The Joy of Hiking: Exploring Nature and Improving Your Health
Those of us lucky enough to have hiked through Alaska’s most pristine places have treasured memories of lovely forests, sunny clearings, bugs and butterflies, mountain ridges, muddy holes, splashing streams, and many other outdoor vistas. There is danger out there, wild animals, accidents, inclement weather, mud and rock slides, rattlesnakes, curious grizzly bears, and grouchy mountain lions. There is much that is un-controlled, as nature should be. And you are hoisting a knapsack on your shoulders, making sure you have water and spare socks, and entering the fray. However, the benefits of hiking far transcend the Walt Whitman spiritual rush you get as you enter the wild. These other benefits are tangibly related to your health, and science provides evidence of them. In this benefits of hiking essay will be an attempt to show the real benefits of this physical activity.
The primary health-related benefit of hiking revolves around its nature as an aerobic exercise. Like running or jogging, hiking can improve your cardiovascular fitness, including a strengthening of the heart, lungs and blood vessels. Like more strength-related aerobic activities such as cross country skiing or rowing, hiking can also increase muscle strength, primarily in the legs. The effect of strenuous exercise will help increase bone density and improve your circulation. You will sleep better because of your hikes.
And it almost goes without saying that a six-hour hike that burns 1500 calories is going to contribute to weight control, even if you eat food the entire time. Experts say that the average hiker burns 250 calories an hour- and that those who hike regularly tend to maintain the loss permanently (as opposed to many of us who diet away pounds, only to regain them once we get off the diet wagon). So hiking then leads to permanent fitness and weight loss. How? By doing it regularly.
However, the physical health benefits of hiking surpass mere cardiovascular fitness and effective weight management. Hiking regularly has been shown to have a beneficial effect on the risk of heart disease and stroke, on reducing high blood pressure (hypertension) and Type 2 adult diabetes, and in the battle against high cholesterol and triglycerides. Hiking can help bulwark the body against colon, breast, lung and endometrial cancer. Because long exposure to sitting in front of a computer or just at a desk can play Hobbes on your lower back, hiking tends to improve people’s posture and reduce lower back pain.
Hiking has profound benefits for your mind and spirit as well. Anxiety and depression are made lighter by hiking outdoors, especially in small groups of friends. Stress and tension often melt away after the first mile of an alpine hike, as the pressures and bramble of civilized life fade out of the forefront of your thoughts, to be replaced by the subtle effect of experiencing nature first hand, and often enough, being overwhelmed with the sights, sounds, smells and touch of Nature’s kiss. Even serious mental health challenges such as diagnosable mental illnesses and PTSD can be mitigated and assuaged by exposure to the outdoors and nature.
Hiking has wonderful social benefits for your friends and for your family. It is a positive experience that will promote bonding and trust. It has an amazing effect on children, burning energy in a way that will promote sleep the next night, and alertness the next day. It also results in fitter, more confident, and more worldly children. Hiking often has the nascent result of instilling in children a life-long love of nature and the outdoors, a proclivity for movement and health, interest in biological and geological sciences, an appreciation for our environment and a wider, more empathetic world view.
Hiking promotes creativity, attention span, and creative problem-solving skills, according to at least one study. That study postulated that such results come as much from “unplugging” from technology, as from exposure to the outdoors. Interacting with nature can help people find serenity and calm, and often enough, the quiet space between breaths when your mind is not racing with modern AD/HD velocities, that is where people experience sudden flashes of insight and spiritual growth. The best place to “connect” with the natural world is outside, IN the natural world.
In conclusion, hiking is a great reason to travel. There are thousands of wonderful places in this world that you should hike before you die. You cannot live long enough to visit all of them. But you should definitely try! There are plenty of benefits of hiking, so why do not try to start doing it?
