel holiday experience is because when we are traveling,
Speaker 1: our brain is naturally working harder because it is constantly
Speaker 1: being exposed to so much new stimuli, new smells, new sounds,
Speaker 1: new scenery, everything in our normal life, we are used
Speaker 1: to what is around us in our in our everyday routine,
Speaker 1: and that means that we can use these things called
Speaker 1: cognitive shortcuts. So these are basically like automatic ways of
Speaker 1: thinking that we use to make make decisions. So it
Speaker 1: makes it so that when you see something and you
Speaker 1: need to make a decision around it, you're a lot
Speaker 1: more efficient because you're accustomed to the environment in which
Speaker 1: you are receiving information. I'll give you an example, So
Speaker 1: think about your commute home from work. I bet you
Speaker 1: that if you've done that a few times, like you
Speaker 1: might be at that point where it doesn't even feel
Speaker 1: like you know what's happening in your surroundings. It is
Speaker 1: so automatic, it is so procedural to you. I was
Speaker 1: talking to a friend and she was like, sometimes I
Speaker 1: drive home and I literally get home and could not
Speaker 1: tell you a single thing I saw on the road.
Speaker 1: It's because your brain can kind of switch off because
Speaker 1: it's so used to the environment. Whereas when you are,
Speaker 1: for example, in a new country and you're trying to
Speaker 1: drive in a new country or navigate public transport. Your
Speaker 1: brain is so switched on because everything is new. We
Speaker 1: have to use a lot more about mental energy in
Speaker 1: those situations as well, because we cannot rely on the
Speaker 1: cognitive shortcuts that we use in our day to day life.
Speaker 1: We cannot rely on that repetition and procedural memory, you know,
Speaker 1: that procedural automatic memory. When you are doing that for
Speaker 1: days on end, constantly being exposed to so many new things,
Speaker 1: it is going to be draining. And mental energy is
Speaker 1: exactly like physical energy in that it can become depleted,
Speaker 1: and when it becomes depleted, you need time to refill
Speaker 1: that source. Let's also account at this moment as well
Speaker 1: for the lack of routine. You are probably not sleeping
Speaker 1: as much as you do at home. You're not exercising
Speaker 1: in the same way or as much. You're not eating
Speaker 1: meals at the same time, you're not even eating the
Speaker 1: same foods that you normally would. You're not operating on
Speaker 1: the same scale that you do as home. So we
Speaker 1: know that routine reduces stress, it lessons anxiety. Without it,
Speaker 1: you know, chaos can feel like fun for a while,
Speaker 1: but you're definitely going to crave that normalcy that we've
Speaker 1: talked about again and again and again. You're gonna crave
Speaker 1: things that feel familiar, you know. Honestly, I was so
Speaker 1: excited to get home and just like eat vegetables and
Speaker 1: go into the office and like wake up and a
Speaker 1: normal time. There was honestly a point when we were
Speaker 1: in Tokyo where I went to a convenience store and
Speaker 1: I bought and ate a whole bag of cabbage. I
Speaker 1: just ate it like on the street, because I was like,
Speaker 1: I just need to eat something that I'm used to.
Speaker 1: Didn't mean that I wasn't enjoying all those other experiences,
Speaker 1: and it's just that I feel like I am like
Speaker 1: a broken record here. But you do need a sense
Speaker 1: of stability. No human can operate as nomadic as we
Speaker 1: think they can. And often I think we think of
Speaker 1: our holiday as an escape from the routine, you know,
Speaker 1: escape from the monotony of daily life. But there are
Speaker 1: some elements that we shouldn't neglect, especially making time to
Speaker 1: decompress or do things that you would do at home
Speaker 1: to bring some sense of stability. And that stability also
Speaker 1: allows us to return to mental homeostasis, so a mental
Speaker 1: place of balance of security. One final experience I think
Speaker 1: is also important to touch on, especially for my long
Speaker 1: term travelers out there, my gap year babies. Maybe is homesickness,
Speaker 1: Like I can't like this is such a huge factor
Speaker 1: when we talk about travel fatigue, so homesickness. I don't
Speaker 1: even feel like I need to give you a definition
Speaker 1: of what this feels like, because if I asked you
Speaker 1: to close your eyes and think about what homesickness felt like,
Speaker 1: I think all of us would be having a very
Speaker 1: similar feeling. It's that longing in your chest. It's what
Speaker 1: the Greeks actually called an nostalgic reaction. It comes from
Speaker 1: a place of love and attachment, the same way that
Speaker 1: grief does as well. But it also causes a disruption
Speaker 1: in our present environment if we let it infiltrate too
Speaker 1: much of our everyday experiences, if we let it take
Speaker 1: us away from living in the moment whilst we're somewhere new.
