6 Remarkable Health Benefits of Running Outside In Nature

A study finished a couple of years ago published in nature.com proved that outdoor training is good for you. In 6 remarkable health benefits of running, we will explore that. But on the other hand, we already know it from practice as runners, what science researchers begin to prove. Some of us don’t want to wait for scientific results when we already know them in advance – at least on the practical level.

The Benefits of Running

Some say that we run for life and some of us are driven by anxiety, disease, obesity, old age and probably also by lack of other content in life. The vast majority, however, start running to get better health. When the results can be seen and felt after a few months, more motives emerge.

The joy of being in shape, the joy of competing, the joy of standing in the shower and experiencing the rippling feeling of pleasant tiredness. Running is excellent because it holds so many opportunities and challenges.

It’s a welcome alternative to our stressed lives, and the qualities required of the modern human – creativity, the ability to immerse and focus, a sense of responsibility and an increased stress threshold – are all important qualities for a runner.

You get the results you train for, and running has a positive impact on both your mind and body. It’s well documented that all forms of exercises that train endurance not only provide good fitness but also are effective weight regulators and help to prevent several lifestyle diseases such as cardiovascular diseases.

All forms of running are most likely a path to a well-trained and well-functioning body, which together with a healthy diet, a nice and rewarding family, work and soul life is a good definition of health.

Get your Senses Involved

If you are not used to running and never have owned a pair of running shoes, it can be difficult to see the beauty of running. Being breathless, sweaty and running until you are tired, is for the non-runner an evil rather than an exquisite pleasure.

But for the beginner who has gone through the first strenuous runs, there is no doubt. Running is a valuable option that means both many bodily and sensory experiences, and a better knowledge of oneself and the body’s functions.

To stop when you have reached the top of a hill and hear the heart rate beating in your ear and feeling that every little part of the lungs is being used to regain calm breathing, makes you sense your body in a way, you don’t experience in the ordinary busy high tech everyday life.

Feeling the heart pumping and sending the blood around all corners of the body with renewed vigor can be an intense bodily experience, and getting in close contact with the heart- and heart rate can also be a life-affirming experience.

Running Impacts the mood

How often in your everyday life do you experience the heat getting all the way into the far and perhaps cold areas of the body? probably not too often. In the beginning, it can be hard, and as in Pilates or yoga, you have to practice accommodating the effort and discomfort to experience the improvements.

Later, it becomes much more pleasurable, and the trained runner often experiences almost hovering through a long run with calm breathing. Running can be a great relaxation from a busy day.

When you run, you are out there alone or with your running buddies and there are no disturbing phones, dish wash to be taken or disturbing children. We live in a culture where we are surrounded by other people most of the time and it is expected of us that we are “on” all the time.

Health Benefits Of Running

We easily forget time to be alone. Running can be used as a meditative breathing space where thoughts flow freely and uncensored. Because of that, many people think creatively when they run. Memories and forgotten emotions also emerge more easily when our emotional filter disappears during the monotonous and meditative movements of the run.

Our typical working day as modern, industrious people, does not leave much time to sense nature and the seasons. We sit in small boxes inside offices, in cars, on buses and on the metro train.

It can immediately feel easy and comfortable, not having to move and make exerts, but we completely forget the feeling and the basic need to use the body in the way it is created, which is to walk and run.

Run your stress out

Our body is built for movement. We need to feel our body, and we do that through physical activity. Running can compensate for the feeling that the body has become an appendage to the brain and just something, we used to transport ourselves to work and home again.

Let’s say you start running and find that running is fun but it is also strenuous at times. Then you can be sure that you are on the right path and that is absolutely worth the effort. As a reward, you get great well-being in the body after the run among other things.

If you have felt tense and stressed in your body before the run, it is almost 100% certain that after the run and a long hot bath, you will feel comfortable, and relaxed having a healthy appetite.

The physical satisfaction, the hormones, endorphins and other neurotransmitters, which releases by sustained exercise or the heat throughout the body, can be difficult to distinguish from the mental satisfaction of having exercised. But the crucial thing is naturally that you feel good after the run.

