Banishing the blahs

With its limitless possibilities for adventure, RVing may be as important for our mental health as the right food and exercise are for our bodies. Hard to believe? Stay with me for a minute.

Recently, I ran into a good friend in the supermarket who looked so depressed that couldn't help asking if something was wrong. "I've got the blahs," she said with a sigh. "Every day is like every other. Same old routine over and over and over. I'm bored to death."

Once I might have given her a quick pat on the arm, rushed off to finish my shopping and forgotten all about it. But in recent years I've learned that the expression "bored to death" may contain more truth than hyperbole.

Like most writers, I save news clippings on subjects that interest me. In front of me right now are a dozen or so pieces-generous with quotes from mental health professionals-that describe the dangers of boredom. The headline on one: "Boredom Can be a Killer." Another, by Blaine Harden, begins: "Boredom kills, and those it does not kill, it cripples, and those it does not cripple, it bleeds like a leech, leaving its victims pale, insipid and brooding." Wow!

Now if we agree that boredom is no joke, how do we beat it? Best approach, according to the experts, is to find an activity that enriches our lives-that offers, says a psychologist, "change, variety, challenge and new goals."

Here we are, back to the important role RV travel can play in mental health. Use those same words-"change, variety, challenge and new goals"-and you're right on target if you want to describe RVing.

Long before we hit the highway, most of us start to savor the coming pleasure. The pulse quickens, the imagination comes alive as we Dull out maps. Where to go? How to get there? In the mind's eye: shimmering lake, cool mountains , the quiet of a vast desert, all the fun of a weekend at the beach. In anticipation, an otherwise routine week now begins to take on fresh color. Before us is an exciting, desirable, achievable goal.

Once on the road, every hour brings a change in our surroundings. "I love meeting new people, discovering new places," says one enthusiastic RVer. Travel is food for the mind-the kind of stimulation we all need.

Even a short trip-over a weekend, for instance-helps break the monotony of the daily treadmill. One friend who works at an important but repetitive kind of job tells me: "I can face Monday morning in far better spirits if I've had a change of scene. We take along a little outdoor barbecue and spend a lot of time outdoors. For two blessed days I forget all about the office."

Longer trips, like a Chinese menu, offer a chance for greater variety. Each day you travel roads that are new to you, bed down in unfamiliar territory, wake beneath someone else's sky. This is what renews and reinvigorates.

"After a few days away from home," says another fellow RVer, "I begin to see things from a different perspective, and I feel more alive. I think it's the sameness that dulls the senses. You know, same scene. Same old routine. Same nagging little worries."

If poet Robert Louis Stevenson were still alive today, I suspect he'd be an ardent RVer. Long before the day of mental health professionals, he seems to have understood what change can do for the mind's well-being. "I travel not to go anywhere, but to go," he wrote. "I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move."

Even a few difficult experiences on a trip can have a positive effect on us. To use a personal example, in Alaska last summer, a rock kicked up by a passing vehicle cracked the big window above our dining table. In seconds, hundreds of new cracks spread throughout the window. It appeared ready to explode, throwing glass shards everywhere and leaving a vast opening for wind and rain. Believe me, getting ourselves out of this fix was a challenge to our ingenuity. (Duct tape covering both sides of the glass proved to be an effective, if temporary, solution.)

A couple of days later, our vehicle suddenly quit, and we found ourselves stranded in the middle of nowhere-a situation entirely foreign to our secure, well-ordered lives at home. Another challenge. After a long wait on an isolated road, we were able to flag down a bus driver and ask him to telephone for help in the nearest town. Several hours later a mechanic arrived with a flat-bed trailer (See note at end of column.) Somehow, he hauled us aboard. Sitting in our RV high atop the trailer-ducking instinctively as we came to each low bridgewe were treated to a 40-mile, high-speed, often spine-tingling trip over roads, paved and unpaved, to his repair garage.

Were we bored? Not for a minute! Such experiences may be exasperating at the time, but they help keep us from falling prey to the mind-numbing comfort of predictability

It may be this, along with other reasons, that draws many RVers to Mexico (we, among them). Such challenges as gas stations without gas, "innovative" campgrounds (an understatement) and directional signs that help to insure getting lost keep you on your toes.

But it's not necessary to visit a foreign country to kill boredom. Within our own borders we have enormous variety: mountains, prairies, seashores, deserts; the hum of busy cities, the quiet of wilderness. Wherever we choose to go, adapting to a new environment sharpens our awareness and gives us a renewed sense of vitality.

All of this is true for our kids as well. Child psychologists warn that too many of today's children, glued to television or to computer video games, are suffering a new kind of malaise that manifests itself in apathy and indifference. RVing gives kids who are hooked on virtual reality a chance to deal with real reality. Helping to chop wood, fill the water tank or roast hot dogs over an open fire are the kinds of experiences that act as a tonic for bored and lethargic youngsters. RVing also broadens a child's horizons, helping him escape the confines of his own small sphere.

Canadian anthropologists David and Dorothy Counts have found, through their research, that RV travel can significantly increase the physical and emotional well-being of older Americans, also. "The constant exposure to new people, places and events and driving from place to place, all help to keep RVers mentally alert," says Dorothy Counts. For many retirees, boredom is an overriding problem, which can lead to a myriad of physical ailments. The Counts found that RVers feel healthier and are happier than their non-RVing counterparts. They are more physically active and more mentally alert.

Even snowbirds, who stay in the same RV resort for weeks or months, reap important benefits from RVing. Besides having to adjust to a new environment each year, most are engaged in interesting activities at the resort. They meet new people and enjoy a social network well beyond the several neighbors and friends they may have at home.

Add it all up and no matter what your age, convincing evidence shows that RVing is a uniquely healthful activity-a wonderful way to banish the blahs.

Note: It was thanks only to Good Sam Emergency Road Service that we were rescued after our breakdown. Our mechanic pointed out that when Good Sam called, he knew he would be paid-otherwise he would have been reluctant to risk an 80mile round trip.-M.L.

Copyright T L Enterprises, Inc. Sep 1997
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