Mental Health Awareness & Full-Time Travel

Mental Health Awareness and Full-Time Travel - Are we talking about it enough?

Mental Health is something that has fortunately in recent years, become a conversation that we now speak about, more openly. There is still work to be done, but we’ve gotten to a point where we have realized that it is something, we all deal with and live with. Some of us struggle more with our mental health than others, and some less, nonetheless, we are all in it together.

With the increase in technology, remote working opportunities, travel accessibility awareness, and a highlighted focus on self-care, more people are able to work and create from almost anywhere in the world. Be it your home, a co-working space, a Mauritian island, or a cafe on the other side of the world. Our ability to move around more has increased. And with the uptake of sharing our every move and daily routines on social media, we’re further intaking huge loads of data and information - than we have ever done before. Our brains are buzzed more often than not, but we may not be paying attention to how that is affecting our mental state.

So whether you are choosing to travel full time, for work or have chosen to live in different parts of the world, as your way of lifestyle. We have to talk about, taking time to focus on our mental health. In any situation, in the world we live in today, taking time for oneself is extremely relevant and important.

My partner and I are on the road full-time at the moment, and while it is an amazing journey, it is also our life. Balancing travelling, ever-changing environments, work projects, and our relationship whilst still making time to breathe and enjoy life at the same time, can be challenging at times. Below are a few things that we have had to be aware of and continue to work on being conscious of.

Physical Activity

Move your body! One would assume, that when you travel full-time, you’re fit enough, but this is not the case. Even though my partner and I travel with only what we can carry on our backs in backpacks, added to the fact that we try not to fly (for sustainability reasons), we use trains, buses, and local public transportation. It does not mean that we are super fit travellers. While travellers are often quite fit, if you only rely on your actual travel to keep you fit, then I would encourage you to make time, for an activity that is not just your travel route.

- Join a Local Gym
- Take up a Weekly Yoga class - The FitON App is my guru
- Find a Public Pool or head down to the Ocean
- Join Couchsurfing or a Local Active Group in your area
- Meditate and Stretch daily - The Calm App is great for this
- Go for a Walk around your Neighbourhood or go on a Free Walking Tour

Not only will you get out of the “house” which can easily become your working environment, but you will move away from all your technical devices. Our brains are not meant to sit online processing information, all day, every day and when you travel full-time, you tend to do this. Whether you are working, networking, or researching the local area, cafes, and things to do, you’re continually connected. Either sitting in the same positions for too many hours a day or not moving your body enough, to help things like your immune system, nervous system, brain and mental health.

Now, I am not always the best at doing this myself (checks self), but I will honestly say when I do, I feel amazing! I feel alive and energized, and I deal with my emotions, problem-solve and look at life in a far calmer, more peaceful and healthy manner, than when I don’t move my body.

Me Time

Speaking of taking time offline, and moving one’s body, “me-time” is just as important. Why? We need time to ourselves. To hear ourselves think, to process events, information and the world around us. We need time to get to know ourselves, to help respect, heal and look after ourselves.

Me-Time can look very different for every individual. There is no textbook recipe on how you should spend your me-time, and only we can decide what truly works for us. Some people, find going out and doing adventurous activities are their me time, others want nothing more than a hot soak in the tub, a glass of wine in hand and a cell phone resting cautiously on the edge, playing their favourite Netflix drama. And while both of these options can be good for the soul, I would like to suggest a few other me-time options.

- Journal, journalling and writing to oneself can help us find, and hear the conversations we need to have with ourselves, that are often hidden at the bottom of our psychological archives. I am not promising you will always hear, good and happy thoughts, but you may be able to talk to yourself and process things, in a whole new way.

- Meditate, once again, this is an activity that truly inspires one to spend quiet time alone. Now if you are picturing yourself, on a yoga mat, arms splayed out, and feet up in the air, I wouldn’t blame you. This is often a position I like to find myself in, but sometimes I feel more distracted trying to concentrate than when I clean the house. Meditation can look and feel like many different things. Cleaning or rather I should say, organizing physical items, helps me, “clean out” and quiet the noise in my head and heart a lot better. I find when I am actively cleaning up the apartment, or organizing my wardrobe, I get my mind into a place, where I can clear out things that have been bothering me, or that I need to heal from, or I need to hear. This gives me that me-time I so desperately subconsciously seek.

- Gardening, this may or may not work for you. Gardening can be incredibly meditative. I personally think it is the process of taking care of something, helping it grow, and looking after it, that leads to gardening being something a lot of people gravitate towards. You cannot control how a flower or tree grows, but you can help it, you can spend time with your hands covered in dirt, watching the insects and animals go about their daily life and see the beauty in slow, continuous active growth. Sometimes we need to “Garden ourselves”.

