The benefits of traveling are myriad, and I’m an enthusiastic proponent of visiting even the nearby, the perceptually humdrum, the everyday and mundane-seeming because although many of us have been sold on the idea that travel needs to be exotic and expensive, it needn’t be either of those things to be valuable and fulfilling.

Taking a quick drive or bus-ride to the next town over can be just as enriching as hopping an international border, and visiting a park or hole-in-the-wall bar can be just as enlightening and enlivening as visiting a museum, ski resort, or other aspirational destination.

The benefits of moving around—to whatever degree is feasible for you and your situation—extend still further, though.

When I feel creatively or productively stuck, I find that relocating to another context (working from the library instead of my desk at home, for instance) often jolts that blockage free.

This works on a smaller scale, as well: changing locations within my own home, or opting for a different seat than usual at a familiar coffeeshop tends to put me in the right state of mind for making, learning, and feeling inspired even if I start out feeling stopped-up and limited.

You can get even more granular with this approach, though, swapping out your visual or aural environment by changing your computer’s desktop wallpaper, hanging some new posters or artwork near your desk, or opting for a different playlist, radio station, or environmental soundscape (nature sounds, traffic sounds, no sound) than usual.

Research related to this “change your context” approach to dealing with mental barriers suggests that because our brains want to relax and use as little energy as possible, and because familiar environments and habits and routines allow them to do so, they’ll sometimes flip to autopilot-mode when our environmental variables are familiar and predictable.

This is wonderful in some ways, as it can allow us to relax and get cozy, wriggling into a sort of chilled-out cognitive blanket, but it’s less ideal for deliberation-dense situations in which we need to have our wits and creative faculties operating at full-tilt.

Upending our familiar variables, fortunately, can push us in the opposite direction: our brains go into data-collection mode, and even seeing the same room from a different perspective—sitting on the floor, moving one’s chair to the opposite wall, etc—can trigger this response.

It’s possible the Doorway Effect also plays a role in this response, as we sometimes use our environments to store information (as sort of a “mind palace” means of attaching cognitive data to geographic spaces) and by perceptually shifting to a new space, we reset our thinking patterns in such a way that we can approach problems and projects from new angles—because we’re literally looking at them from different positions.

Whatever psychological and/or neurological mechanisms are actually involved here, this type of mini-travel does seem to at least semi-reliably bear fruit, whether you’re plucking at the threads of a knotty problem, mulling over professional next-steps, or futzing around with some kind of creative side-project.

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