In this busy lifestyle, we are just hustling to get time for exercise. Staying healthy and fit is the key to reducing the chances of diseases.
You might have heard about a lot of ways to stay healthy. Have you heard about hiking? Do you know about it? Have you ever tried it?
What Is Hiking?
Hiking Meaning – It is a kind of adventure travel. It provides you the opportunity to exercise along with exploring the beauty of nature. Hiking means walking a long-distance usually for pleasure or exercise.
It is considered as one of the economical and convenient ways to improve your health and fitness. There are various benefits of hiking. You can enjoy this outdoor adventure at any place.
No equipment is needed, But your excitement, enthusiasm, and energy. The hikers can walk easily to far distances unless they start walking on hills and mountains.
Hiking For Beginners
Regularly going for a hike in nearby areas helps to reduce heart disease, low blood pressure, respiratory problems, and other health issues. It makes you strong. Hiking is a social activity too, it’s great to do it with your friends.
According to researchers worldwide, it is proven that there are lots of health benefits of hiking. In India, it is popular in attractive places such as Himachal, Ladakh, etc.
It can also be educational as it gives a learning experience. While roaming in the parks, we have exposure to nature, and we learn new things.
It provides a meditative and self-learning experience. You can carry the required gear and go hiking with your best suitable backpack.
In Canada and the United States, “Hiking” is mostly referred to as “walking”. In New Zealand, it is called ‘Tramping’.
Walking – A Good Exercise!
Walking is mainly involved in hiking. It is considered an aerobic exercise. The heart rate increases while walking which provides you with a good and better way to live a healthy life. Doing it regularly reduces various health-related problems.
Risk of getting injuries while walking is lowest compared to other exercises. It can be performed anywhere outside your residing place. Some people do it as a routine to stay fit. It is known to be a natural stress reliever.
Swimming, among other exercises, is also a low-injury exercise, but finding a swimming pool is not an easy task. Walking has no issues with accidents, it only creates stress to the joints. The chances of injury due to any misstep are very low.
11 Excellent Benefits of Hiking for a Healthy Lifestyle
Recreational activities act as stress busters in our lives. They help to fight the stress and keep you fit physically as well as mentally.
There are thousands of health benefits of hiking that cannot be ignored. Let’s have a look at the most important ones :
1. Improves Your Overall Fitness
We know that exercises are very important to maintain fitness. But to perform exercises in a daily routine is not an easy task. Quick or brisk walking is known to be an easy way to be fit.
Similarly, it is a better way to improve your cardiovascular health. If your area includes some hills, it will force your heart to work harder.
Hiking on an uneven surface of a trail is a natural way to engage the muscles to stretch. It is not possible to create such an uneven motion with a treadmill.
2. Helps To Lose Weight
It’s not about fitness levels and muscle strength, but the health benefits of hiking also include weight loss. There are various exercises to lose weight. But hiking is much better than others.
Compared to walking, it burns more calories with the added benefit of relieving stress.
According to the analyzed data of Livestrong, hiking can burn up to 440 to 550 calories per hour. The process helps to lose weight and allows you to live a healthy lifestyle.
Walking on trails is a good experience. These trails in the mountains provide a valuable opportunity to build a good body shape.
Everyone has different goals about weight, as some focus on diet, to maintain weight. But if weight loss is the purpose of hiking, it’s perfect to get in shape.
3. Reduces Risk Of Diseases
The best thing about engaging in any exercise is overall fitness. The benefits of hiking are more effective if you go on a regular hike. It reduces the risk of heart diseases and improves your lifestyle.
Also, promotes a powerful cardio workout and controls cholesterol levels. It’s an excellent way to lower blood pressure and stay healthy.
4. Natural Stress Reliever
A good stress-buster is a key to reducing the stress caused due to long working hours. Everyone has stress due to something, which may be handled in various ways. But one of the natural stress relievers is hiking.
