Terri Ramsey Beavers Combining nutrition with physical, hunting is an age-old sport that helps to enjoy the time, communing with nature, and bringing feast to home. A large number of health benefits have been reported by eating wild boar meat as well as hunting!
Wondering how hunting can be beneficial to health? We know hunters hunt for obtaining meat, skin, bones, and other hunting trophies. But health conditions? Yes! It can be improved in numerous ways. What are they? Let’s see.
Health Benefits of Hunting: 10 Expert-Backed Benefits
Helps you stay fit
No doubt hunting keeps you fit. Hunting involves an all-round training session for muscle groups which can be considered as a great exercise. Scouting into the woods while searching for the game is more than cardio training.
You’ll have to carry all the essentials in your hunting backpack and all the weapons in range bags (Here’s a list). So, all the preparations will keep you busy, and carrying all these heavy backpacks for a long time is a great way to boost your endurance as well as to build muscular force. Are all of these bad as exercise? I think these are better than hitting the gym.
Improves your balance
Balance is considered as the most important skill required for a successful hunt. It’s an art to aim the game standing still in a perfect distance. No doubt it can improve your posture, overall balance, and can strengthen your abdominal muscles!
One thing to keep in your mind that trying to stand still can lead your footwear to be broken. So wearing a specific hunting boot is recommended.
Upgrades your survival skill
No matter you’re hunting in a group or alone, the activities done in a hunt will surely upgrade your survival skills.
Spending nights on the wild territory or in the middle of nowhere are not fainthearted people’s thing. This experience will let you know your limits. Make sure you’ve carried all the right essentials.
Do not forget to carry some knives, hunting headlamps, maps, and hunting GPS for a better survival experience.
Boost your concentration
From preparing backpacks to sitting hours on a hunting tree stand or walking through the woods in search of game, all are the true exercise of concentration. In a hunt, surely, you’ll have to keep concentration on each and every moment for your overall success and safety.
Never forget- you have to pass the test of concentration even after a few unsuccessful attempts. This will help you to focus on what you’re doing in your real life.
Increases aerobic and anaerobic capacity
What can increase your aerobic and anaerobic capacity? Are walking through the woods for hours, practicing target shooting, constructing blind, hauling, and training hunting dogs any less? Of course not. All these activities are enough to increase one’s aerobic and anaerobic capacity and muscles strength all over the body.
Hunting is good for heart health too. Wondering how? Hunting keeps you engaged in physically demanding activities and the deep breathing increases lung capacity which is good for your heart.
Provides mental relaxation
According to some avid hunters, hunting is 90% mental, 9% skill, and 1% luck sport. No matter if you’re an individual or a group hunter, spending time close to nature is a great way to free your mind from worries.
If you’re suffering from anxiety and depression, hunting can be one of the best sports that can care for your mental health and can reduce your repressed feelings even if you don’t hunt a game.
Nutrition
The purpose of hunting is to bring meat at home and to eat them. As you know wild boar meat is full of protein. The meat is as fresh as the game consumes. As you know wild animals eat different natural foods, no doubt, healthier than the commercial ones. The grass wild animals eat are full of vitamins which are stored in their muscle tissues.
Elk and deer meat have lower fat with greater taste. Game birds also taste good and full of protein.
Improves social life
Hunting can boost your social life. Wondering how? Some hunters go to the wild with their friends and their family. Doing it can boost the bond between them. It can be a better alternative to go on a tour with the beloved ones.
Learning hunting requires joining archery or shooting classes. It opens a new way to meet new people and increases the bond with ones you don’t know. Sharing your views and passions can help you make new friends.
Increases strength
Holding a 12.5 pounds or rifle and carrying heavy backpacks for 6 to 8 hours is no doubt a matter of strength. A successful trip and more accurate shoot requires strength training. Hunting with a bow or a rifle can build up your muscles, bicep’s, and forearm’s endurance. So it’s clear that hunting can significantly increase your overall strength.
Helps nature & environment
Hunting may seem cruel to some animal activists but this sport is beneficial to the environment. How? Hunters have to pay taxes for hunting which is used by the states for maintaining the parks, helping wildlife habitat, and creating new wildlife refuges.
Hunting keeps the population of wild animals under control. Overpopulation of some creatures like deer can negatively affect the ecosystem. So, hunting is beneficial to the environment and wildlife as well as your health!
Final words
Finally, hope you’ve come to know all the health benefits of hunting. Hunting provides an overall better quality of life in many other ways. Go close to nature and wash up all your stress and worries. If you’re new to this sport, professional training is always the first priority.
Do not go alone in your first hunt. Let us know what’s on your mind in the comment section below!