Top 6 Yoga Benefits for Travellers

Written by Harshit Tiwari.

Travelling has always been among the most sought hobbies of a majority of people in the world. There is no dearth of such travel enthusiasts who can go to extremes to satiate their wanderlust. Globetrotters all over the world have a unique feature of being identified as amicable and easygoing souls. And why wouldn’t that be? After all, it is wisely said-

 “Travelling brings us closer to our inner self”

But it is also an undeniable fact that travelling despite being packed with adventure and excitement also has some inevitable elements in it. Sometimes travelling to our favourite places comes at the expense of one’s health and fitness. No matter how excited one is for travelling, it can always be a stressful deal for most of us. Moreover, experiences like a missed bus, or lost luggage or a trivial spat with a co-traveller can further add to mental agony.

To deal with such inevitable issues, and to ensure that they don’t have a lasting effect over you, a practice like Yoga can prove to be immensely beneficial. Yoga yields myriad benefits and provides holistic development to meet travelling requirements. In fact, Yoga can prove to be a traveller’s best friend and should be practised not only during travelling but also in regular life. Are you too a travel enthusiast, but not sure how Yoga is going to help you? Here’s a list of top 6 benefits of Yoga for travellers, to help you gain insight into the importance of yoga in one’s life.

1. Yields Physical Fitness

This comes as the foremost and the most obvious benefit of Yoga. Yoga builds physical strength both internally and externally. Internally it enhances stamina and vitality which are of utmost importance to any traveller, especially during longer trips.

Travelling to places which involve adventurous activities like trekking, biking, bungee jumping etc. demand a fit and flexible body. Yoga helps in all of these. It stretches the body, strengthens muscles and tones body parts. Also indulging in such adventures requires one to have robust health conditions like a fit heart and proper blood pressure. Yoga provides a fit body system by maintaining all of these factors.

Apart from this travelling often induces in our body temporary complications like an aching back due to long hours sitting in buses. Or sometimes we may get hurt in the form of wounds, bruises or internal injuries. Regular Yoga practise helps in such post travel issues. All in all yoga aids in reinstating our wellbeing by paving a quick and easy way for recovery.

2. Enhances Mental Health

Travelling a lot at regular intervals also takes a toll on our mental health. We all are aware of how stressful some trips may be. A complete mental and physical exhaustion causes us to lose our mental strength. This makes us feel tired, irritated and bewildered. But for someone who practices yoga, this situation is just like a grain in a camel’s mouth. Yoga and meditation techniques relax our mind and detoxify our brain. It gets us rid of all the wasteful thoughts in our mind and helps in maintaining peace and contentment. It makes us feel refreshed even after a back-breaking trip. Additionally, it synchronizes mind with body resulting in more lively performance both during and after the trip.

3. Helps Dealing with Inevitable Issues

No matter how lovely a trip may be, it is always packed with some unforeseen and inevitable experiences which no traveller can deny. In fact, such experiences become a regular part of one’s travelling spree. They may start from as early as misplacing tickets or forgetting passports and may go up to missing a bus or a train. Sometimes one may get indulged in inadvertent spats arising from some petty issues with a co-traveller or a fee negotiation with a local guide or cab service. In several other cases, it may take a serious note resulting from lost or stolen luggage at some busy stations.

Most of us would unanimously agree that our travelling business doesn’t go as ‘planned’. Ergo, it sends our mind into a tizzy.  Whatever be the situation, they demand mental calmness and a great deal of mental presence. Yoga being an all-rounder beneficiary helps even in such conditions. First of it provides mental peace and reminds us to take deep peaceful breaths even in stressful situations. Secondly, it keeps us aware of our surroundings by developing our senses and maintaining a synergy between our mind and body. Eventually, in the long run, it enhances our mental faculties to make quick and correct decisions on encountering inevitable situations.

4. Improves Digestion

It is an undeniable fact that travelling and discovering novel food experiences go hand in hand. Anywhere we visit we come across the famous local dishes of that area and we cannot stop but taste them all. But this isn’t always as easy as it seems. In fact, our stomach often annoys us disabling us to savour lip-smacking delicacies. Although we tend to eat all that comes our way on a trip we end up getting an upset stomach and generally throw up. Sometimes this even leads to severe infections or food poisoning.

This generally flows from a weak digestive system. While it is highly recommended for travellers to practice healthy eating practices, it is also a fact that travelling is incomplete if we don’t taste a few local dishes. But what to do if our stomach doesn’t allow it? Here’s where Yoga comes to rescue.

Yoga improves our digestive system by enabling better secretion of digestive juices. It strengthens the working of various internal organs involved in digesting food. This helps in faster digestion of ingested foodstuffs. Conclusively practising yoga helps us gain better eating experiences while travelling.

5. Helps Accommodate

One of the most common problems that travellers usually face is their inability to adapt to changing environments and travel conditions. Some of us contract common cold or flu while travelling to colder places while others are prone to sunstroke and quick dehydration while visiting hotter regions.

While travelling to hilly and mountainous regions many people suffer severe vertigos and are not able to enjoy adventurous activities. Several others are prone to motion sickness- a condition in which a person faces intense fatigue, nausea and vomiting especially while on a road trip. Whatever may be the form of illness, travellers usually face them which deprives them of gathering pleasurable experiences. Some people suffer such illnesses more than often due to which they are not able to appreciate the scenic beauties that their fellow travellers are enjoying.

But one need not worry about all these travel miseries if one practices Yoga in their daily routine. Yoga not only cures a person of such illnesses but also prevents them from falling prey to them by building their immunity. Yoga enhances the body’s immune system and makes one accommodate readily in different conditions. So no matter if you visit the snowy Himalayas, heat spewing deserts or tropical forests, you literally need not worry about the health issues the changing climate may induce. All you need is to start making Yoga a part of your daily life and watch it make a difference in your travel experiences.

6. Keeps Younger for Longer

It is a deep-hearted desire for any traveller to be blessed with a healthy body so that they can enjoy travelling to their favourite places even when they age up. But that doesn’t happen with most of us. With time our muscles weaken, flexibility decreases and we also contract several other diseases. While such changes in the body over time are inevitable, it is also a fact that a person who practices

Yoga in daily life over years contracts lesser illnesses and remains healthier than one who doesn’t. Yoga when practised over years, delays the degenerative process of the body and keeps us young for longer. It makes us less susceptible to diseases helping us lead a fit and healthy life.

There exist travel enthusiasts who are interested in exploring every part of the globe for their entire lifetime. If that’s for you too, there is no way you can stop yourself from including Yoga as a part of your daily lifestyle and watch it make a difference in your travel experiences.

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Harshit Tiwari is a content writer at The Strong Traveller. He possesses an amicable nature and has got a genuine passion for writing. He is fond of travelling and loves to express his thoughts through writing and painting, among his several other hobbies. He also likes to brainstorm over different content ideas, related to lifestyle. He likes to call himself, ‘an insanely curious being‘. 🙂

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