The outdoor activity refreshes our brain to function well. It makes us think more clearly without any stress and refreshes our minds. One of the best benefits of hiking is that it eliminates stress and refreshes your mind.
5. Strong Muscles
One of the benefits of hiking includes overall health improvement. Also, it helps to build strong and powerful muscles. Being healthy is a challenge without exercise.
You can try hiking to reduce body fat and get fit. It strengthens the hamstrings, hips muscles, and lower legs.
6. Boost Bone Density
Hiking is the best way to boost bone density. It is a weight-bearing exercise that requires you to do the work against gravity. These exercises include walking, hiking, jogging, and climbing stairs.
7. Builds Mental Strength
Don’t underestimate the psychological or mental benefits of hiking. Spend some time outside of the house or apartment, enjoy the fresh breeze which will fill your soul with joy.
This eliminates depression and stress, which is evidence that hiking actually improves mental health.
8. Makes You Innovative
Not only the body, but it also affects your mind and soul. The mental benefits of hiking are mind-blowing. It boosts your creativity and improves problem-solving skills.
The gadgets of the virtual world keep us engaged via emails, texts, and other notifications. In research, it is found that outdoor activity improves our ability to focus.
9. Helps To Recover
Hiking is considered a therapy for fast healing due to its effective psychological benefits on our mind and body. It can add pace to the recovery of people suffering from cancer.
According to researchers, a long-distance hike improves the antioxidative levels in the blood. There is much evidence that hiking is helpful in treating any kind of health-related problem.
10. Connects With Nature
A big portion of our time is spent in the digital world which is making us very weak and disease-prone. It is making us very weak and disease-prone. Our lives keep moving around mobiles, as we spend more than 4 hours daily on social media and internet surfing only.
Getting out for outdoor activity is an opportunity to enjoy nature and fresh air. The outside air has the power to relieve stress, tensions, anxiety and make life cheerful.
11. Happiness And Joy
Hiking makes us happier by boosting our feelings of happiness and joy. Mostly for those who are struggling with depression. In some extreme cases of suicide, mountain hiking led to the elimination of hopelessness in the patients.
Most Popular Types of Hiking
Hiking health benefits attract hikers from everywhere. If you are a beginner in hiking you should know about the different types of hiking done across the world.
To enjoy the benefits of hiking people travel around the world to explore the best hiking trails. People enjoy them according to their purpose of hiking.
Some carry special gear and props with them to hike. These props and gears specify the type of hiking. It includes crossing roads, rocky hills, mountains, walking with poles, hiking with dogs, etc.
1. Glacier Hiking
The Glacier hiking is performed on the Glacier with some specially designed pieces of equipment. Glaciers are found all over the world, except in Australia.
They require a specific climate, most of the time there is heavy snowfall during the winter and cool temperature at the time of the summer season.
It is not easy as it requires some knowledge of the glaciers and the frequently changing environment.
Glacier Hiking is one of the best-known tourist attractions in most countries. It is popular in cold countries and where most of the part is near glaciers.
During the activity in the glaciers, the hikers should be aware of the hazards. There are some obstacles like crevasses and seracs.
You can also try ice climbing, it’s an exciting sport.
Equipments To Carry
- Crampons, rows, and suspender belts. Crampons are very much needed for walking on the ice.
- Harness, helmets, ice axes, rope.
- The GPS with lots of batteries to move in the right direction and not get into any wrong directions. It makes it easy to move further during the long trails.
- Camera – It is very much essential, to keep the memories alive.
- Carbineer, thin gloves, Gloves, hat waterproof clothes, Food & water.
- Mountain boots, whistle, torch, or rear bicycle flashing light and sheathed knife.
2. Dog Hiking
Do you have a pet? You don’t know where to leave it if you go out hiking. There is a solution to your problem. You can bring it with you for hiking. It is known as Dog hiking.
Along with the enjoyment you will also need to take care of its food and other necessities. Dogs are excellent companions for outdoor activities.
Make sure that your dog is capable of this type of activity. Start preparing your dog for such physical outdoor adventures.
