As a person in love with Nature, you probably spend a lot of time in the great outdoors, and you’re happy with it. If you’re not really fond of outdoor walks, you most likely love spending time on the couch in your living room watching movies.

If you’re more of the second type, you probably noticed how people who constantly go in nature are happier than others. There’s a great reason for this, and it’s not the fact that they fit perfectly in their women hiking pants and tight shirts, but because they love the activity of walking through the raw wilderness.

Hiking, trekking, mountaineering, biking, and other outdoor activities greatly impact our Mental Health. This is why all nature lovers are happier than the rest. In this article, we explain why and how walking in nature affects our mental health. Read on and learn more about this.

1. Outdoor physical activity raises your serotonin levels

Serotonin is the hormone that makes us feel happy and satisfied. It is proven that exercise and physical activity raise your serotonin levels. By exercising, your body will increase tryptophan, an amino acid used to create serotonin in your brain.

That means going for a walk, and especially hitting the trails in the mountains, will make you feel wonderful. Your serotonin levels will jump to the highest levels making you as satisfied, stress-free, and happy as you can be.

2. Trekking also raises dopamine

Another thing that exercise raises is dopamine. Dopamine is the motivational hormone that drives your body and mind forward. When you go on a trekking adventure, you aim to reach a particular goal. It may be climbing the top of the mountain, walking a particular distance through the woods, or something else.

When you achieve your goal, you instantly feel satisfied with your goal, and this raises your dopamine level, making you feel successful. This feeling boosts your energy and gives you the strength to do even more and achieve greater goals in all life’s fields.

3. Walks in nature help you defragment your brain

One of the best things from a walk in nature is the chance to defragment your brain. What does this mean? When you walk to a particular point, or you simply put one foot in front of the other and let your thoughts wander off, your brain goes through the things that happened during the day, week, and the past.

This activity helps your brain reconcile its thoughts. You’ll have the chance to think about what happened to you, how you’re acting, and what would be best to do in the future. It helps you find the right answers to some of the questions you’ve been unsuccessfully trying to answer for a long time.

4. Regular hiking keeps you in shape and boosts self-esteem

If you regularly go in nature and hike or trek, you’re wasting tons of calories. Wasting more calories than you’re consuming means you’re losing weight, which eventually means you’re making a great healthy body.

Although there’s nothing wrong with looking a little chubby, most people prefer to be slim. When you’re fit, you feel more attractive, and this feeling is instantly transferred to the others. People will also look at you as attractive, making you feel wanted, and this is something that we all desire.

5. Helps you see the world from a different perspective and set new goals

When you’re in nature, you look at things in a different way. You understand that city life is somewhat an illusion of what the world really is. In nature, there are no obligations, work meetings, deadlines, or social rules. There’s only the law of nature in which no one is above.

You understand that your social skills and positions in society aren’t going to help you in the case of an emergency. You’re alone in the wilderness where plants and animals can be both your friends and foes. You realize that there’s no greater force than nature, and all humanity’s attempts to be on top of it mean nothing.

After going through numerous situations, some of them surely dangerous, you start seeing the world from a different perspective. These walks in nature are essential for finding out who we truly are, our most important goals, and where we want to go in life.

Conclusion

These few points explain how trekking and hiking can be valuable for your mental health. Going through nature heals your thoughts. Your brain gets rewired, and you’re alone with yourself only to raise the happiness hormones and think about the value in life. Everyone who spends more time in the great outdoors returns with a smile, so don’t hesitate to take a walk in nature and experience this yourself.

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