Speaker 1: And there is a lot of research behind why we
Speaker 1: experience that kind of profound longing for the place where
Speaker 1: we belong. Home and belonging and community is really precious.
Speaker 1: It's like, I think one of the main things that
Speaker 1: humans need to not just survive, but to thrive. And
Speaker 1: when we don't have that, and we also have a
Speaker 1: low perceived control over our environment, when we are constantly
Speaker 1: being exposed to novel, new things, it can actually manifest
Speaker 1: in quite a few physical somatic symptoms. So they see
Speaker 1: this a lot actually in research with young children at
Speaker 1: boarding schools who have all of these like ailments and
Speaker 1: illnesses of an unknown origin, sow stomachs, fatigue, irritability, constant crying,
Speaker 1: They complain about like aches and pains, and obviously when
Speaker 1: you have a bunch of children who are suddenly ill
Speaker 1: and in pain, it's something that you want to look into.
Speaker 1: And what they found was that a lot of these
Speaker 1: kids actually have no most of them have no physical
Speaker 1: signs of pain or trauma. It's actually their emotions having
Speaker 1: a physiological impact on our bodies. It is our emotions
Speaker 1: trying to communicate with us like something is wrong, something
Speaker 1: is missing, something isn't right. It's almost like a homing beacon,
Speaker 1: like it's telling us, like go back to what we know.
Speaker 1: This is causing discomfort because emotionally I'm not feeling stable
Speaker 1: and that creates a physical instability as well. So I
Speaker 1: think those are the major contributing factors to travel burnout.
Speaker 1: Number one. Obviously, sometimes you're just doing too much and
Speaker 1: you're going to deplete your physical, mental, emotional resources. Number
Speaker 1: two is the novelty of these new experiences actually takes
Speaker 1: a lot more. It is a lot more taxing for
Speaker 1: our brains because we cannot use those cognitive shortcuts that
Speaker 1: we normally use at home. And finally, it's homesickness. It's
Speaker 1: a craving for what they call our creature comforts. I
Speaker 1: think that is all fine and good to understand, But
Speaker 1: a deeper question you probably have if you are listening
Speaker 1: to this episode is what do I do about it?
Speaker 1: What can I do? My mom my dream trip, I'm
Speaker 1: my gap year. I want to go home, but I
Speaker 1: don't want to go home, like I just feel this need.
Speaker 1: What is there to do? What is the solution? Well,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about that and more after this
Speaker 1: short break. One of the worst things you can do
Speaker 1: when I think you're feeling any kind of negative emotion
Speaker 1: is to shame yourself for it. Obviously, you don't want
Speaker 1: to be feeling this way. If you had a choice
Speaker 1: about it, you would not be, do you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Like, I feel like something that I find
Speaker 1: quite frustrating is when people shame other people for an
Speaker 1: emotion that they actually don't have control over, where if
Speaker 1: they had the solution, if they had the antidote, they
Speaker 1: would gladly take it, They would gladly move on from
Speaker 1: this feeling. And I think travel burnout is one of
Speaker 1: those feelings where we feel a lot of anger at
Speaker 1: ourselves almost for not enjoying our trip. But I don't
Speaker 1: want that to ruin it for you. I think that
Speaker 1: whilst you can't control the physical, mental emotional reaction you're having,
Speaker 1: you can control your response to it. And I think
Speaker 1: it is a mindset that you can get out of,
Speaker 1: that you can recover from. But it is going to
Speaker 1: take like some actual steps. It is going to take
Speaker 1: you actually suppressing what your guilt is telling you to
Speaker 1: do by doing the things that are actually going to
Speaker 1: help you. I think if we sit too much in
Speaker 1: the feeling of like keep trying to keep pushing, trying
Speaker 1: to push through exhaustion to a point of like I
Speaker 1: don't know, catharsis, or like to a point of like
Speaker 1: greater mental clarity, like it's actually not going to work.
