Hike More! Worry Less!!

When you’re hiking, you’re walking on an uneven surface, so with every step you take your mind is constantly processing and making dozens of decisions every second. Your mind is engaged in making hundreds of decisions you don’t even fully understand. Do I step here or there? Do I shift my weight to the right or the left? I’ve got to watch out for that tree root or not step that slippery rock. Your muscles and nerve ending are constantly acting and responding to those decisions.

Physical benefits to walking and hiking are fairly obvious to people but what most people don’t recognize that there are also mental health benefits. Walking just in itself has shown to reduce levels of anxiety and depression and actually can be preventative in some cases of depression but there’s even more evidence now that’s doing it in nature and natural surroundings improves those results even further. Something about being in nature is calming to humans we seek environments that seem calming and protective to us. Studies have actually started to show that people’s brains work differently when they’re in nature compared to when they’re in an urban setting. It’s thought that being or in a natural setting can change the way we think and that affects our emotions and it reduces our anxiety levels and our stress levels.

When you are in nature there’s a thought that different parts of your brain are activating the parts that are related to being on edge they’re being calmed down and so that’s leads to physical changes too which means reductions in your blood pressure, reductions in your heart rate and again it calming those areas of your brain that are related to stress and anxiety.

You certainly do not have to go climb a mountain to get the mental health benefits of hiking. Going to a park, going to a green space any amount of time that you can spend outside in nature in an environment that is comfortable to you is worth it even if it’s just ten minutes on your lunch break getting outside, stretching your legs you know seeing the sunshine all of those things can be helpful for people.

Metal health benefits can impact anyone it doesn’t have to be who’s depressed or anxious at baseline that’s going get benefits from this, It’s anyone on any given day who’s you know a little bit stressed out maybe they’ve got a deadline coming up you’re going to get that benefit from getting out in the nature even just for a little bit amount of time.