Resfeber: why we feel guilty before embarking on a trip
Have you ever experienced a huge feeling between the vertigo and the illusion when buying that plane ticket or before launching into the adventure? Well, that mixture of feelings has a name and it is none other than the Swedish word 'resfeber' . The time has come to analyze it in depth!
If you're a wanderlust spirit ', we are sure that this has happened to you on more than one occasion. Let's put ourselves in a situation, you are in front of the computer about to click on the 'buy button' for that trip that you have been planning for months or you are waiting in the boarding queue before getting on the plane and suddenly all kinds of doubts arise, including stress, nerves, emotion ...and dozens of other feelings run through your brain! What exactly happens? Could the trip have been a bad idea? Regret maybe? Nothing of that!
You can be calm because this situation is much more common than one might think and that mix of feelings between nerves and illusion is something common. What happens is that until now nobody had given it a name and just as it happened years ago with the term ' ** Wanderlust ** ', it has been now when That state of mind has found an adequate term to refer to it.
On this occasion we change the German for the Swedish, because it has been this Nordic country that deserves the recognition of authorship.
Resfeber is a Swedish word that is becoming more and more popular among millennial travelers and through the corridors of Instagram (in the social network this term already has more than ** 28,000 mentions ... and counting! ** ).
Before we begin to analyze this concept in depth, it is time to put it to the test. You have suffered 'resfeber' if...
- The night before that trip costs you To fall asleep and a thousand thoughts go through your head.
You know it's the experience of a lifetime but you can't help but feel a little weird...
- At the moment of giving the buy button you think about it a thousand times and analyze all possible situations.
- When the days before the trip you're weird and you feel a little discomfort in the body but at the same time illusion, nerves, uncertainty, desire... as if your brain were a centrifuge of opposing feelings!
- Fear takes over you when you decide to leave your job and go around the world or embark on that trip through Latin America that you have been dreaming of for so long.
- You feel a tingling in the stomach in the boarding queue e and you would not know how to identify it as something positive or negative.
- When once the trip has started, the first few days you don't fully enjoy it, but in the end It ends up being one of the best experiences of your entire life.
BINGO! You can now add the word resfeber to your dictionary.
WHAT EXACTLY IS 'RESFEBER'?
It's a Swedish term that has no translation into Spanish and that could be translated as "the combination of emotion and stress that arises before embarking on a trip".
Michael Brein , a well-known doctor of social psychology, is regarded as the first travel psychologist having wandered around the world **(over 125 countries)** interviewing almost 2,000 travelers who offered between 5,000 to 10,000 stories collected over four decades.
Surely you have lived it, even if you did not know how to give it a name
These testimonies allowed him to analyze the human being when traveling and learn a great deal of knowledge that he now discloses in books, articles and other communication platforms . “I came to the conclusion that the best way to learn about the psychology of travel would be to interview travelers. So my understanding of the psychological factors involved in travel comes largely from those interviews." Michael Brein tells Traveler.es.
This inveterate 77-year-old nomad acknowledges that until now he was unaware of this term but that it could perfectly be translated as the “travel fever” . “Very often I have experienced a combination of stress and excitement at the start of a bright new day in a wonderful place , thinking to myself: 'This is the first step of the rest of my life!' I am always excited and eager to see what will happen at the start of each new day and new destination,” admits Michael.
Fear of the unknown is one of the factors that comes into play in this equation. . They know a lot about this Lucia and Ruben , authors of the travel blog ** Algoquerecordar ** that have thousands of followers on their social networks and in 2014 they became known around the world with their video 'The eternal traveler syndrome' which currently has more than 800,000 views on its YouTube channel.
“Seven years ago, we were working more than ten hours a day in the advertising industry. A month-long trip to Vietnam and then making our short film made Let's change our lives and dedicate ourselves to chasing dreams . After traveling the world for a year and spending another eight months in Asia, our son Koke arrived, who, at the age of two, has already been to 16 countries and slept in more than 130 different beds ”, they tell Traveler.
The family of 'Something to remember'
They claim to feel 'resfeber' Everytime that go on an adventure , or how they call them “butterflies in the stomach”. For this family of travelers, this concept is the vertigo of the unknown, leaving routine aside to open the door to uncertainty.
It is, in a way, that dusting off feeling and feel a little more alive and expectant before what you are going to experience. “Before we go on a trip or when we change countries we have that feeling. The day that does not happen, we will probably stop traveling ”, they reflect.
To Pepa (29 years old), psychologist, coach, trainer and creator of the portal Therapeutic Travel , it took her four years of her life to decide to leave everything to rediscover herself. In January 2017, she embarked on an adventure without a return ticket and traveled a large part of South America for nine months. “I grew a lot on a personal level, I learned about myself, my limits, my way of working . It was a true experience of self-knowledge and discovery of other ways of seeing life”, she tells us.
But what is now something very positive for her, at the beginning there were four years of uncertainty due to the fear of the unknown and when she bought the ticket six months passed in which there was not a single day in which the feeling of 'resfeber ' ran through his entire body.
“I felt a mixture of fear, joy, illusion, uncertainty . The fears were fundamentally of the unknown, of traveling alone and mainly of the consequences it could have on my working life. I not only had that mixture of emotions before the trip, but also During the first days already en route, it remained ”, She remembers.
To launch or not to launch? That is the question
IS RESFEBER A POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE CONCEPT?
In principle, without a doubt it is something positive , because deep down we are talking about a superficial 'fear' that in the depths of our being is transformed into illusion, emotion and desire to undertake something different, a journey that may change our lives.
In the moment in wich that fear paralyzes us more than we should , block us and torment us, it's time to rethink things and ask ourselves if we really want to start that adventure. But until that comes one must jump into the void because otherwise in the end you will regret not having made that decision.
“For us it is not something negative, but rather the opposite. People get nervous when they are going to have their first kiss or have a child. What really matters to us makes us feel more alive”, indicate Lucía and Ruben.
From the psychological point of view , Pepa explains to us what exactly happens in our brain when we feel 'resfeber'. "Anything that means a challenge to our way of understanding the world , of living, feeling and thinking, activates fear threatening our psychological constructions. Therefore, it is normal to feel fear before a trip or experience that we do not know, our mind anticipates it because it can pose a threat to who we are or our beliefs, ”she recalls.
Don't let the train escape
IS THIS THE PRICE TO PAY FOR THE WANDERLUST SPIRIT?
Perhaps it is the price to pay in exchange for having the wanderlust spirit. In the words of travel psychology expert Michael Brein, “This fear or anxiety is the price we pay for what we anticipate and know is coming. seasoned travelers will experience amazing personal growth and the satisfaction of many needs. It is something that we all must do to achieve the goals and ends that the trip does for us. Deep down we know that a little negative feeling about the unknown only makes us more excited. ”.
The next time the 'resfeber' shudder invades your body **remember to travel...:**
- Stimulates the brain when facing novelty and having to adapt to new experiences.
- It reduces stress.
- Improves the number of hours of sleep and quality.
- Increases happiness.
- makes you grow as a person and open your mind.
- Promotes orientation and social skills.
- Improves executive functions such as planning, flexibility or decision making.
Go out and you won't regret it
And do not forget the following recommendations:
- Don't let fear take over you.
- Spend time alone to discover what exactly you want.
- You can make a list with the reasons why you are making that decision and take it with you to read it when you get this feeling of nerves and extreme fear.
- Remember the illusion and joy of the trip.
- Plan if that makes you calmer, but without neglecting improvisation that can arise throughout the adventure.
- And enjoy what will probably be one of the best experiences of your life!