Disrupt Your Comfort: Why Traveling to Learn May Be the Strongest Medicine for the Mind

It’s a strange paradox.
We live in an age that talks endlessly about mental health while quietly cultivating fragility. Studies show that rates of anxiety, depression, and loneliness have risen dramatically among young people born after 2000, according to research led by psychologist Jean Twenge published in the Journal of Adolescence (2023). One global meta-analysis found that nearly half of Gen Z respondents report persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness far higher than any generation before them, as reported by the World Health Organization and recent findings from Frontiers in Psychology (2022).

The causes are complex: an always-on digital world, overprotective parenting, relentless social comparison, and a vanishing sense of patience. Modern life keeps us indoors, online, and overstimulated, yet undernourished in resilience. The word “mental health” has been turned into both a wellness brand and an excuse to retreat. Comfort has become the currency, not courage.

But what if strength of mind; true, unshakable clarity can’t be found inside another mindfulness app, but outside, in the wide and unpredictable world?

For more than a decade, Bali Internships has worked with students and graduates who choose to leave their home countries to live and learn in Indonesia. They come for many reasons: to complete an internship, to volunteer, to study. Some stay a month; others, half a year. Most think they are coming to gain experience. What they really find is themselves; not the curated, online version, but the raw, adaptable, resilient self that only appears when comfort disappears.

Research supports what we witness every season.
A 2024 study published in the Journal of Travel Medicine described international travel as a “psychological reset,” showing measurable reductions in stress, anxiety, and emotional fatigue after sustained periods abroad, according to research by Hotho and colleagues at the University of Vienna (2024). Other studies have linked travel and volunteering to improved cognitive flexibility, empathy, and self-efficacy the belief in one’s ability to handle life’s uncertainties as reported by Chen and Petrick in the Journal of Travel Research (2013) and supported by findings in Frontiers in Psychology (2022).

But the transformation isn’t due to beaches or sunsets. It’s the disconnection from home, from algorithms, from routine that creates the space to reconnect with one’s own mind.

In Bali, time moves differently. The rhythm of life; the daily offerings, the monsoon rain, the motorbikes that hum like background music has a grounding effect that many visitors don’t expect. When interns or volunteers first arrive, their habits follow them: constant phone checks, the urge to post, the mental noise of what’s next. Within weeks, something shifts. The external static begins to fade. They start listening to their thoughts, to people, to silence.

Modern psychology calls this attention restoration, the process by which immersion in new and natural environments replenishes the brain’s ability to focus and regulate emotion, a concept first introduced by environmental psychologist Stephen Kaplan in Environment and Behavior (1995). In plain terms: living differently rewires you. Cooking with a Balinese host family, working alongside a coral restoration team, getting lost and finding your way back, these are not Instagram moments. They are repetitions in a quiet mental gym, a finding echoed in research from the Journal of Environmental Psychology (2021) showing that sustained engagement in new environments improves both attention and emotional stability.

Contrary to the softened narrative of “self-care,” real mental strength often grows from discomfort.
Volunteering, for instance, demands adaptation: new languages, new hierarchies, new weather, new expectations. In a 2021 psychological study from the University of Leeds, researchers found that international volunteers often reported that culture shock, miscommunication, and even loneliness became the very sources of confidence and emotional maturity once they had time to reflect, as detailed in The Psychological Health of International Volunteers (Mistry, 2021). In other words, struggle when faced with support and reflection transforms into strength.

At Bali Internships, we see this constantly. Students who were nervous to speak up on day one are soon managing small projects, negotiating tasks, mentoring younger volunteers. The island becomes their mirror: honest, unfiltered, and deeply alive. This echoes findings from Frontiers in Psychology (2022), where volunteer-based learning programs were shown to enhance emotional resilience, social connectedness, and overall well-being through exposure to meaningful challenge.

We need to talk about the way “mental health” is marketed today. Every other post tells you to protect your peace, take a break, “do what feels right.” While these messages have their place, they also risk cultivating passivity. Protecting one’s peace shouldn’t mean avoiding every challenge. Strengthening the mind means occasionally inviting friction; failure, confusion, difference; because those are the moments that teach endurance.

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who coined the concept of flow, wrote that human happiness derives from voluntary challenges that test and expand our abilities. Comfort, he warned, leads not to peace, but to stagnation. The act of immersing yourself in another country, culture, or language is precisely that kind of challenge; a living laboratory for growth.

Several academic fields are now revisiting what travelers and anthropologists have known intuitively for decades.
A 2022 article in Frontiers in Psychology found that individuals engaging in meaningful travel and volunteer work reported greater life satisfaction and reduced perceived stress compared to non-travelers. Neuroscience research has also shown that novelty encountering unfamiliar stimuli, customs, and environments enhances neuroplasticity, keeping the brain agile and emotionally adaptable, as demonstrated by studies published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Maguire et al., 2000). Long-term study-abroad students, according to research in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations (Anderson et al., 2016), display higher intercultural competence, empathy, and self-regulation than peers who remain in familiar environments.

Travel, in this sense, is not escapism. It is exposure therapy for the mind; a concept supported by emerging work in The Journal of Travel Medicine (Hotho et al., 2024), which describes sustained travel as a “psychological reset” capable of improving emotional regulation and reducing chronic stress.

Indonesia is an ecosystem of difference.
It’s a country of more than 17,000 islands, 700 languages, and thousands of living traditions. The paradox of modern Bali where ancient ceremonies unfold beside coworking spaces offers an ideal classroom for mental growth. Here, you learn that time and progress are relative, that silence can be productive, that kindness can be discipline.

Living here doesn’t always feel easy. It’s humid, unpredictable, and sometimes chaotic. But the island has a way of reorganizing your priorities. The mind learns humility not the kind taught in lectures, but the kind you feel when plans fail and you adapt with grace. You start noticing how the Balinese concept of Tri Hita Karana, harmony between humans, nature, and the divine is not just philosophy; it’s daily mental hygiene, a balance recognized by UNESCO (2012) as a guiding framework for sustainable and cultural resilience. Studies from Udayana University (2021) have also highlighted how the application of Tri Hita Karana principles in community life fosters emotional balance, empathy, and environmental awareness.

Perhaps the bravest thing you can do for your mind today is to move. Not to escape but to engage. To step into a new rhythm where growth is not comfortable, but conscious. For those ready to trade scrolling for seeing, and anxiety for awareness, the world is waiting and Bali is a good place to start.