It Couldn’t Be Easier to Get Fit and Feel Good By Going Hiking, So Why Aren’t You Doing It?

I mean, I’m sure the nearest park can’t be too far from home.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a licensed medical professional. The information below is based solely on my experience and research, and is not intended to treat, prevent, or cure any disease.

My Reticence to Enjoy Life

Fortunately, I’ve always been thin and healthy, but from age thirteen to age eighteen, I went through a phase where I hated exercise and just leaving the house in general. From September 2016 to June 2018, I attended a virtual public high school after withdrawing from the Catholic high school I’d previously attended. When I found out about the change just before starting eleventh grade, it kind of threw me for a loop, but since I was already struggling to socialize at my regular school, I was actually quite excited; I thought my problem had finally disappeared. It hadn’t, but I was determined to pretend it had. That is, until September 2017.

Thrown Into Fitness

By then, I’d started my senior year, and I was required to fulfill my P.E. credit by completing a daily fitness journal and submitting it each Sunday by 11:59pm. During the week, it was easy enough to do jumping jacks and situps for thirty minutes, but the weekends were the real challenge. On Saturday and Sunday, my father was insistent that we’d do a full five-mile hike at a beautiful park near our house, and sometimes during the week, too, if his schedule permitted.

Needless to say, I didn’t like the idea at all, especially since it’d been a while since I’d made such an intense physical effort. I mean, I’d been quite a good runner in elementary school, but that’d been a long time ago, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d exercised. At first, I could only go a few feet without having to rest – sometimes, the sun still blazed about eighty degrees overhead – on one of the benches, but I wasn’t about to give up; my grade was on the line, and I’d finish with an A because that was just the type of person and student I was.

Rediscovering Nature’s Magic

That aside, the fact that my father and I went hiking at least semi-regularly meant that more and more, I started seeing things again that I hadn’t seen in years. Even something simple, like the way that sunlight filtered through the leaves to dance on the river’s surface, was enough to take my breath away; it felt almost like a fairy tale. Simultaneously, I was reading more Greek mythology than ever in my free time, and I was sure that if I continued down the path, I’d sooner or later encounter a Naiad – a freshwater spirit commonly found in rivers – or even a Dryad – a tree spirit – because the late summer/early fall scenery, all green, leafy, and endless, was just that magical; it was one of those things that can’t be described, only experienced. A few years before, I’d discovered Pinterest, and while I didn’t have an account, one of my favorite things to search on the site was real yet idealized pictures of landscapes like beaches, mountains, and forests. After all this time, I was finally living in a fantasy, too, and it was beautiful.

After about three weeks, maybe a month, late summer gave way to early autumn, bringing with it cold winds and the occasional cool breezes; they bit my cheeks playfully, encouraging me to go faster, and I did. More than anything else, I loved the feeling of absolute freedom when I ran at top speed on long, unbroken, and apparently endless stretches of path, my long hair blowing behind me and my lungs burning with clean air. In those moments, I was on top of the world, and nothing could ever touch me again.

The Forest Became Home

Admittedly, I couldn’t really go as fast as I wanted to, but now that I was actually paying to my body, I was starting to notice that unlike at the beginning, I wasn’t feeling a stitch in my side in my side anymore when I pushed myself. And if I ever inspected my body in the mirror, it was somehow always a little more toned than the last time I checked. I hadn’t felt that good in a long time, and now that I knew what it was like, I just wanted more, more, more.

I began looking forward to hikes as the best and favorite part of either my weekday or weekend, not just because it was a wonderful opportunity to spend more time with my father, but also because the park – or rather, the forest – was one of the places where I felt safest. As nice as it was to spend all day, every day on the computer, especially when I had to write my English essays, nothing compared to Mother Nature’s embrace. No matter how well I thought I knew the way, there was always more magic to see and more treasures to find, whether it was the sound of a woodpecker, a family of geese, or even just the rustic autumnal rainbow – red, orange, yellow, and brown – the made me feel like my life had become a Thanksgiving postcard.

The Science of Hiking

After being dormant for so long, I was finally coming alive again, and it was more wonderful than I ever thought it’d be. More than anything else, hiking had finally given me some of the most important parts of my life back, but don’t just take my word for it. Almost overwhelmingly, studies have confirmed that hiking not only builds stronger muscles and bones, but also improves your balance and cardiovascular health, as well as decreasing your risk of certain respiratory infections. Beyond this, hiking also improves your sleep and lowers your blood pressure, especially in cooler conditions when it’s easier to transverse the path; winter hikes encourage our bodies to produce brown fat, which is filled with mitochondria. The more time you spend in winter, the more brown fat you make, and the more weight you lose.

Furthermore, hiking in rainy weather – I only recommend it for experienced hikers, though – is proven to alleviate anxiety even more than usual since rain is such a calming sound. If my experience hasn’t been enough to make you want to get dressed and go climb a mountain right now, then I’m sure the science speaks for itself. So, what are you waiting for? Every day, the world is wide open. Every day, you’re free to decide to live fully. Every day, adventure waits for you, even if it’s only ten minutes away by car. Every day, it’s up to you to decide to embark on it.

Try it. I’m sure that like me, you won’t regret it.