Introduction!
Hiking (and the outdoors) is amazing for many things; fun, fitness, enjoyment, self-fulfilment and mental health. This post is about the psychological and physical health benefits of hiking and being outdoors. I have struggled with my weight and mental health, so this post greatly benefits me. I will start by telling you where and why I started in 2019 (18/2/19).
In this post, I will also set you some tasks/ challenges. These will motivate you when you do not want to get out and hike. They will also give you more reasons to get up, out and walk.
How Hiking Helped Me!
I’ll start with a brief back story of where I was and why I started when I did.. Just before I decided to get fit and in shape, I was stuck and did not know what to do with my life, and I was very unhealthy, mentally and physically. I did have ok career prospects, but I was not happy with it and where my life was going. I was 200lbs and extremely unhappy with my life…
Then I got into hiking, the gym and running after I knew something had to change. As I stated before, I weighed a staggering 200 lbs on 18/2/19. Within six months, I lost 50 lbs, felt a lot better, and started to love myself for the first time in a long time. This was all due to hiking, the gym and running. All of these put together helped in their way, but as this is a hiking blog, I will focus on the benefits of that. Hiking greatly improved my physical fitness, but it had unreal benefits for my mental health.
As of writing this post, I can honestly say I am the happiest I have ever been. ( I also found a fantastic girlfriend who’s helped me a lot as well). Hiking has done a lot for me over the past almost two years. I feel the challenges I have set myself give me something to work towards. As well as keep my mind from spiralling. During and after a hike always helps me feel amazing.
I have bad days like everyone else, but going outdoors helps me. Sometimes I struggle to get myself out, but once I’ve gotten up and left, I feel better instantly.
Another thing hiking has helped me with is my grandad’s passing, which happened very recently. I needed a safe space and to get some ‘me time. Being alone did a whole world of good for me. There is not a whole lot that I can say about this. Going out hiking in nature cleared my head and let me think clearly and forget about all the stress of life so I could focus on all my grandad had done for me.
HOW TO USE HIKING FOR YOUR HEALTH!
I’m going to focus on the mental and physical benefits of hiking for you, and as I said earlier, I have a few tasks for you to do at the end of this post. Make sure to check out further down this post for the challenges I will give you.
PHYSICAL BENEFITS
The physical benefits that you get when hiking are excellent. Hiking can help you with your strength and fitness. It improves your leg strength a lot from all the steep inclines, which, if you are a runner, will also help your endurance. The fact that sometimes you carry a heavy bag adds to the strength gain for your legs and abdominals.
It will also help your overall fitness tremendously, and most of the time, you don’t feel as if you are doing actual exercise. Sometimes hikes can get quite complicated. For example, starting technical/steep or long-distance hikes may be very hard. Walks will become easier and easier the longer you do them, but so does everything.
MENTAL HEALTH BENEFITS
Now, I think the mental health benefits of hiking/ the outdoors are immense. The outdoors has helped me so much, as I stated before. Now, this section is for you to see/ get all the mental health benefits. Firstly, mental health can be helped a lot by getting fitter (feel free to re-read the above section for more on that). Being fitter will help you feel a lot better about yourself. I know exercise makes me feel amazing when I complete it.
Let’s get onto the other benefits; as I’ve already discussed, fitness depends on whether or not you are better off being alone or with others. Sometimes being alone is the best thing for everyone, but being alone in your house is not good; you need to get out and do something. In my opinion, there is no better place than the great outdoors. Being alone on a long nature hike can clear your head and give you time to think everything through. Being in nature also has terrific calming effects and is a natural stress reliever.
Additionally, hiking in groups has impressive effects on your mental health. This is because being around people you care about and having people to talk to while having a laugh and a joke with can be good for you, and the fact that you will be doing it in nature makes the effect of the hike so much better.
WHAT I WANT YOU TO DO!
So what please do now is; Create an Instagram account, go on some hikes and try and get nine photographs over three walks. Then post them using the hashtag #outdooraascent and tag me @outdoorascent. I would also like you to DM me and let me know that you are doing this, as I want to follow you and keep up with your Hiking journey. I will also be featuring a lot of your photos in my stories. Once you have completed this, please don’t stop. I want you to carry on with your page and make it your own about hiking (or any other general fitness-based activities)—tell people about it in the caption. This will help keep you motivated and encourage and inspire other people!
