Want to boost your productivity? Take a travel break

New Delhi: Remember Ranbir Kapoor in `Ye Jawani Hai Deewani`? A flamboyant travel journalist! His role underlined an important truth: travel brings happiness, which is often infectious.

It`s a fact of life- all of us want to be happy and enjoy life but pressures of life, work stress and deadlines, weigh us down and lead us to suppress our basic quest for happiness. This is one reason why periodic breaks from work and monotony are important for professional growth.

A recent research, by Mark Rose kind of Alertness Solutions, found that the respite effect of vacation can increase work performance by as much as 80 percent.

It`s to do with the brain`s refuelling mechanism. As we take a break, the body gets a chance to recover from the toll of chronic stress. Another study suggests that office workers who take frequent travel breaks return to work with better stamina and dedication.

Today, forward-looking organizations have come to accept the fact that regular travel breaks enhance workplace efficiency. While some are modifying their Human Resource policies to extend the leniency around leaves and travel allowances, there are others who are even paying their employees to take vacations. Not surprising.

Kapil Goswamy, the CEO and MD of BigBreaks.com brings forward some good reasons as to why regular travel breaks enhance productivity.

• Break=Mental Rejuvenation: A travel break refreshes your soul. As you travel, you do a lot of soul-searching and understand your own strengths and weaknesses in a comprehensive way which y helps you to be better person, and a better professional. If you have reached the bottom of your performance chart working on tough deadlines day after day, a travel break is all you need to recharge your battery.

• Builds Organizational Skill: French poet and novelist, Anatole France said: "Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe." How true. Travel experiences build flexibility and raise the integrity of our thought process. Planning the itinerary and arranging. On the same note, travel-check-list builds our organizational skills. Collaborating and coordinating with friends and family on the trip makes us a team person. Team spirit is extremely important in professional life too.

• Helps You Stay Calm: Relaxation is an indispensable part of a travel break. It helps you break free from the robotic work atmosphere and live in the moment. More importantly, it teaches you to figure out solidarity amidst chaos. Travelers keep on meeting new people and destinations, but at the same time, they are always engrossed in a state of mental tranquility and do not panic when an emergency situation arises. Well, composure is all it takes to be cool in the workplace, right?

• Sharpens Curiosity and Awareness :Tourists are inquisitive about the places they visit. If you travel frequently, you become a good explorer. Great conversations are often the bonus while you take a road trip with your soul mates. Besides exploring new vistas and dimensions of your life, a travel break allows you to get some valuable insights which may help in your professional life.

• Gives Your Confidence a Boost: If you travel often, you may find a surprise turn in your journeys. Frequent travellers get used to this over time. Uncertainty is a part of our professional lives. Whatever the issue, knowing that you can deal with it, gives you a big-time confidence boost. This is crucial in professional life.

• Builds Soft Skills: Last but not the least, travel breaks can dramatically enhance soft skills such as managing emotions, recognizing opportunities and understanding the diversities of people and cultures. Avid travelers are forced to move out of their comfort zone and build better communication skills. Over a period of time, you build a sense of empathy for your co-travellers and become a more humane person, willing to embrace change. Besides, social interactions make you happier, as you get to learn new behavioural trends which can be significantly useful in professional life. Frequent travellers also acquire valuable coping skills which enable them to lead from the front in personal as well as professional life.