10 Reasons Why You Should Go Camping…

The history of recreational camping is often traced back to Thomas Hiram Holding, a British traveler, who first popularized camping in the UK on the river Thames.

Listed are the benefits of camping, I’m sure reading them will make your weekend more exciting:

1. Resurrect your sleep:
   Say good bye to those dreadful nights that made you insomniac and witness the carnage of the alarm clock while waking up. Remember those days when you struggle to sleep and wake up? Especially, when you plan to wake up early on weekends for an activity, and end up waking in the noon. Trust me we all hate it.
   Sleep is the best form of meditation. One week of camping resets your body clock to nature’s rhythm and helps you become an early bird, something that you have been wishing for.
2. Burst your Stress Bubble:
   The researchers from University of Michigan proved, spending a few minutes in nature may reduce the symptoms of depression. Likewise, the researchers at Stanford University found that the amount of time spent outdoors, helps reduce obsessive negative thinking, or rumination. When you do something you enjoy, your emotional happiness is at its peak.
3. Strengthen your Bones
   Vitamin D deficiency has now become a global epidemic, thanks to our sedentary lifestyles and indoor preferences. We are accustomed to breathe air from the conditioners and hide our skin from the touch of the rays from the bright star. When you are camping, you tend to indulge in many physical activities under the sun that helps you absorb tons of calcium and phosphorous.
   There’s a saying, If you can’t tone it, tan it. Next time, don’t forget to flaunt your healthy tan.
4. Learn to Survive
   What is the most important thing you have done in your life? “SURVIVED”. Remember Edward Michael (better known as Bear Grylls), a British adventurer who is involved in a number of wilderness survival series. Ever wondered what it takes to survive on a stranded terrain? This is where the camping skill helps, lighting a fire, finding the best wood, hunting to fulfill our hunger pangs, finding directions using the stars, learning the signs and warnings of mother nature and so on. Trust me, these skills are absolutely as essential as our high school education.
   Knowledge is of no value until you put it into practice.
5. Digital Detox
   It is called the Web, because once you’re in it, you’re stuck.
   The best recovery happens when you remote yourself from the unhealthy addictions in life. Distancing yourself from the social media for a couple of days, will help you recover from the feelings of jealousy, envy and loneliness. Scientists have revealed that not every interaction you have on web is negative, however, the feelings of lust, anger and jealousy is more prominent, virtually. Manage your addiction and self control by disconnecting from the technology to reconnect with yourself.
6. Improve your health
   When you survive in limited resources, you learn to live in limited resources. When you spend more time in the woods, you intake more oxygen in your body,  which results in better immune system and productivity. So next time you breathe in your city remember, you ain’t consuming pure oxygen, you are ingesting more pollutants. When you breathe air that has higher than normal concentration of O2, the oxygen in the lungs overwhelms the blood’s ability to carry it. And we need oxygen for production of energy in our body and elimination of wastes from our body (oxidation reduction cycle).
7. Indulge in some ME time
   There is so much hurry for everything that people are left with only breathing (only because that’s involuntary). Take time out to live your life. Remember, how you love yourself is how you teach others to love you. ME time is an opportunity to relax, rest and restore energy.  Taking time out for yourself is equally important as it is packaged with many psychological and physical benefits. As rightly said, Loneliness is the poverty of self, Solitude is the richness of self.
   
8. Stargaze
   The calendar, horoscope, birthdays, anniversaries, are all based on the movement of those heavenly bodies. You only realize the power of the sky when you are lost. Candle light dating in restaurants is too conventional. Try stargaze dates beneath the blanket of shimmering glory. Cheer your lucky stars if you catch them zoom past your horizon. Remember Carl Sagan’s words, that we are all made from stardust. Don’t you want to see what you are actually made of?
   So, lets appreciate and value little things in life, for one day when you look back, you’ll realize they were big things.
9. Reconnect with each other
   Weak WiFi brings strong personal connections. Life is livable in experiencing humble voice, caring touch, warm hugs, loving eye contact and helpful gestures than virtual Skype’s and Whatsapp’s emoji’s. Life’s most fulfilling relationships are with people sitting next to you. Indulge in knowing them, at times its good to be friends with strangers. Socializing in real (not virtual) increases your life span and delays memory related problems. So next time when you are in a group and playing with your cellphone, remember this!
10. Cheap Getaway
    Chuck those luxurious extravagant vacations. Pack your bag and head into the woods. Spend for the ‘needs’ not for ‘wants’. The lesser the luxury, the more the fun. Be minimalist. Don’t over spend. Now a days, camping has become a conventional weekend getaway for many (don’t forget me). Thanks to many travel start ups, you can now go camping on budget. But, if you have too much to spend, don’t forget paupers like me, we definitely welcome such gestures 😛 (Charity begins with friends too…)

So where are you heading this weekend? Pack your bag and get lost in the wilderness (this doesn’t mean you go missing :-P). Stay safe and act responsibly.

Do you have any of your best moments to share during your camping experience? Pour them in your comments…

(Image Courtesy: Pixabay)