Will our brains remember 2020 as vividly as we would have remembered the journeys we did not take this year? Probably not. That's because I (and the collective we) are not doing much to change up our routine and are largely confined to a limited geographic area. According to smart people, this has led to a foggy memory and (likely) decreased mental activity. Cue a look of panic...
There was a time when new experiences morphed into sharp, vibrant memories that remain easy to recall
In 2018 while I was spending several months in India, I nearly missed my train from Kochi to Trivandrum, located at the southern tip of the subcontinent. I vividly remember spending hours in the ladies' waiting room because the "Super Fast Express" train was several hours late. I snacked on chips, bought a pre-packaged ice cream bar from the freezer case, and sat on a hard bench in a dimly lit room without air conditioning alongside dozens of other women and a few children.
When the train finally arrived, it was only a brief stop. I stood motionless for a moment because I did not know which car, in a train that seemed as long as a city block, held my reserved seat. I approached a man with his family. He looked at my ticket and pointed to the very front of the train, which seemed far off in the distance. I started running down the platform (with a 50-liter backpack hanging off my 5' 2" frame in the back, and a smaller day pack affixed to my front like a baby) hoping to get to my car.
Then the train started moving, slowly, and I needed to hop on. I ran up to the nearest door, held on to the railing, and willed myself forward up the two or three steps as the train began to pick up momentum. A man in the door grabbed me and pulled me in.
I had been hesitant to board the train before I reached my car because I knew the act of squeezing through very packed, standing room only cars with two backpacks would be unpleasant. To walk forward through five or six more cars, several of which were unreserved class, required barreling through grandmothers and families like a linebacker to encourage any movement that would allow me to pass. And the act of doing so, of demanding an entire train carriage move for me, made me extremely uncomfortable.
I finally found my seat, stored my backpack in the overhead storage, and opened a book to pass the many hours until my final destination. The event was brief. It happened two and a half years ago, but I still remember it quite clearly. It was also a very memorable reference point. Before the train incident, I did not know how to read an Indian train ticket. After that moment I did. And while it's a small piece of knowledge, it was a critical piece of information during my time in India. There was a before and after, and the time marker was definitive.
Why do I remember that event more clearly than anything from two weeks ago?
According to science, novel and complex situations excite our brains differently than does the act of living our routine lives. There have been few time markers in these last nine months, and my brain (and probably yours, too) has stopped engaging in new ways.
Research from 2014 touted travel as beneficial to your mental and physical state, because "Travel by definition is dropping your brain into a place that's novel and complex," said Paul Nussbaum, a clinical neuropsychologist. "You're stunned a little bit, and your brain reacts by being engaged, and you begin to process on a deep level." And that brain engagement causes it to produce more dendrites and grow stronger. Additional research found that novelty boosts memory retention.
Without travel how can I stay mentally sharp?
Get out and move around to new geographies even if just a few blocks away. Take a micro trip via a route you don't normally take or go for a walk in a different neighborhood. According to the experts in the BBC article, part of our collective memory loss is linked to the fact that our new routines happen in fixed locations — mostly at a computer in our home.
"We need to engage the hippocampus in order to remember new information, but Veronique Bohbot, a neuroscientist at McGill University in Canada, has found that if people’s lives become more confined and repetitive as they age [or during the pandemic], their use of the hippocampus decreases."
Conversely, in the before times, being in different geographical locations (whether that was a holiday halfway across the world or a meeting in a different building) helped grow our hippocampus and create new memories.
Where do I go on my tiny trips?
If I have to be confined to one city, I'm thankful to be in NYC where I can easily walk for an hour or two, passing new neighborhoods, historic landmarks, and random street scenes that make this pandemic feel slightly less isolating. I didn't quite hit my goal of walking over all the bridges (that allow pedestrian traffic) that connect Manhattan to the other boroughs, but at least I have a close-to-home travel goal that gives me something to look forward to and potentially expands my mind.
If you want to read regular dispatches on all facets of travel, sign up for the newsletter by hitting the “Subscribe Now” button👇 and I’ll talk to you soon!