Running in Nature

There have been new studies that highlight the benefits of running in nature. In general, we know that it is good for you to spend time in nature – from stress reduction to absorbing vitamin D from the sun to giving you more energy. But researchers have also concluded that being surrounded by green areas, can have a positive impact on long-term health and well-being.

When you run, you get the opportunity to feel your body, learn how much you can perform at the moment and get to know your bodily boundaries. As a runner, you get to know yourself better, it’s actually hard to avoid. In addition to this, you get a very special bodily experience, you also get the opportunity to experience the weather and the seasons up close.

Get The best running experiences

You can get those experiences, whether you choose to run in the city or out in the country. In today’s world, our body is often affected by impressions that are physically poor, they are uniform and without variation. The surface we move on is largely uniform and we spend most of our lives in 21-degree heat.

It is funny in the winter, you see duvet and bed companies advertise for beautiful effective, lightweight winter duvets. But it’s still 21 degrees inside our apartments or houses where we live even in the winter months? Slowly we get used to this “incubator state” and gradually try to avoid any change.

If we just overcome the habit for a short while, we will quickly find out that all seasons can provide wonderful sensory experiences. A dark, wet and windy November day can become a nice and powerful sensory experience when you after 5 – 7 minutes of running are warmed up in the body.

But the year’s unofficial Marking Day for runners must be the spring day when it has become so hot that you can run in shorts for the first time. A run in the wood without the long training pants or winter tights is the closest we as runners, can get to the free natural way of moving.

Enjoy Running with Training Buddies

Running is an individual sport, but if we run two or more together, it suddenly becomes a meeting point for a personal relationship. When running, there is nothing to distract or divert attention from the conversation with another person(s).

The awareness that we have time to talk together also makes us better listeners and the body’s natural production of certain hormones such as dopamine, makes us more open and we talk enthusiastically about things we otherwise would not talk about under other circumstances.

So, running also has a psychological effect. You do not have to be afraid of not being able to say what you want. If you did not finish the talk this time, you pick it up again where it ended next time.

In running clubs or to common training, many people run together. It provides a good opportunity to make new contacts and exchange experiences with others who share the same interest in running.

Running Makes Remarkable Results

Running is one of the most effective and easily accessible forms of exercise. Running maintains and trains the cardiovascular system and the muscles’ ability to absorb oxygen in the blood. Fitness is thus improved by running training.

With better fitness, the physical capacity increases and in everyday life, a given physical workload will feel less strenuous. It provides a greater safety margin up to the maximum performance of the body and you generally become less vulnerable to overload injuries and other injuries.

The physical activity and the increased cell metabolism in muscles and joints can help to remove the waste products that may have accumulated after prolonged constant muscle tension, which often manifests as painful myoses.

For moderate back problems, running will stimulate the back muscles and nourish the discs in the joints of the spine better. Keeping your back healthy and strong reduces the risk of back problems.

Running as an appetite regulator

Our appetite also changes when we start running regularly. We get hungrier but in a different and better way. The body needs solid building blocks when it loads with physical activity, and we automatically get a bigger desire for carbohydrate-rich diets than the calorie-rich sweet and fatty diet.

Thus, if you run, it has a positive effect on your diet. Besides, both running and a nutritious diet effectively prevent circulatory disorders such as blood clots and diabetes. Distance running is an endurance sport that stimulates a large fat burning, and only a few other forms of exercises get the heart rate up as easily as running.

Running is also healthy for mental well-being. If you are feeling well physically, you are usually also feeling well mentally, mind and body are connected. The surplus you get by running can be transferred to many other areas of life. Running builds up self-confidence – gives you faith in yourself.

Final Thoughts

I hope you have become a little wiser by reading this post. I would also suggest that you consider the opportunity by using running to work with your own resources and transfer the experiences to the conditions in life, where fulfilling your own goals has a greater personal significance and consequence.

Are you interested in the benefits of running like me, I hope you like this review and if you have any questions about the topic or want to leave your own Personal review, please leave a comment below.