Benefits of Hiking Together with the Entire Family

Only an hour of trekking can burn over 500 calories.

While this heavily depends on the amount of incline you’re facing and the weight of your backpack,  trekking, in general, can burn a significant amount of calories.

Hiking trails are usually easier on one’s joints, knees, and ankles than concrete and running activities, making it a great activity choice for families with older members.

If you’re planning on heading for some higher located hiking trails, get ready to lose even more weight.

On top of the calories you’re burning through the physical activity, altitude is also a weight loss companion.

So, shoot for the highest mountains!

Hiking allows you to make your own course.

Do you prefer steep treks or a scenic plateau trail?

Do you enjoy jogging through the woods or do you like to stop and smell the flowers along the way?

Whatever you choose, and whatever your preference, you won’t have some terrifying trainer breathing down your neck.

In this sense, you’re your own boss, which also provides a sense of empowerment.

While certain types of workouts focus specifically on certain parts of the body, regular walking while taking on sharp inclines and climbing over rocks challenges your entire body.

While your entire body will receive a hard-core workout, your lower body will feel it the most, specifically your glues, quads, and hamstrings.

Throw on a backpack and you’ll be challenging your endurance and strength of your upper body as well.

Hiking on a regular basis helps you prevent and control diabetes by reducing your blood sugar levels.

Also, hiking works your muscles on an intense level, which moves the glucose from your bloodstream to provide you with energy.

Worried about developing diabetes? Take a hike!

Hiking can also decrease cholesterol and blood pressure which therefore reduces any danger of diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.

While this is great to introduce to your children or younger family members, helping them develop healthy habits and experiences at a young age, it’s also great for individuals who are at high risk.

In fact, hiking on an downline is twice as effective at removing blood sugar and boosting glucose tolerance.

So not only can lowering your blood pressure and cholesterol be possible naturally, but it doesn’t even need to be that difficult or straining.

A lot of researchers suggest that the benefits of hiking go far beyond cardiovascular health. In fact, there’s research that points towards hiking being able to help with the recovering process for cancer patients.

The International Journal of Sports Medicine published a study which stated that long-distance hiking trips can boost antioxidative capacity, which fights disease, especially in oncological patient’s blood.

Many breast cancer survivors also believe physical activity, or hiking specifically, has helped in their treatment recovery, when done regularly.

Hiking can effortlessly connect you to like-minded people.

Whether it be on the trail or through a hiking group meetup, a regular planning long-distance trek can help you create strong bonds with people.

This is especially beneficial for families. If you believe your family needs some more bonding time, plan a long-distance hiking trip together, that comes fully-prepared so you can enjoy your family adventure stress-free.

If you’re looking to interact with the wider hiking community, this can encourage you to incorporate your workout as a lifestyle rather than something you feel that you need to do.

This will encourage you to stick with the sport for the long-run.

Spending time outdoors can actually boost your creative problem-solving skills while increasing your attention spans.

In fact, a study showed that spending time in the wilderness can increase these areas by 50%. 

The study also mentions that the results may have been influenced by being disconnected from technology as well.

Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education researchers have also found that taking a hike or a walk as opposed to sitting helps move those creative juices a lot better.

Hiking along with other forms of therapy can help support people suffering from severe depression.

Research shows that spending time outdoors can help people feel less depressed, suicidal and hopeless. 

A jaunt or frolic outside can also help inspire sufferers to lead a more productive and active lifestyle in the future.

If it isn’t obvious before, we can now come to the conclusion that spending time outside in nature does a lot for our overall health. Throw some physical activity in there and you have yourself a full and healthy life.

However, hiking not only heals through nature, but it helps you connect to nature as well, which also has its range of benefits.

Being disconnected from the chaos of cities or daily lives, technology, and drama can help people connect with themselves and the surrounding nature that brings on a true sense of peacefulness and joyous well-being.

While a lot of these benefits are directed at adults, children can benefit from hiking in a myriad of ways as well.

It helps children become physically active and fit at a young age, which tends to carry over into later years. They’ll also sleep a lot better and become more attentive in the classroom.

Plus, being outdoors, overcoming challenges and being physically fit can help boost their confidence.

However, before you start planning your family hiking trip for Mount Rainier, you need to make sure your child is physically prepared for whatever trek you choose. Start off easy and work your way up – literally.