Can You Find the Time to Delay Aging?

A recent study at Edith Cowan University claims leisure travel may delay aging.

As always, I'm happy to embrace any study that says what I love to do can be considered healthy.

Dark chocolate is healthy?  Yes, that natural food must improve health.

Being a vegetarian extends your life?  Well, Paul McCartney seems to be rocking into his 80s --- I was surprised when he was still rocking into the 1980s --- but then again, so is Keith Richards.  I'll take a wait and see approach on that, although I have less likelihood of becoming a drug addict than a vegan.

According to Science Daily, "Travel therapy could serve as a groundbreaking health intervention when viewed through an entropy lens, she added. As an important aspect of the environment, positive travel experiences may help the body sustain a low-entropy state by modulating its four major systems.

"Tourism typically exposes people to new surroundings and relaxing activities, and novel settings can stimulate stress responses and elevate metabolic rates, positively influencing metabolic activities and the body's self-organizing capabilities. These contexts may also trigger an adaptive immune system response."

According to ECU's Fangli Hu, "Tourism isn't just about leisure and recreation. It could also contribute to people's physical and mental health."

Ms. Hu further explains, "Leisurely travel activities might help alleviate chronic stress, dampen overactivation of the immune system, and encourage normal functioning of the self-defense system. Engaging in recreation potentially releases tension and fatigue in the muscles and joints. This relief helps maintain the body's metabolic balance and increases the anti-wear-and-tear system's effectiveness. Organs and tissues can then remain in a low-entropy state."

The next video does a nice job showing how easy it is to remain in a low-entropy state on board, so even though it takes more than a minute, check it out before continuing on.  

There is more to the story, according to Ms. Hu.  "Conversely, tourism can involve negative experiences that potentially lead to health problems, paralleling the process of promoting entropy increase."

Did I mention that Ms. Hu is actually a PhD student?  Perhaps you thought I was just avoiding confusion with the famous BBC TV character whose name sounds the same.  Should we really believe her on this counter proposition?

Just kidding.

Ideally, we will not encounter negative experiences in travel, and we do all we can to avoid that by carefully selecting trusted vendors to handle arrangements, but sometimes, shift happens.  Entropy shift, that is.  If it does, keep a positive attitude. 

Look for the humor in every situation.  Find humanity in those who happen to be the messengers of bad news.  Feel and show true gratitude for those who are harbingers of possible solutions.

Don't give in to entropy.

"Better service leads to better trips!"

Wes