Traveling keeps the brain sharp and the hearth healthy

            

“Research shows that travel helps build vital neural pathways”, says Dr. Gary Small, director of the UCLA Longevity Center at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, quoted by the Natural Society. 

The value of novelty is particularly high for our brains, as challenging new experiences of any kind help the brain develop parts of nerve cells called dendrites, which are like branches of a tree.  “Navigating unfamiliar places, tasting new foods, or learning even just a few words of another language delivers the brain-building effect”, affirms Dr. Small.

While the new and complex situations encountered while traveling can help keep the brain sharp, travel has been found to lower the risk of heart attack and death from coronary disease in certain groups, points out Elizabeth O’Brien on the Market Watch.

She quotes the result the long-running Framingham Heart Study, which studies residents of Framingham, Mass., in which women aged 45 to 64 were asked how often they took vacations. In a 20-year follow-up study, researchers found that women who vacationed every six years (or less frequently) had a significantly higher risk of developing a heart attack or coronary death compared with women who vacationed at least twice a year, even after adjusting for traditional risk factors such as blood pressure.

According to the same author, a separate, nine-year study found that annual vacations reduced the risk of death from any cause, and specifically death from heart disease, in a group of men at high risk for coronary heart disease.