Ever thought about going hiking?
Most people don’t even give it a chance, but end up missing out on some pretty good benefits. Let’s talk about the reasons to go hiking.
Hiking is great for your health.
You’ve probably heard that before, but to really take the decision to do it and add it to your calendar, you need to know exactly how it’s related to healthy living.
For a start, it raises your heart rate and improves blood pressure and blood sugar levels.
It makes your bones and core stronger.
It’s one of the most natural ways to stay active. Of course, if hiking becomes a thing you do regularly, you’d lose weight and build muscles.
Let’s not forget the mental health benefits of hiking.
One of the main reasons to go hiking right away is that it’s a real therapy and the perfect getaway.
Stanford researchers have studied the effect of spending time in nature on our mental health. Doing things like hiking and camping every now and then is a great prescription for the stress, depression and other unpleasant things that go together with daily life worries.
It’s a stress reliever as you’re being outside, breathing the fresh air, enjoying the view, and thus being able to empty your mind. That’s also a solution for leaving behind the work stress, overthinking and anxiety.
As a result, you get better sleep and feel rejuvenated when you come back.
Go hiking to become happier.
That fun outdoor activity is directly related to increasing your happiness levels. That’s science-backed too.
It might be a way to make your bond with a partner or friend stronger. Hiking is a social experience too. There you disconnect from many things, and your minds aren’t distracted.
So you pay attention to each other, can talk about life, and even find solutions to problems. Another one of the benefits of this is that it gets your creative juices flowing.
There’s also the act of doing something new and different. That’s a bit challenging but also exciting. You leave your comfort zone and thus grow spiritually.
When hiking, you’re enjoying the truly valuable things in life. You don’t expect too much, there’s nothing material involved. Money, transport, bad habits at home, work – all this is something you take a break from. Hiking is a another form of freedom.
It’s a type of traveling too. Even if you just head to a city nearby, you’re visiting a new place and making the most of the nature in the region.
You develop some good qualities and build skills.
You’ll learn some key life skills.
That might be packing luggage with the right gear and getting familiar with the things you’ll need there. These would be a tent, compass, map, backpack, cooking gear, clothing, flashlight, first-aid kit, blankets, binoculars, trekking poles, etc. Most of them are things you’d never use otherwise.
You get better at navigating and working with a map and a compass. That’s pretty useful in real life too. Once your brain’s ability to navigate without a GPS improves, you become more oriented, disciplined and focused in any other place you end up at.
Hiking makes you more organized too.
You quickly learn how to get ready for this and might do a research in advance. Then, plan how the day will go and keep lists for the luggage so that you don’t forget anything important.
Once you get there, you set some time aside to choose a good spot, organize the rest of the people, decide how often to take breaks and in what direction to go, etc.
All these are organizational skills that come in handy when working too.
There are plenty of other reasons to go hiking no later than this week. But I believe the ones above should be enough to make you give it a go.