Speaker 1: When I was going through this, I actually talked to
Speaker 1: quite a few friends who are very seasoned travelers. The
Speaker 1: kind of psychological research on this is pretty sparse, it's
Speaker 1: kind of non existent, actually, So I'm going off of
Speaker 1: a lot of anecdotal and observational evidence about like the
Speaker 1: main things that you should do to get yourself out
Speaker 1: of this, like travel fatigue, travel rut. The first one
Speaker 1: every single person said to me was to take a
Speaker 1: fricking rest day. I know it sounds so obvious, but
Speaker 1: just let yourself be. You don't have to be a
Speaker 1: verb all the time, you don't have to be doing
Speaker 1: things all the time. You can just relax. That's part
Speaker 1: of the experience. Like I think every single one of
Speaker 1: us goes into like a holiday or goes into like
Speaker 1: a vacation or whatever, like with wanting to get something
Speaker 1: different out of it. None we cannot get any of
Speaker 1: the things we want to get out of it if
Speaker 1: we don't actually give ourself time to process the things
Speaker 1: that we're getting out of it. Do you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Like you could have had the most profound
Speaker 1: life changing experience yesterday, but if you are forcing yourself
Speaker 1: to like continue doing new things and like pushing yourself
Speaker 1: and pushing yourself, like that experience isn't going to get
Speaker 1: the time it deserves to actually like consolidate and to
Speaker 1: actually like be processed. Slowing down I think can bring
Speaker 1: just as much joys as trying to overplan and speed
Speaker 1: up and seeing everything. It is in those slow moments
Speaker 1: that I think the most beautiful things happen, the same
Speaker 1: way that beautiful things happen in our daily lives when
Speaker 1: we are peaceful, when we are just taking things easy.
Speaker 1: Like I really can attest to this fact that you
Speaker 1: are not going to have a life changing experience when
Speaker 1: you're going to like the top ten tourist destinations of
Speaker 1: the places you are traveling to. Maybe if you're like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, going to see like an amazing cathedral
Speaker 1: and you're like like a spiritual awakening, maybe, But I
Speaker 1: would say most of the time, if you are trying
Speaker 1: so hard to jump from one thing to the next,
Speaker 1: you actually don't have time to really appreciate what you're seeing,
Speaker 1: what you're feeling, what you're sensing. So as well as
Speaker 1: taking a rest day firstly and actually planning them, someone
Speaker 1: said this to me, like often we like make itineraries
Speaker 1: and we never ever like in our itineraries put a
Speaker 1: rest day in there when it's really important, so obviously
Speaker 1: do that. Don't have a plan, and get out of
Speaker 1: the tourist areas as well. Those bright lights, those huge crowds.
Speaker 1: That is stimulus overload, that is information overload. Our senses
Speaker 1: are just totally bombarded with so much content that our
Speaker 1: brains just cannot manage. It cannot shift through it all.
Speaker 1: It's honestly like mentally dizzying. So if you're already feeling
Speaker 1: the effects of a bit of fatigue, one of the
Speaker 1: best things to do is to instead of going to
Speaker 1: all the hot spots, instead of ticking things off like
Speaker 1: the list, to be like, oh yeah, I went to
Speaker 1: New York and I did this. Of course I saw
Speaker 1: the Rockefeller Center. Of course I saw the Statue of Liberty.
Speaker 1: Like everyone is doing those things. Try and just like
Speaker 1: explore your neighborhood a little bit more and take some
Speaker 1: time to actually get into nature. This is a big
Speaker 1: one that I learned when I was traveling. If you
Speaker 1: have listened to our episode on the Healing Power of Nature,
Speaker 1: you will also be well informed that spending time outdoors
Speaker 1: is a natural anxiety reliever. We are consistently seeing find
Speaker 1: out of like the ecopsychology field, that exposure to natural
Speaker 1: spaces for just fifteen twenty minutes a day really improves
Speaker 1: so much about your mood. So if you're at a
Speaker 1: point of like exhaustion and you need like a mood booster, yes,
Speaker 1: rest day is great, and nature day is also amazing.
Speaker 1: And intentional nature exposure like actually spending a good solid
Speaker 1: time at the beach in a park somewhere beautiful, just
Speaker 1: with your thoughts, not needing to do anything, not needing
Speaker 1: to go anywhere. I think those moments creates such deep mindfulness.
