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You are here: Home / Backpacker / Benefits Of Hiking Outdoor Adventure Trips

Benefits Of Hiking Outdoor Adventure Trips

December 11, 2018 By backpackers Travel

Getting out and moving is something everyone is encouraged to do. While you may seek out a remedial massage gold coast after your next hiking adventure, you won’t doubt for a minute that hiking has many perks. But what are the true benefits of hiking outdoors and adventure trips? Well, read on to find out why hiking is a great way to get active, and why it’s so good for the body, along with the mind.

Better Heart Health

Heart disease is the number one killer out there, and many times, it’s because if you’re sedentary all day, eating poor-quality foods and never leaving your space, you’re going to build up arterial blockage, which can put you at risk for heart disease, stroke, and other such problems. Your heart is a muscle, and it needs to pump blood through. The more blood pumped, the more energetic you’ll be, and you can also reduce your risk for high cholesterol and higher triglyceride levels, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and it can even prevent strokes from happening. Heart health is important, and even just getting out for a bit will really help with this.

Build Muscle Strength

Hiking isn’t just walking about on flat land. No, you have to traipse various terrain, both steep, narrow, wide, and generally filled with obstacles. Walking and hiking uphill will build your muscles not just in your legs, but your glutes and hamstrings too, and if you’re using your arms, it builds s arm strength. If you think about it, you’ll be pulling yourself up in many cases, so having that extra muscle strength does the body a whole lot of good. Muscle weighs more than fat and burns more calories, and in turn, it can help you develop more lean muscle, which will make you look smaller but still burn an insane amount of calories.

Slowing down Bone Loss

Bone loss is common in women over the age of 40 since osteoporosis tends to settle in. But, with hiking, you can prevent bone loss from happening, and in turn, you can keep the muscles strong too. Now, it’s important to make sure that you wear the right type of footwear, since it does help with preventing issues in the joints and muscles, but it certainly does help with preventing this from happening and can help with bone health, and prevent you from suffering from bone injuries.

Improve Sleep Quality

Hiking tires the body out, which ultimately will help with sleeping. Lots of times, the reason why many of us struggle with sleep, isn’t just because we are sedentary, but we have this excess energy that we need to get rid of. Plus, a hike in the evening before bed does the body a lot of good. If you’ve ever gone hiking before and felt exhausted but refreshed, then that’s a good sign. It certainly does help.

Improves Mental Health

Depression, anxiety, and stress are all parts of life. If you live a life that involves taking kids to places, working a job that involves a lot of time and stress, environmental factors that worry you such as money and personal health, and other stressors, chances are you’ve felt this. Depression is a common mental illness in many people’s lives and while taking a hike isn’t a substitute for mental health treatment when needed, it can create a positive impact on your life. It can help you settle down, combating the symptoms of stress and anxiety that tend to come about.

Nature is a natural part of one’s life, and if you’re in nature and experiencing the beautiful sights, it takes you out of your head many times, and you look out into the world. While it’s important to realize that taking a hike isn’t going to be some cure-all, much to the dismay of what many will say, a hike is often a great mood refresher, and it is good if you’re suffering from some anxiety. It will allow you to focus less on that issue for a bit, and from there, look out and see the world.

Depression hits all of us, and it definitely is something that can be a bit hard to deal with. But, just try going for a hike one day, see how you feel, and if it works, continue to hike. You never know whether or not something will work unless you try it.

Helps control Weight

Controlling weight is a great thing. Many are overweight, and with being overweight comes diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, amongst other things. If you are at a reasonable weight, you’ll want to control that, and maintain the fat loss, or continue to lose it. On average, you’re burning about 250 calories an hour, and those who lose weight in this fashion typically will maintain or continue than those who depend on diets.

Sure, diet and exercise are both key things, and diet plays a major role in the overall state of your health, but, if you want to maintain the weight and not just yo-yo, it’s important to supplement this with exercise, and usually, hiking is a great way to do this, since many don’t give this up, but instead they go out, hike, use portable water filter and feel amazing afterward.

Prevents Early Death

Early death is something that happens to people, but recent studies have discovered that if you’re active for at least seven hours each week, you have a 40% less chance of dying than those who are active for less than that. Ideally, at least try to get 30 minutes of exercise each day, but if you can get an hour, that’s good too. Hiking doesn’t have to be some all-day affair either, but you should definitely consider trying this out, and perhaps seeing for yourself the benefits of this.

An Entire-Body Workout

With Hiking, some treks can burn more, in some cases about 500 calories if you’re at an incline and packing a whole lot. Hiking trails are usually better on the joints than concrete and asphalt, and you’ll put less stress on the body than if you decided to run. If you are considering hills, you can lose a lot of weight, and you can really feel an increase in overall health and wellness of the body.

With hiking too, it does tone the entire body. Walking, in general, gets you into better shape, but sharp inclines with poles you got to use, climbing over rocks, and the like, creates a whole-body workout. In essence, you’re working out the entire body with this, and if you’re carrying a pack, you’re going to really challenge out your endurance and strength. But, it’s for you, and that’s what’s so great about it.

Can heal Others

Some studies have shown that not only does it help with heart health, but it’s helped cancer patients recover. A study that was published in the Journal of Sports medicine did discover that hiking long distances do improve the capacity of antioxidants in the body, which are used to help fight off free radicals, one of those being cancer. In cancer patients, it was discovered in the blood of those who exercised a lot and who are survivors of cancers, especially cancer, noticed that this activity did complement their recovery, and it made them stronger. So while you should never forsake medicine in order to combat something as terrible as cancer, getting yourself out there and moving will improve your life, and it will make you feel better too.

You Control the Workout

The best part about hiking is that there isn’t one specific course to take. Sure, you can go up huge hills and such, but if you’re not physically ready to do that, then don’t fret, for you can start off with a beginner course, and work your way up. it’s really important that you do this anyways because by having a good control over this, you can choose what kind of workout you want to engage in, and not overwhelm yourself.

If you’re not in shape, you should start out with a small course, something that’s perfect for beginners. From there, work your way up, and start to do harder and longer hikes. As always, if you start to feel it, head on back unless you want to push through. But, if you’re not comfortable with going a huge distance, don’t do that. Remember, this is a great way to control what kinds of workouts you do, and you can essentially build yourself up t a bigger, better state of health easily, and by hiking effectively, you can generate amazing results, and feel great about yourself.

Getting outside and going hiking, or other outdoorsy adventures is super awesome and worth every second you take doing these. If you’re ready to take your health back or prevent disease and other issues from being the lot of you, then by all means, get started right away. Controlling this will allow you to generate an amazing workout from this, and you’ll be happy with all of the results you obtain.

 

Authors Bio:

Emily Bartel

My name is Emily Bartel, a Content Writer & Developer at Aussie Storm Shop. I have been passionate about writing stories of my own. And later on, I converted my hobby into my career objective. From past 6 years, I have been writing stories (Blogs, Contents, Articles) on different topics. I do run my own blog as well, in which I write about anything and everything possible.

Filed Under: Backpacker, Hiking Tagged With: Adventure, Hiking, Outdoors, Trips

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