Younger and too old dogs do not have enough stamina for such trips and adventures.
After you get to know your dog’s capability for the trip, choose the location accordingly. Some trails and locations don’t allow dogs.
3. Llama Hiking
The Llama is a South American animal that rides along with the hikers and this is called Llama hiking. It is also popular with other names like llama trekking or llama caravanning.
For longer trips, people use Llama to carry supplies using the pack saddles. Llama has feet like the dog which allows them to cross the rocky and uneven paths easily.
The journey can be from a few hours to some days. The outer body of Llamas consists of an undercoat and a wooly topcoat which shields them from cold weather.
The specialty of this animal is its endurance and friendly nature. It makes them suitable for the activity.
4. Nordic Walking
Nordic Walking is a physical activity performed using a pair of specially designed Nordic Walking poles. It is an enhanced form of walking and helps to achieve all the benefits of walking while having fun.
This beneficial and fun exercise was invented in Finland and became popular in many parts of the United Kingdom.
Now, Nordic pole walking is popular among people all over the world as a simple and effective form of exercise.
The goal of Nordic Walking is the overall improvement to achieve a healthy lifestyle and well-being.
The correct technique of using the poles while walking provides strain on muscles, which improves strength.
Benefits
- It is symmetrical and affects the whole body
- Correct body posture and alignment.
- It is healthy and engages all the muscles.
5. Scrambling
“Scrambling is a non-technical rock climbing & Technical hiking.”
It is performed on high mountains. Scrambling is a term that means walking on steep terrains with the help of hands.
It is also known as Alpine scrambling. The scrambling is involved in hillwalking, mountaineering, rock climbing, and canyoning.
Most popular is Alpine scrambling, which is performed in the high mountains. The hills like the Alps and in the rocks of North America.
Alpine scrambles are non-technical summits, climbing without using any equipment. Not even body harness and protection ropes.
If you are a good rock climber then it’s easy for you. But for beginners, it can be a risky business. When going for harder scrambles, you must be a skilled rock climber.
The easier scrambles are also possible, in the upper region of mountains where you need to use your hands.
6. Swimhiking
Swimhiking is a good exercise and outstanding activity to perform. It is a recreational activity that is a combination of hiking and outdoor swimming.
Peter Hayes had purposely created it while hiking in the Lake District of England. And performed on the trails along with swimming in the lake.
At once the hikers come across the lake they change their costumes and dive into the lake to swim.
They come out from the lake and again carry their hiking gear and start hiking again. In this type of adventure travel, hiking shoes play a vital role.
Benefits Of Swimhiking
- The opportunity to combine swimming and hiking is an innovative idea to create a healthy outdoor activity. It enables you to cover longer hiking trails, which cannot be considered previously.
- In the summer season, you can enjoy the cool water and hike on the way.
- If you are out hiking and rainfall occurs, it makes the remaining trip difficult. In swimhiking, you are ready to get wet, it will not affect you anyway.
- Swimhiking gives more exposure to enjoy outdoor activity. As it involves the combination of water and land which enhances the experiences with nature and increases the outdoor fun.
7. Waterfalling (Waterfall hiking)
The waterfalls are heavenly treating for hikers. A wonderful and lovely waterfall inspires us to explore the beauty of nature.
The main purpose of the hikers in this type of hiking is to get a scenic view along with enjoyment.
Crossing the water and in the route make the trip more fun and feels good. The unexpected nature of waterfalls makes it very much special and hinders the viewers to stay and enjoy it like a dream.
On the hiking trip, it is a special moment to watch the waterfalls with power and shining water falling from a great height.
Experience the waterfalls near you….!!
Conclusion
Firstly, thanks for visiting the website and reading our blog. I hope now you have understood the importance of hiking. Outdoor adventure and hiking are very beneficial for everyone.
It keeps you fit and promotes well-being. So, travel around the world and feel the adventure. Want to share your hiking experiences? Feel free to leave a comment below.
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