Health Benefits Of Hunting
Man has been hunting since time began. For food, protection, and yes, adventure. It’s an age-old sport that combines skill and expertise, precision, and strategy. Requiring the ability to stand perfectly still and undetected as much as it does to deftly maneuver yourself into the optimum position to land that perfect shot. Whether you’re hunting for sport, to spend more time outdoors switching off from the rat race or to bring home a feast for your family, hunting really does have a host of amazing benefits. Mental, physical as well as social benefits, can be attributed to the humble art of hunting. Intrigued to discover more? Then read on as we run through the top 10 Amazing Health Benefits Of Hunting.
1. Stability And Balance
Being able to stand perfectly still with your finger on the trigger of a crossbow or rifle is no mean feat. While it requires mental stillness and focus, it also very much utilizes your entire core section and needs your abdominal muscles to be strong, stable, and actively engaged. The core is the powerhouse of the body, and being able to switch this on will not only improve your posture but create a more stable and secure, balanced base.
2. Physical Strength And Fitness
It’s not all standing around in silence, waiting for your prey to come into shot. Hunting is far more active than you might have realized. From carrying a loaded rifle for up to eight hours a day in hunting boots to expertly using a crossbow with a heavy tension load. Not to mention transporting all the other equipment you need for an action-packed day out in the woods. Then there’s the process of physically scouting the best location in which to track down and capture the day’s prey. Hunting is physically active and provides not only a cardio workout but also contributes to bicep and forearm strength and definition.
3. Improves Mental Clarity
We’ve talked already about the physical benefits of hunting, but it also has plenty of mental ones too. It requires focus, concentration, and even patience. Logic and problem-solving skills are also called into the play, along with creative thinking. You may be required to sit for hours, waiting for your prey to come into range so that you can get the perfect shot. All of that requires sharp and keen senses and high levels of mental clarity and the discipline of character to remain still and focused.
4. Helps With Mental Relaxation
We just discussed how hunting can sharpen the mind, but it can, of course, also help to relax, relieve stress and quieten the mind too. Being at one with nature, no schedule or agenda to follow, no pressing deadlines to meet. Just you and your backpack, heading into the woods for a day of adventure. You don’t even have to shoot anything. Just answering your own call to nature and spending quality and calming time outside can be incredibly therapeutic. Temporarily slowing down the pace of life, if only for a few hours, can do you a world of good. It’s like pressing your own reset button. Freeing your mind from all those daily stresses and strains and creating a deeper spiritual connection with your environment, the wildlife, and our planet at large.
5. Improves Your Essential Survival Skills
Hunting requires you to very much have your wits about you and to be respectful and mindful of your environment, not to mention your own mortality. Whether you are hunting solo or as part of a group, or perhaps roughing it out in the back of beyond, survival skills are very much called into play. Camping in the wilderness is not for the inexperienced but with the right survival equipment like a compass or paracord survival bracelets, it can be an incredibly rewarding and fun experience, if a little tense at times.
6. Develops Your Social Skills And Connections
Yes, you could choose to go hunting on your own, but more often than not, it’s a sociable pastime, enjoyed among the company of family, friends, and fellow dedicated huntsmen just like yourself. You will learn a whole new set of skills that you can then also pass on to other generations of would-be hunters in your own family or close circle of friends. Hunting can be an incredibly therapeutic and relaxing experience, and there’s nothing better than bonding with your family and friends over a shared passion, spending quality time in some of the best hunting destinations in the USA.
7. Provides A Big Old Adrenalin Boost
Hunting is pretty exhilarating as it goes, especially holding and having control of your chosen weapon, be that a rifle, crossbow or even a knife. Aiming successfully at a target and capturing your prey can release a surge of adrenalin through the body, the sensation of which is life-affirming, not to mention exciting. That sudden shot of adrenalin has a whole host of benefits itself, helping to regulate blood pressure, preventing heart disease, and even helping to fight obesity.
8. Discover New Levels Of Discipline
Hunting is about tactics, technique, and discipline. Understanding when to move and when to be still, how to interact with your environment and the rules of engagement. It requires extreme levels of patience and teaches you to be acutely aware of the link between cause and effect.
9. You Can Do Your Bit For The Environment
There are plenty of people out there, animal activist groups included, who believe that hunting is just cruel. The flip side though is that hunting can benefit the environment as the taxes this pastime collects are frequently used to manage and maintain wildlife refuges, enhancing natural habitats as well as going towards conducting useful field surveys that all contribute toward helping the environment at large.
10. Nutritional Benefits
We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to talk about the obvious spoils of hunting. One of the objectives of hunting is to catch a nutritious camp supper. Game is a lean source of protein and delicious too. All kinds of prey can be hunted and sourced in our local woods and reserves, including deer, partridge, pheasant, and rabbit. All of which have themselves been feasting on a diet primarily made up of grass and organic plants, meaning they’re healthier, leaner and more nutritious overall.
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