A couple of weeks ago, your friend asked you to go mountain biking with them. You hadn’t any prior plans, so you obliged. Ever since you’ve spent almost all your free time mountain biking, you’ll readily admit it: you’re addicted. Why is it so easy to get hooked on mountain biking?
Here are five reasons why mountain biking is so addictive:
- You get to spend time outside
- It’s a good form of exercise
- The adrenaline rush is awesome
- You can make new friends
- It’s a great way to destress
Although most addictions are harmful, such as candy or cigarettes, being addicted to mountain biking can be beneficial for your health (provided you do it within reason, of course). This article will further explain the scientific reasons why mountain biking has so many avid fans.
5 Epic Reasons (Backed by Science) Why People Get Hooked on Mountain Biking
Mountain Biking Is a Great Way to Spend More Time Outside
When you’re stuck in a gray cubicle at work, do you find yourself longing for time outdoors? It’s not only that you want a change of scenery, but we people aren’t meant to be cooped inside all the time.
Health resource Walkin Lab
states that the following health effects can plague your day-to-day life when you don’t get outside often enough:
- Lowered immunity: The sunlight provides vitamin D. Although we can get this vitamin from food, the sun is a better source of vitamin D. Developing deficiencies can cause your immune system to the tank, so you get sick more often and longer.
- Anxiety: Staying inside for too long can create feelings of restlessness that quickly give way to anxiety.
- Depression: It’s not only your immune system that relies on vitamin D but your mood as well. Being inside all the time can put a real damper on your mental health, leading to depressive symptoms.
- Changes in appetite: Your body follows a circadian rhythm, which is like an internal clock. That clock can be disrupted by all sorts of things, including screen time on your smartphone and lack of sunlight. The appetite changes that occur might make you overeat.
According to a publication of the journal Nature from 2019, it doesn’t take much time outdoors to the right a lot of the health wrongs that an indoor lifestyle sets into motion, only 120 minutes per week.
If you divide that into five days per week, that’s only 24 minutes outside per day. If you spent time outdoors every day of the week, you’d only need to be outside for 17.14 minutes to begin feeling better and bolstering your immunity.
Mountain biking is a perfect excuse to spend more time outside. You can take a short ride for around 20 minutes, or you can combine the 120 minutes into one day of riding if you found along the trail you want to explore.
Some mountain biking experts recommend limiting your rides to no more than two per week because mountain biking can be rather hard on your body. On those days when you don’t like a mountain bike, you can drive out to parks and trails to scope out new places to ride next time.
After all, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing outside, just that you’re not at home or in the office.
Mountain Biking Is Fantastic Exercise
How much exercise do you get per week? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or CDC states that adults should aim for at least 150 minutes per week of physical fitness for good health. That’s only 30 minutes of exercise per day if you work out five days a week.
Exercising is for so much more than losing weight. If you have chronic pain, this Pain report from 2018 (and many other studies) suggests that exercising can reduce the pain, not contribute to it.
Maybe you don’t get enough sleep at night because you can’t turn your mind off. Exercise can help with that as well. Studies such as a 2018 publication of PeerJ have found that exercising can put you in a more relaxing mood so you can get better-quality shuteye.
Do you always feel tired? Although you might assume that exercise would drain you further, it doesn’t. A 2013 report from Fatigue: Biomedicine, Health & Behavior reviewed the effects of exercise on nearly 40 people combatting persistent fatigue. After six weeks of exercising often, they all were less tired.
On top of all that, there’s also evidence that exercising can improve your sex life, boost your memory, make your skin healthier, and lower your chronic disease risk. The endorphins you feel through exercise can instantly improve your mood as well.
We can’t think of a better way to get some quality exercise than going mountain biking. Unlike running on a treadmill, which feels like monotonous work, biking is fun. You’ll barely feel like you’re exercising, but you are!
You’re burning a tremendous number of calories as you do so. Depending on how far you go, how vigorously you’re riding, and your weight per hour, you could torch anywhere from 200 to 1,400 calories by mountain biking.
Mountain Biking Boosts Your Adrenaline
When you engage in an exciting activity, your adrenal glands release a hormone known as epinephrine or adrenaline.
Adrenaline causes all sorts of changes to your body. Insulin production stops as the adrenaline attaches to pancreatic receptors. You start sweating—your blood vessels contract, which moves blood to the muscles. Your heart rate increases, and your breath does, too, as your lung’s muscle cells work harder.
Adrenaline rushes are what activates our fight or flight response. In a moment of high adrenaline, you don’t feel any pain. Your immunity also receives a boost since your body perceives adrenaline rushes as a stressful situation.
Perhaps most importantly is how you feel. Adrenaline causes endorphins to release. We already talked about this feel-good chemical earlier. The role that endorphins play during an adrenaline rush is to help mute your pain.
The high of adrenaline makes you feel alive in ways that your everyday life otherwise might not. That feeling becomes addictive in and of itself, as does any activity that makes you feel an adrenaline rush.
Mountain biking, which combines the terror of high stakes with the thrills of Nature, will get your adrenaline pumping every time.
Mountain Biking Can Help You Make New Friends
Expanding your social circle is possible through mountain biking. As you discover new trails, participate in races or competitions, or ride, you’ll be sure to bump into fellow enthusiasts at seemingly every turn.
It’s easy enough to strike up a conversation with someone like this. After all, you know that you already have something in common: mountain biking. That can be all it takes to break the ice, which some people find awkward to do. Then you could be on your way to a lasting friendship.
Having more friends is advantageous besides just because your number of Facebook followers goes up or because you feel fabulous. Friendships have tangible health benefits, says Mayo Clinic.
Those include having someone to lean on when you go through life’s traumas, be that the loss of a loved one, job changes or job loss, illness, divorce, and other hardships. Your self-worth and self-confidence can go up through your friends.
When you start to believe in yourself more, PositivePsychology.com states that you might be able to improve your work performance and set healthier boundaries.
Most importantly, friendships help you better understand your purpose. You’ll feel a sense of belonging that fulfills you in life, especially when you share a common hobby in your friend group, such as mountain biking.
Mountain Biking Allows You to Destress
Stress is a body and brain response that we all feel, some more than others. Stress can be a good thing in some applications, like when it causes swelling to trigger an immune response.
Most stress, though, is not conducive to your health. According to WebMD, depending on the type of stress, your physical and emotional symptoms vary.
For example, behaviorally, you might be more anxious, your appetite can increase or decrease, and you can use unhealthy escapes such as drugs or alcohol more often.
Cognitively, it’s hard to concentrate because you tend to focus more on the negative, and your judgment isn’t what it should be.
Physically, you can have tight muscles, tooth grinding, dry mouth, insomnia, chest pain, upset stomach, headaches, and fatigue. Mentally, you could be depressed and overwhelmed.
Ignoring stress doesn’t make it go away. If anything, it usually gets worse. Long-term stress leads to more severe gastrointestinal issues, hair and skin changes, menstrual changes, eating disorders or obesity, an elevated risk of cardiovascular disease, and worsening mental health.
Finding ways to destress can make all the difference. Although mountain biking may be stressful for some people, to you, it’s an outlet, a means of escape. It’s a way to decompress from your daily life and get away from all the stressors you experience at work or home. It’s hugely important, so no wonder you’re hooked!
Conclusion
Mountain biking is just a hobby to some, but to you, it’s downright addictive. Since mountain biking can lessen stress, help you make new friends, improve your health through exercise, and get you outside more often, we see nothing wrong with enjoying this addiction!
