Benefits to Hiking Outdoors

From CLEVELAND CLINIC:

"If you're sedentary, just the smallest amount of effort will result in a lot of benefits, " explains Dr. Kampert. "But as you adapt and become more fit, you're going to have to increase the stress on your body by either increasing the duration, the intensity, or frequency."

• Reduces risk of heart disease: As with all exercise, hiking comes with heart health benefits. Studies have shown that exercise can reduce the risk of heart disease. By workin gout, your circulation improves and you heart becomes stronger. It is recommended to get 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise each week. "As you improve your exercise capacity, your all-cause mortality rate decreases, " notes Dr. Kampert.

• Lowers blood pressure: Being active helps control your blood-sugar levels and increases your body's sensitivity to insulin. "Because of exercise, you can have the same affect that insulin would have," says Dr. Kampert. "If you're someone with diabetes and your blood sugar is high, you could actually bring your blood sugar down with periodic bouts of exercise."

• Tackles obesity: Hiking is a great way to burn calories. "To lose weight, the goal is to create a caloric deficit," Dr. Kampert says. This can be done through your diet, as well as through physical activity. You want to focus on resistance exercises like hiking to prevent muscle loss. "Your body can burn muscles for energy," adds Dr.Kampert. "But by loading your muscles or doing weight-bearing exercises, it sends a signal to your brain to burn fat instead of calories.

• Reduces anxiety and depression: Clear blue skies, flowers in bloom, squirrels frolicking among the trees - being in nature is such a great way to get a natural boost of happiness. "There's a lot of research the show the effects of being in nature," says Dr. Kampert. "Our bodies find that certain colors can be stressful while some are calming. So, being out in nature with lots of green is a great therapeutic environment." He adds that green has a calming affect that regulates your parasympathetic activity and tones down your sympathetic activity (your fight or flight response). And when you get your body in motion, your body releases endorphins, which are hormones that can reduce pain and increase pleasure. It also increases your sensitivity to serotonin and norepinephrine - hormones that can ease feelings of depression.

• Improves sleep: If you struggle to get a good night's sleep, then a hike might be beneficial. Exposure to vitamin D can help control your wake-sleep cycle. And being outside and exercising will also raise your body's temperature, so when your internal temperature goes back down, it can lull you into sleep. "You can only train as hard or perform as well as you recover from each exercise session," states Dr. Kampert. "And sleep plays a key role in recovery and adaptations to exercise resulting in continued improvements in fitness."

• Helps build strong muscles and bones: No bones about it, according to research, when you exercise, you're affecting your body's bone density. You're also slowing how quickly your body loses calcium - a vital component for strong bones. And that's the key as we age; our bones naturally lose density which can lead to osteoporosis. Reasearch shows that after the age of 40, we lose about 1% of bone density per year. "Hiking can play a good role in bone density," says Dr. Kampert. "Especially if you're wearing a backpack because then you are actually loading weight on the spine". And when it comes to building strong muscles, just think about the actions of hiking and how that can help keep those muscles activated and engaged. "If you're walking uphill, it's working your quadricep muscles," explains Dr Kamper. "But then, when you're walking downhill, you're working those same muscles just a different way."

•  Improves arthritis: For those who have arthritis, especially in their knees or hips, you may have pain when you try to exercise. But hiking is an easy way to get your heart rate up without putting too much stress on your joints. "To get your heart rate up to a certain range, you might have to run to do that. And when you run, you actually have eight times the amount of force on your weight, "explains Dr. Kampert. "But when you're walking, it's only three times your body weight. So even if you're going at a slower pace, you'd be able to get your heart rate up higher while still walking so you don't have that high impact." Research also shows that exercising can reduce pain and morning stiffness in those with arthritis.

• Helps with balance: Just think of what the ground typically looks like on a hike - hills, dirt, rocks, sometimes mud, and roots from trees that create an uneven terrain. When you're navigating the outdoors, you're able to adjust to those changes in your balance. "You're developing strength, which plays a big role in balance," says Dr Kampert. "To maintain your balance, you have to be able to sense the change and your center of gravity, adjust to it, and then also have the strength to make that adjustment."

Overall, hiking is a great way to get some exercise in and comes with added benefits of boosting your mood, improving your sleep, and helping you with a host of potential medical conditions. And remember to go at your own pace - you don't need to become an expert overnight. Just start small and go slow until you feel comfortable in your surroundings. And don't forget to look up, down, and all around to take in the bright blue sky, the breeze on your skin, and the warmth of the sun. "Every hike provides a unique opportunity to experience the sky above you, the ground beneath you, and the peace within you," says Dr. Kampert.

9 Benefits of Hiking – Cleveland Clinic

From the book "Ecotherapy: Healing with nature in mind"

• Reconnect with place. We can learn to resist the constant rushing around and settle into and tend a beloved location, taking time to learn its secrets and hear its whisperings.

• Reconnect with companion and wild animals. Animals slow us down to our natural animal rhythms, which is why animal-assisted therapy works so well at lowering blood pressure and healing psychological ills of many kinds. The simple act of petting a cat or watching the birds flit through the trees is profoundly healing.

• Reconnect with plants. A simple pot on a windowsill slows us down to the pace of the seed, a seedling, a leaf and a flower. A tree on a street, if contemplated and touched, offers its blessing during a busy day.

• Reconnect with the cycles of human life. Instead of demanding that we remain in perpetual-teenager mode (the preferred state in our society, it seems), allowing ourselves to become true initiated adults and then elders honors the natural pace of human life rather than fighting it. Nature teaches us that seeds emerge, plants flourish, bloom, fruit, and then wither and slip away -- valuable wisdom for our own lives when we encounter the inevitable transitions in our own and others' lives.

• Reconnect with our wild bodies. Untamed nature is to be found not only in our far-away wilderness but in the wild of our bloodstreams, our digestive processes, our breath. Any practice that brings our attention back to our bodies is wilderness ecotherapy. Yoga and ecstatic dance offer release from the controlling modern ego and access what ecopsychologist call "the ecological self". And once we reach peace with our animal bodies, our souls naturally open up to a larger Spirit in which we are embedded.

• Spend more time outdoors in wild nature. Most of us are indoors most of the time. Our bodies and souls cry for long walks on the beach, contemplation in a forest or a few minutes in a nearby vacant lot near a stream. These times slow down life to a healing, natural pace.

Making just a few of these simple changes can radically shift how we feel. Ecopsychological research is now proving that reconnecting with nature and more natural living performs a host of psychological miracles, including lowering depression, improving our sense of well-being, calming our anxieties, raising self-esteem and giving us a sense of belonging to the great whole of which we are a part of.

Linda Buzzell M.A., MFT
Ecotherapy: Slowing Down to Nature's Pace | HuffPost Life