If travelling is said to have positive effects on one's body and mind, an overdose of it has just the opposite impact.
UPDATED: Aug 24, 2017 17:26 IST
People have always talked about how the experience of travel adds to one's personality, making one smarter, happier and more productive.
As much as the generation's craze for travel is growing each day, research has also shown that an overdose of the same might actually be harmful.
As opposed to the liberating effect that travel tends to have on one's mind, studies have revealed that for some travellers, it might actually turn into an addiction.
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Psychiatrists have termed this ''abnormal'' impulse to travel as dromomania. The case study that spurred the diagnosis was an 1886 event, when a French gas-fitter, Jean-Albert Dadas wandered about Europe on foot, for five years, before succumbing to exhaustion. By the time he reached a hospital in Bordeaux, he retained no memory of his travels.
Dromomania was later officially added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, as a psychiatric problem in 2000. The definition of the term reads as, ''sufferers have an abnormal impulse to travel; they are prepared to spend beyond their means, sacrifice jobs, lovers, and security in their lust for new experiences.''
However, doctors are trying to detect the exact possible reasons that ignite this uncontrolled urge for travel.
In the recent years, dromomania has widened its horizon to include extremely competitive travellers--those who tend to dedicate their entire life to exploring places, a desire fuelled by time, money or any other compulsion. And the fact can be corroborated by the numerous examples of globetrotters and obsessive travellers that populate our social-media pages. After all, haven't we heard those bizarre stories about people selling off their homes, only to travel round the world?
Also Read:Is social media the new face of travel?
It is important to acknowledge that this romantic idea of exploration is not divorced from materialistic needs, which is what makes these travellers catalogue each of their journeys, with many of them promoting themselves as professionals in the field.
In fact, after tallying websites, more than 30,000 people have been found to actively compete for the title of world's most travelled person, as reported by Conde Nast Traveller. Once, a trail lawyer from Indiana, John Clouse, was awarded the title of the ''world's most travelled man'', in 1998 Guinness World Record. However, the category was later discontinued for being too subjective, to which Clouse had said, ''This title cost me six marriages, and I don't intend to surrender my sword lightly!''
A social psychologist, Dr Michael Brein explained that travel, for many, becomes a means of physical and psychological escape from one's mundane routine. And so, many find the act of travelling rewarding and special.
From instances of travel fancies that have been coming our way of late, there's one question that still remains--is this unquenched thirst for travel, or the relentless desire to explore the new, somewhere, removing the traveller from abject reality? Is travel really a means of escape only?
Published By:
AtMigration
Published On:
Aug 24, 2017
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