Four ways hiking promotes cognitive and emotional health

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I’m a hiker—“born to hike,” as my hus­band likes to joke. It does my heart and soul good to strap on a pack and head out on a trail, espe­cial­ly when I’m alone and can let my mind wan­der where it will.

The expe­ri­ence of hik­ing is unique, research sug­gests, con­vey­ing ben­e­fits beyond what you receive from typ­i­cal exer­cise. Not only does it oxy­genate your heart, it helps keep your mind sharp­er, your body calmer, your cre­ativ­i­ty more alive, and your rela­tion­ships hap­pi­er. And, if you’re like me and hap­pen to live in a place where near­by woods allow for hik­ing among trees, all the bet­ter: Evi­dence sug­gests that being around trees may pro­vide extra ben­e­fits, per­haps because of cer­tain organ­ic com­pounds that trees exude that boost our mood and our over­all psy­cho­log­i­cal well-being.

Hik­ing in nature is so pow­er­ful for our health and well-being that some doc­tors have begun pre­scrib­ing it as an adjunct to oth­er treat­ments for dis­ease. As one group of researchers puts it, “The syn­er­gis­tic effect of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty and time spent in nature make hik­ing an ide­al activ­i­ty to increase over­all health and wellness.”

Here is what sci­ence is say­ing about the ben­e­fits of hiking.

1. Hiking keeps your mind sharp

Being a pro­fes­sion­al writer, I some­times have trou­ble jus­ti­fy­ing tak­ing the time to hike in the mid­dle of my work­day. But research sug­gests that hik­ing doesn’t just feel good, it might also keep my brain in top shape.

All exer­cise is good for us. Whether it’s using an ellip­ti­cal train­er, rid­ing a sta­tion­ary bike, or walk­ing on a tread­mill, get­ting your heart rate up and work­ing out your lungs keep you feel­ing younger and stronger. Exer­cise also helps your brain thanks to the extra oxy­gena­tion that comes with it.

But hik­ing involves some­thing many oth­er forms of exer­cise don’t: trails. That means it requires nav­i­gat­ing in a world that’s not total­ly pre­dictable. Slip­pery dirt, over­hang­ing branch­es and hid­den obsta­cles, trail mark­ers, and wild ani­mals cross­ing your path—all of the things you might encounter on a trail require micro- and macro-adjust­ments to your route, which is good for your brain.

As Daniel Lev­itin explains in his book, Suc­cess­ful Aging, hik­ing exer­cis­es the part of your brain designed to help you nav­i­gate through life—for exam­ple, the restro­s­ple­nial cor­tex and the hip­pocam­pus, which aids in mem­o­ry, too—which is why hik­ing not only helps your heart, but helps your mind stay sharp, as well.

2. Hiking helps to keep you calm and happy

Exer­cise in gen­er­al can be a great stress-buster. But what sets hik­ing apart from oth­er forms of exer­cise is that it’s done out­doors in a nat­ur­al set­ting. While oth­er phys­i­cal activ­i­ties also rely on nature—for exam­ple, riv­er raft­ing or backpacking—those often require more time and com­mit­ment than a sim­ple hike and are less acces­si­ble to many peo­ple. Hik­ing can hap­pen almost anywhere—from a city park or pub­lic gar­den to a moun­tain trail—and give you that dose of nature you need to stay happy.

Research is quite clear on the ben­e­fits of being in nature while exer­cis­ing. Stud­ies have found that, com­pared to walk­ing in a cityscape or along a road, walk­ing in green spaces helps us recov­er from “atten­tion overload”—the men­tal fatigue that comes from liv­ing and work­ing in a world where com­put­ers and cell phones are a con­stant distraction.

Being in nature is calm­ing, too, and stud­ies have found that peo­ple who spend time walk­ing in nature are less anx­ious and suf­fer less rumi­na­tion (think­ing about the same wor­ries or regrets over and over again), which should help pro­tect against depression.

While it’s not total­ly clear why nature pro­vides these psy­cho­log­i­cal perks, researcher Craig Ander­son and oth­ers have found that being in nature encour­ages feel­ings of awe—a state of won­der cou­pled with a sense of being small in the pres­ence of some­thing big­ger than your­self. Awe is a pow­er­ful emo­tion that has many ben­e­fits, includ­ing improv­ing your mood and mak­ing you feel more generous.