Speaker 1: It's like a natural meditation. It's an easy meditation to
Speaker 1: just like kind of like the like kind of like
Speaker 1: the charm and the beauty of like a natural environment
Speaker 1: just wash over you, like all of your warriores and
Speaker 1: your thoughts and your fatigue kind of like float away
Speaker 1: with the wind. I think that's really important. The next
Speaker 1: thing I would say to do, I would say, this
Speaker 1: is a good from other people that I'm just like
Speaker 1: absorbing and used and regurgitating. But create some routine, have
Speaker 1: like the same wake up time, try and eat like
Speaker 1: the same breakfast. It will recreate some of the comfort
Speaker 1: and the familiarity of home. Make sure that you call friends.
Speaker 1: It's easy to feel like when you're traveling you're in
Speaker 1: like a little bit of like a holiday bubble. I
Speaker 1: find this a lot as well, where I'm like, ah,
Speaker 1: my friends are probably busy, they're out doing other things,
Speaker 1: Like I don't want to bother them. It feels like
Speaker 1: we're living in two different worlds at the moment, Like
Speaker 1: I'm on my holiday, they're at home, they're on their holiday.
Speaker 1: Those kinds of things. Actually, you shouldn't go that long
Speaker 1: without seeking familiar reconnection, whether that's with family or friends,
Speaker 1: like calling someone who you can actually just be a
Speaker 1: little bit uninhibited with. Obviously, like when you're traveling, especially
Speaker 1: if you're doing hostels, you might be meeting a lot
Speaker 1: of new people, but a lot of those people you
Speaker 1: don't have a deep connection with. They don't know you
Speaker 1: as well someone who's known you for a long time.
Speaker 1: So make sure that you continue to prioritize those relationships.
Speaker 1: I think it will also prevent you from feeling like poemo.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that's a huge part of why we're like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I want to go home, is because I
Speaker 1: feel so disconnected from everyone, and I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: not getting anything out of this experience anymore. So I
Speaker 1: may as well be able to make experiences with these people.
Speaker 1: We can avoid that by not letting those relationships suffer
Speaker 1: while we're traveling. And I also think that journaling, I know,
Speaker 1: it's like such a cliche. We're all about mindfulness here,
Speaker 1: you know, like we're really What we're really trying to
Speaker 1: do here is when you're addressing your travel burnout, is
Speaker 1: to get you out of your your body, get you
Speaker 1: out of your mind, and to like a more clear place,
Speaker 1: a place of like mental clarity where you can really
Speaker 1: process your emotions without feeling guilty, without feeling overwhelmed, without
Speaker 1: feeling like you need to make some like drastic decision.
Speaker 1: And I think embracing like the small moments of your
Speaker 1: trip that might not be like completely stand out and
Speaker 1: like life changing, but still are really beautiful is really good.
Speaker 1: So I would say by journal, if you hopefully you've
Speaker 1: already brought one with you, if you're a loyal listener,
Speaker 1: hopefully you have your journal or your like notebook handy,
Speaker 1: But ask yourself some of these questions, what did you
Speaker 1: do today that was memorable? What is something that you
Speaker 1: did today that you wouldn't have done at home. What
Speaker 1: is part of my day that is a story I
Speaker 1: will tell in the future. Who did I meet and
Speaker 1: what were the kind of stories they were telling me?
Speaker 1: What was something in my day that just like made
Speaker 1: me smile that spark joy? I think, take yourself out
Speaker 1: of this big need and expectation that every day of
Speaker 1: your trip needs to be a huge, upending, entirely transformative experience.
Speaker 1: You can still find joy in small moments. You can
Speaker 1: still find joy whilst resting, while stepping away from the schedule,
Speaker 1: whilst not going to tourist locations. Like, there is so
Speaker 1: much beauty just in things that are different, even if
Speaker 1: they're not like incredibly profound. So take a step back,
Speaker 1: let yourself rest, and don't feel guilty because you're not
Speaker 1: enjoying every single moment, you know what I mean? Like,
Speaker 1: the guilt is what keeps us in our fatigue, in
Speaker 1: our negative emotions, because we don't feel like we can
Speaker 1: address the problem enough to actually do something about it.
Speaker 1: We feel so shameful about what we're feeling that we
Speaker 1: don't actually verbalize it or bring it to the surface
Speaker 1: and examine it and kind of peel it back and
Speaker 1: open it up and see what we can do about it.