Relationship Care

Travelling with a partner is an active conscious decision, and this means, looking after your relationship and self at the same time. Lockdown during the height of the Covid pandemic was a very interesting time, in the sense of watching how relationships were affected. Many people, and I mean, partners, families, friends and more, suddenly had to deal with dynamics they never had to deal with before. And it shows.

During the pandemic, we all spent a lot of time online, and we watched the lives of our friends, parents, colleagues, and ourselves change, one hour at a time. At one point we all clicked onto Facebook or Twitter, Instagram and even Tik Tok and it seemed overnight, everyone was either getting divorced, married, or having babies. Suddenly people who may have not spent much time together, or always spent time together, had their entire routines shaken up. Jobs were being lost, people were losing loved ones, and the world didn’t know if we’d ever be allowed outside again. People started realizing that they were working 5-7 days a week in jobs they had no passion for, or that their partner, who they actually only ever saw in the mornings and evenings, was either not the person they thought they knew or on the other side, someone they never wanted to lose. We were forced to evaluate what was important to us.

I bring this up because travelling long-term with anyone, be it your romantic partner, best friend, work colleague or family pet, can often have the same narrative. You go from being this single and solo person to a joint mindset. You have your ways of doing things, your own routines, your beliefs and your plans for the future, and then someone comes into your space and you have to choose whether you’re really okay with sharing it and if you really want to make room for them.

Thankfully in my own personal life, I am with someone who makes my days brighter and who is growing alongside me. We both have our own personal healing, life and work goals, but we’ve also both decided to honestly plan, speak about and choose to do it together. We realized very early on, that if we wanted to build and create a future together, while still walking our journeys and forming beautiful things together, we had to have some honest conversations up front. We knew we’d need to make room for each other. So we worked on it, and we continue to work on it. The fact that we show up every day for each other, in truly raw, and humane ways, is absolutely special and beautiful to me. It doesn’t mean we lose ourselves, and it doesn’t mean we don’t have disagreements, but it does mean, that we are raw, real and honest with each other and kind, supportive and loving, because we’ve built a space where we can communicate and a foundation upon which we are building.

Some ways to be aware of your relationship can be:

- Conscious, Continuous Self Growth, step one is not abandoning your own healing and growth journey. We are all human and we all have things that we could work on and actually probably need to. They may not be the same things as your partner, and until you’re ready to admit that sometimes you mess up, or sometimes you’ve been to blame for some hurt or pain, then you won’t be ready to walk that journey. Once you are on that journey, however, it is important to make time to keep walking it. In a way that your relationship and partner can understand and hopefully supports you.

- Friends, friends are an important part of having a piece of your own world that isn’t entangled in your constant ever-changing environment and your relationship. So that your partner does not become the person you overwhelm with every single emotion you have, ever. These are things you want to share with them first, the good, the bad and the ugly. But if you’re travelling or living together full time, then it is healthy to also have some of these conversations with your close friends. I am not saying call your mates up every night and speak to them for three hours, but I am saying call your friends, not only to groan and moan but also to share the happy news, and life updates and to truly ask them how they are doing. Make time to listen and hear them as well. Every relationship, be it friend or romantic, has to be a two-way tunnel, otherwise, we only head in one never-ending direction.

- Create dedicated working zones/areas and also change your working space environment often. Co-working spaces and cafes are many abundant in the year 2023, and so are free parks, the other side of the living room and your back garden, if you have one. Personally, because my partner and I work on projects together, it is great to be in the same vicinity as each other, in case either of us has a question or when we are creating a project to be able to check in with each other. However, we are realizing that we both get more done when we sit, just a little bit away from each other.

Now that we have an apartment space again (for a few months), one of us will work in one room, and the other in another room. We’re still in the same apartment, but I usually have my headphones on, and my Spotify playlist at full blast, and he is working quietly, sipping tea undisturbed, somewhere else. It works for us.

Date Night - Listen carefully when I say this, maybe you should grab a pen and notepad. DATING DOES NOT STOP! Romance and special time for each other, away from work, travel, and activities are so very important. Something I often see, not only travellers not doing, but even friends and family. Your partner and you, are in love with each other, and you find each other to be special. You care for each other, grow together and experience life together.