3. Hiking can increase our creativity

I’m sure I’m not alone in find­ing that walks in nature let my mind wan­der freely in cre­ative direc­tions. In fact, I’ve writ­ten many of my songs while hik­ing on a trail, lyric ideas bub­bling up from some uncon­scious place when I’m not delib­er­ate­ly thinking.

Though we often read about philoso­phers or artists who’ve found cre­ative inspi­ra­tion in nat­ur­al spaces, sci­ence is just begin­ning to doc­u­ment the con­nec­tions between being in nature and cre­ativ­i­ty. David Stray­er and his col­leagues test­ed young adults in an Out­ward Bound pro­gram before and after they spent three days hik­ing in wilder­ness, and the par­tic­i­pants showed increased cre­ative think­ing and prob­lem-solv­ing after the expe­ri­ence. Oth­er stud­ies have found con­nec­tions between cre­ative think­ing and nature expe­ri­ences, too, although they weren’t focused on hik­ing specifically.

Some schol­ars believe that these ben­e­fits for cre­ativ­i­ty have to do with how nat­ur­al set­tings allow our atten­tion to soft­en and our minds to wan­der in ways that can help us con­nect dis­parate ideas that are swirling around in our minds. Oth­ers sug­gest that the spa­cious­ness and unpre­dictabil­i­ty in nat­ur­al scenery some­how enhance cre­ativ­i­ty. What­ev­er the case, if being in nature increas­es creativity—which is tied to well-being—it might behoove cre­ative types to spend a lit­tle more time on a trail.

4. Hiking helps your relationships

It may be obvi­ous that hik­ing is good for our phys­i­cal, cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al health. But there is mount­ing evi­dence that it helps our rela­tion­ships, too.

One rea­son is that many of us hike with oth­er peo­ple, and exer­cis­ing togeth­er can pro­duce spe­cial feel­ings of closeness—and a sense of safe­ty. I’m sure when a friend of mine recent­ly fell on a trail and severe­ly frac­tured her ankle, she was glad to have com­pa­ny to help her hob­ble down the moun­tain for help. But, even in less dire cir­cum­stances, hav­ing a friend along can be a love­ly way to con­nect with anoth­er per­son in a set­ting free of oth­er distractions.

In one study, moth­ers and daugh­ters who spent 20 min­utes walk­ing in an arbore­tum (ver­sus a shop­ping mall) not only showed bet­ter atten­tion dur­ing a cog­ni­tive task, but also had improved inter­ac­tions with each oth­er, accord­ing to inde­pen­dent raters. Specif­i­cal­ly, they demon­strat­ed more con­nec­tion and pos­i­tive emo­tions and few­er neg­a­tive emo­tions after walk­ing in the nat­ur­al set­ting. Oth­er research sug­gests that expo­sure to nature can help our rela­tion­ships by mak­ing us more empath­ic, help­ful, and generous.

What about hik­ing alone? Per­son­al­ly, I’ve often found that hik­ing alone helps me in my rela­tion­ships, like­ly for all of the rea­sons above—it helps me reduce my stress, refresh­es my deplet­ed atten­tion, and pro­duces awe. And, when I’m feel­ing good, those effects spill over into my inter­ac­tions with oth­ers once I return from the hike.

For any­one who spends a lot of time care­giv­ing for oth­er peo­ple, it can be reju­ve­nat­ing to let go of that respon­si­bil­i­ty for a bit and take to a trail. After all, it can’t help but refresh you when you give your­self a break, mak­ing you more emo­tion­al­ly avail­able to oth­ers afterward.

This all goes to show that hik­ing may be one of the best ways to move your body, and I, per­son­al­ly, have recom­mit­ted to hik­ing reg­u­lar­ly in the new year. Instead of spend­ing all day every day in front of a com­put­er, I’m tak­ing time to walk outside—even if it’s just for 15 min­utes. And I’m def­i­nite­ly notic­ing improve­ments in my mood, cre­ativ­i­ty, and rela­tion­ships, as well as a grow­ing sense of spir­i­tu­al con­nec­tion to the nat­ur­al world.

So, grab a water bot­tle, a back­pack, and, if you want, a friend, and head out on the trail. You won’t be sor­ry you did.

— Jill Sut­tie, Psy.D., is Greater Good‘s  book review edi­tor and a fre­quent con­trib­u­tor to the mag­a­zine. Based at UC-Berke­ley, Greater Good high­lights ground break­ing sci­en­tif­ic research into the roots of com­pas­sion and altru­ism. Copy­right Greater Good.

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