We all know that modern life can be stressful. The feeling of always being connected and the amount of time we spend looking at screens each day doesn’t do our mental health much good.
But there are ways to improve our lives, and we think that mountain biking is a great place to start. As a video on Single Tracks recently pointed out, hitting the trails can be great for stress relief.
First up, it’s a great way to get out into nature and just enjoy the beauty of the world around us. But more than that it is a brilliant way to exercise. Climbing trails on a mountain bike is intense exercise, which causes your body to release endorphins. These are known to relieve stress.
Every climb is followed by a descent, which, as the video notes, provides an instant reward and means your body releases adrenaline. This gives you the incentive to make the next climb and continue with your mountain biking adventure.
Finally, the act of mountain biking requires a great deal of concentration, which helps you shut out all the worries and stresses that fill your mind during everyday life.
The Mental Health Foundation also advocates exercise to help improve our mental health. The organisation points out that there are lots of ways to be active beyond going to the gym or taking a jog.
But the key to becoming more active is to find something that you love doing, so that you make time for it and value its “positive benefits”.
If you want to try mountain biking but haven’t got much experience, take a beginner’s mountain bike course to get you off to a flying start.