Speaker 1: I will say one more thing. I obviously on my trip,
Speaker 1: I left early and I was like talking to my
Speaker 1: boyfriend about it, and I remember being like we were
Speaker 1: in this hotel room and I looked to him and
Speaker 1: I was like, I need to talk to you about something,
Speaker 1: and he was like yes, and I was like, I
Speaker 1: need to leave, Like I was in tears. I was like,
Speaker 1: I just really need to leave at this point, like
Speaker 1: this is the best solution for me. Like honestly, it
Speaker 1: wasn't even that we were leaving like right then. We
Speaker 1: stayed like for another two and a half weeks, almost
Speaker 1: like two weeks. It was just like I can tell
Speaker 1: that I'm already so tired now by the time we
Speaker 1: finished this trip, I'm going to be absolutely miserable. And
Speaker 1: I don't want to look back at this experience and
Speaker 1: not want to come back to this country. I don't
Speaker 1: want to project the fact that I am tired or
Speaker 1: anything to do with where we are, anything to do
Speaker 1: with this experience, like anything to do with you. I
Speaker 1: just realized. I was like, I've made a mistake. I've
Speaker 1: pushed myself too hard, and I don't I have this
Speaker 1: saying where it's like you can either waste your money
Speaker 1: or you can waste your money and your time. And
Speaker 1: so like a big part of me was like, I've
Speaker 1: already paid for this ticket, Like, oh, I've already taken
Speaker 1: all this time off, like all these things. I was
Speaker 1: so stressed about it. It was making me even more exhausted.
Speaker 1: And I just stopped and I paused, and I was like, yes,
Speaker 1: but I also will be wasting my time if I
Speaker 1: stay here longer, if I stay for this final week,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to enjoy it. I'm going to just
Speaker 1: push myself maybe to a place that's going to be
Speaker 1: harder to recover from. So if you need to leave early,
Speaker 1: you're allowed to leave early. Maybe you've already gotten what
Speaker 1: you need out of this experience. It doesn't make you
Speaker 1: a coward, it doesn't make you ungrateful. You're just doing
Speaker 1: what is best for you. And I think it was
Speaker 1: so strange, but I was so worried that of other
Speaker 1: people's opinions of me. But everyone who I talked to
Speaker 1: about this was like, oh, I totally get that. Like
Speaker 1: when you said you were traveling for two months, I
Speaker 1: was like, how is she going to go, Like, I
Speaker 1: just think that no one really, no one thinks as
Speaker 1: harshly about your decisions as you do. So do what
Speaker 1: is best for you. But also take some time if
Speaker 1: you're feeling like really in the midst of it right now,
Speaker 1: to just chill out, just like take a rest day,
Speaker 1: find some small moments of joy, get away from the
Speaker 1: tourist areas. If you're in like a hostel, book like
Speaker 1: a nice hotel for a night, if you can afford it,
Speaker 1: it will make all the difference. And like put on
Speaker 1: your headphones and go for a walk, like just try
Speaker 1: and break out of like this space of negativity, break
Speaker 1: out of this space of like guilt or of just
Speaker 1: like fatigue and feeling like you need to find the
Speaker 1: solution right now. Like it's okay, it's okay. If your
Speaker 1: trip is like not going amazing, it's okay if like
Speaker 1: it isn't meeting your expectations, like you're still doing the thing.
Speaker 1: And in hindsight, I promise you, like the experience will
Speaker 1: be important and we'll teach you something and we'll give
Speaker 1: you something that you will take forward in your life.
Speaker 1: So I really hope that you enjoyed this episode. I
Speaker 1: hope that you got something out of it. I feel
Speaker 1: like it was a lot more anecdotal. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to share my experience from you know what I've been
Speaker 1: doing travelers gamar so much in our twenties, but I
Speaker 1: feel like we never talk about the other side of it.
Speaker 1: We never talk about how it's not always picture perfect.
Speaker 1: So hopefully this kind of pulled the veil back a
Speaker 1: little bit, revealed more of the behind the facade of
Speaker 1: the picture perfect twenties that all of us expect. As always,
Speaker 1: if you enjoyed this episode, please feel free to share
Speaker 1: it with someone who might enjoy it as well. Make
Speaker 1: sure that you give us a five star rating on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you are listening. It really helps
Speaker 1: the show to grow and meet me and meet reach
Speaker 1: new people. And if you have an episode suggestion or
Speaker 1: you have feedback, you have thoughts on this episode, you
Speaker 1: disagree with anything, please follow me at that Psychology podcast
Speaker 1: and shoot me a DM. We would love to hear
Speaker 1: from you. We will be back later this week with
Speaker 1: another episode.