The Ultimate Sensory Experience
While summer has come and gone, your time outside doesn’t need to be over. While your schedule might be picking up, this is the time to build in some time with nature. The Fall offers a wonderful opportunity for you and your Complex Learner to head outside, explore nature, and reap all the benefits that come with spending time outdoors. We chatted with PE/Health Teacher, Mike LaRose to learn more about the benefits of spending time outdoors and some tips on how to get started! See what he had to share in the article below!
Sensory Benefit
Nature can be a rich sensory experience that engages multiple senses all at once. Sights, sounds, smells, and touch receptors are all activated when we spend time out in nature.
Smell – The smell of freshly cut grass or certain flowers and plants can be experienced while playing outdoors. Did you know the smell of certain trees can even decrease cortisol, the stress hormone?
Sound – The sound of birds chirping, rivers and creeks running, leaves crunching under our feet, and wind through the trees can be heard while exploring a forest.
Touch – The feel of the wind on your face or different types of tree bark on your hands as you travel through the forest can be experienced while playing outdoors.
But it’s not just the five senses that benefit from time outside. Vestibular and proprioceptive senses are also enhanced by spending time outdoors in nature which can be incredibly beneficial for Complex Learners. Fallen trees and logs can be found in a forest and when used as balance beams can help improve our balance and orientation in relation to gravity and the ground below us. Heavy work activities, such as climbing over rock structures, downed trees or up steep rocky hills can help develop the proprioceptive system by providing great feedback through the feet. Traveling over different types of terrain is grounding, improves motor planning, and is a fun way to use nature’s own obstacle course as a way to help with balance and body awareness. With so many benefits to being outside, chances are your child won’t even know their strengthening skills while simply playing and exploring!
Movement Break
At Wolf, we use movement breaks every day because we see firsthand how movement can help regulate our student’s bodies and minds. But how can you get an easy movement break in at home or during the weekend? Hiking! Hiking is an excellent activity to do outdoors. As you walk down a trail or path your brain is focused on each step and this distracts the mind, allowing us to move on from triggering thoughts and feelings and feel more regulated and ready to take on the day. All it takes is 17 seconds to change our mindset and reset our thoughts, feelings, and emotions – imagine what could happen after a 20-minute hike!
Hiking also helps us to develop confidence as we travel and explore new places. It builds resilience in ourselves as we prove to ourselves that we can do it! When we feel safe, it increases comfort, confidence, and problem-solving capabilities.
Fitness Benefits
We’ve talked about the endless benefits of spending time outside, but at the end of the day, it’s also just plain good for us! Cardiovascular benefits include building increased cardiorespiratory endurance which helps to burn calories and fat and ultimately helps to lower body composition numbers and obesity in people of all ages. Hiking keeps our body in the fat-burning state for longer periods of time and as long as we can keep a conversation going, we are at the right pace. Find your Target Heart Rate Zone Chart so you can monitor your progress on your next outing!
Muscular strength and endurance are also fitness components that can be improved with hiking outdoors and provide amazing input to the proprioception systems of the leg muscles quadriceps femoris, hamstrings, and gastrocnemius. These muscles provide great feedback to our sensory systems in times when calming and organizing are needed
How To Get Started
There are so many beautiful, and convenient, ways to enjoy nature and hiking in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Check out some RI Hiking Recommendations and Massachusetts Hiking Recommendations. In addition, apps like All Trails have GPS maps and ways to save your hike with stats so you can keep track and motivate yourself for your next hike. And, as an added benefit, using an app with GPS helps to keep you safe by showing where you should be going.
Finally, if you’re new to hiking start small with open paved walks around state parks like Lincoln Woods, Colt State Park, Deerfield Park in Smithfield, or even Audobon Societies which have varying lengths of hikes and are marked extremely well. Make sure to bring plenty of water and a snack and dress appropriately for being outside.
The weather is perfect, the leaves are changing, and nature is calling! We hope you answer.
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