Not sure if I’ve talked about this before, but I’m on a #tinytravel weekend again. I love taking small roadtrips that become a mini-vacation. Take no time off work, or only a few days, drive somewhere interesting, and spend a few days exploring.

An unexpected side effect of this has been gains in my health status.

Before, when I was young, sad, and sick, travel always slayed me. Dehydration. Exhaustion. Tense worry. Uncertainty. Different food and water. They’d all stack up and become these unsurmountable things that would completely wreck my health. There was a time–I must have been about eight years old–when my parents had to get my physician to call in a prescription to prednisone to the nearest pharmacy to get me through the remainder of the vacation.

Anything that deviated from the routine was suspect.

Now, however, the word “antifragile” has entered my life. (Which I find somewhat funny because twelve-year-old me cosigns every single paragraph of the introduction.) Perhaps this is a byproduct of having read and digested many of Taleb’s writings. Perhaps it’s eating nothing but meat. Perhaps it’s mental maturity.

What has happened is this: every time I take a tiny trip, my body functions better than before. My digestion signals improve. My eczema starts to heal. I brace for the worst and somehow get the best.

This could just be that I’m distracted, that I have something to focus on besides myself. And that’s quite possibly true.

It could be that a variable schedule every once in a while actually helps shake things up.

Perhaps I have an expectation of and desire for good health, since I want to do and see all of the things that were the reason for the trip in the first place.

Whatever it is, I’ll take it.

I love that I have the freedom to travel and explore, and that I don’t have to worry that doing so will damage my health. It’s like I have my life back.