Wednesday 16 August 2017

The Adventure: The Power of Outdoor Activities to Boost Wellbeing


Enjoying the great outdoors during my time in the USA

One of my favourite things is meeting people who are as passionate about wellbeing as I am, and those who are doing inspiring things to help others to be happy and healthy. By happy coincidence I had such a person host me through Airbnb on my recent tour across the United States: through her personal experience of discovering the value of a healthy lifestyle, Nashville-based fitness fanatic Nikki is on a mission to support her fellow Americans to do the same. Recognising the benefits of outdoor exercise for health and wellbeing, her organisation Always Forward Adventure Fitness (AF2) seeks to provide the information and inspiration needed to promote widespread use of one of our best (and best value) assets – The Great Outdoors – as a tool to boost our health and happiness.



Inspired by this initiative and keen to share some reflections from my own experience, I wrote a guest piece for the AF2 blog, which you can read here. I talk about my endeavours to stay healthy during three months of American travel, and introduce GoodGym, a wonderful UK example of using physical activity for wellbeing, in the hope that we might soon see a similar initiative across the pond.


The evidence base for the benefits of outdoor activity is rapidly growing, with Intelligent Health being a leading source of information, evidence and innovative interventions in the field. Founder Dr William Bird tells the story much better than I would, so I’ll leave you in his capable hands should you wish to find out more about this important and fascinating topic.