It does not mean, now that you live together, or see each other with messy hair and unbrushed teeth in the morning, that you get to automatically stop dating each other. You need to date your partner, and let them know that they are still amazing to you (and not just sexually). That you are happy to be with them, and that you appreciate that they are with you

- Plan date nights without asking them, where they want to go and take the initiative to actively plan it, it doesn’t have to be fancy. Listen, simply reserving a lunch table at someone’s favourite cafe, taking them for a film, or cooking their favourite meal at home, are all things that show you are actively taking time to think about and love your person. Your love life or friendship doesn’t need to look like a 90s American Rom-Com. Let’s be realistic and hopefully better than that, okay? And if you are at a loss for what your partner likes, then create a Pinterest boar A great treasure trove of information for a friend or partner to explore, and be inspired by.

- Tell them they’re beautiful when you honestly find them beautiful. Friends are beautiful, romantic partners are beautiful, and family members can be beautiful. Humans are beautiful. In so many ways

- Clean up after yourself. I know this is an odd one, but if you’re travelling with someone or living with them full-time, it is only respectful to clean up after yourself. It shows that you care. You’re making space for someone else in your life, and that person is not your mother or father, nor are they there to clean up after you. If you make a mess, clean it, if you see that they always seem to be taking care of the washing, cooking, and cleaning, make the effort to fairly share the household duties. I promise they will notice, the care you’ve taken. You will both feel less overwhelmed and burned out, and you will have more time for each other.

If you are not romantically linked, the same things can apply in a non-romantic or sexual manner. Truly let your friend know that you appreciate their friendship and that they spend time with you. Be honest about where you’re at, what support you need, or what you can give to them at that present time in your journey and life.

Therapy

As much, as I can share my own thoughts and personal journey with you, I am not a medical professional. I am a human being who has been through a lot in her life and who wants to encourage you and give you some other alternative options and maybe pointers. My love for travel has been within my soul since the day I could breathe. And it will remain until the day I take my last breath.

The reality, however, states there is also a need and a time for professional assistance. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, in fact, I think the need for therapy is so very dire in this day and age and that access to it, needs to be talked about. Honestly the fact that most people, cant afford or travel to, or access professional mental health, is devasting.

I survived suicidal depression many times in my younger years. A lot of the time people had no idea I was going through it. You’d see me laughing and going out and what looked like, being a happy teen - and then a few hours later or one morning I would wake up and I would wonder how to take my life. I would crumble. I would not want to exist any longer on this planet. Yes, there were a lot of reasons why, some in my control but most out of my control, but depression and mental health don’t ask you what you want to feel like on any given day, it doesn’t come with a 101 Handbook and a get out depression free card. It can be a nasty ass B#@% who has taken the lives of many who we have loved and lost.

Therapy has helped me in many ways. It helped me survive one of the most traumatic events any human can ever go through, and without it, I would simply not be here today. It has also helped me grow, and see myself as a person who deserves to be here, in my 100% human state and abilities. It has helped me, grow, plan, and learn so much about myself and the ever-changing world around me. Today, in the world we all live and share, there is so much we’re expected to handle, day in and day out, and be damned if you don’t make it look instagrammable. It’s not natural to carry the weight to which we are exposed, today.

Travelling doesn’t make it vanish, yes travelling definitely changes the way we see the world, freedom of movement is vital, and growth comes in leaps and bounds, but it isn’t a magic stick, and when the clock strikes midnight we are all still pumpkins. There is nothing wrong with pumpkins by the way, they’re beautiful, delicious and grow from the earth that we all come from. They have to endure tough weather conditions, they have seasonal highs and lows. They need to be nurtured, fed and loved, and accepted for however they grow and look. They need space, the sun and the moon, and the right climates.

Do you see how pumpkins and humans are the same? Much like the Pumpkin Farmer, our therapy journey and therapists are there because we need them. No one should be shunned or feel ashamed for asking for assistance, it should be encouraged. So just because you are travelling, seeing and learning amazing things, it does not mean that you’re not burnt out, exhausted, and wondering what and where your purpose is in life. It doesn’t mean that you do not experience rough days or that your emotions disappear, if anything they highly increase.

There are apps now (like BetterHelp, and Talkspace among many others ), where therapy is available on the road. I think it is a wonderful invention. One I need to take more note of in the future. You can choose between weekly sessions, or just when you need to talk to someone about what you’re going through, or how you are feeling. So if you feel like this is something you need or want to do, please do it, or reach out to someone who can assist you in finding access to it. remember therapy is not only for dark and deep depression, therapy is for many things, even when you are extremely happy.

Conculsion

And so with this, I take my leave from today’s, Mental Health Awareness and Full-Time Travel discussion. There will be many more, I am a huge mental health advocate and travel lover. There are so many arms and legs to this topic and I look forward to discussing them further.

Thank you so much for reading, and if you enjoyed this read or found something helpful, please do share on your socials and connect with me via email. I’d love to hear from you.

Cee

All Images by Cecilia Martens / Ceeces Travel and Lifestyle (pty.ltd)