What to Bring on a Short Hike?

The article is a complete guide about what to bring on a short hike to a mountainous region and how to start your day. Things can turn pretty challenging during the hike.

You might have wondered about a smooth track on a sunny morning, but you might end up getting a whole different scenario. Therefore, it is important to make a good start and bring along stuff that helps you!

What to Bring on a Short Hike: Early Morning Rituals

Ever wondered what the perfect start to a gloomy day would be?

Well, for me, a creamy and steaming cup of coffee is something I’d always vouch for when it comes to “what to bring on a short hike.” If you are feeling a little down on a cold winter morning, coffee can probably be the mood lifter for you. Alternatively, if you have planned to go out with friends early in the morning, and you are not sure where to go, have a cup of coffee at a nearby cafe and speak your heart out.

Coffee - a beverage prepared from roasted coffee beans gives you an aesthetic flavor and aroma that keeps you active for a long time. To turn coffee as we consume it, a lot of effort and hard work is required. The coffee beans are roasted and undergo immense processing to reach the form that we might consume.
But, there are quite a lot of advantages of taking coffee, this article will lead you through them!

A Sudden Surge in Your Energy Levels

If we talk about people who consume the most coffee, probably students and office workers might top the list. But even at the top are the hikers! Surprising, isn’t it?

So, when you are making a list of “what to bring on a short hike,” make sure that you bring your coffee along. This is because you have to keep hiking for a long duration, and to stay active, you might need something to boost your energy levels.

The caffeine present in coffee, if taken early in the morning, helps to enhance your cognitive abilities, increases brain function, alleviates mood, enhances memory, and helps to make your reflexes more coordinated.
Hence, having a good steamy cup of coffee is the best way to get you going and ready to start hiking!

Now while we are at it, let’s get to some of the benefits and advantages of consuming coffee for an average person as well.

Burn Your Fat While You Enjoy Your Favorite Beverage

Does it ring a bell? Well, you can definitely lose weight with coffee. That’s a relief for people who are on a diet. Quite a lot of researches have been conducted on this subject, and it is very profoundly concluded that caffeine significantly boosts your metabolic rate and helps you burn calories faster than at the usual rate.

Coffee signals the release of adrenaline that travels through your blood and signals certain pathways that lead to the breaking down of fats. These fats are released into the blood and can really help in losing weight if you consume lesser calories in your diet.

So, if you are not someone who has to worry about diet, you can get something like a cookie in addition to a coffee cup when you are out hiking to make up for the deficit that it might have caused you! We are not emphasizing getting the coffee only; make sure water and some chocolate is something really important in the list of what to bring on a short hike.

Nutrients that You Can Always Get From Coffee

As opposed to what a lot of people think, coffee contains a lot of nutrients. Hence, when you take it, you take those nutrients in addition to caffeine. Hence, it is not something that keeps you hyperactive but provides you some essential nutrients as well. Now you get why I say it should be what to bring on a short hike – it is a complete nutrition pack!

If we talk about the nutrients, you might get all essentials like riboflavin, pantothenic acid, manganese, magnesium, and potassium. In addition to this, a very large amount of antioxidants are also present in coffee which helps prevent cell damage. Now, who says coffee isn’t healthy?

Coffee is Lowering the Risk of Many Diseases

Now, this is going to go quite far. Coffee drinkers are quite active in general life and are less likely to have a lot of diseases such as Diabetes Type II, stroke, cardiac diseases, and several types of cancers.

In addition, if we talk about men, coffee reduces the risk of diseases related to the gallbladder, such as gallstones. Other diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, colorectal cancer, liver cirrhosis, and anxiety can be significantly avoided by taking coffee.

You might haven’t experienced it, but for me, coffee is as effective as painkillers. And it surely helps people with migraines. Besides, the methylxanthines present in coffee act as weak bronchodilators and help to relieve diseases like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD).

Isn’t it time to pass me another cup of coffee?

Coffee is Making You Live a Longer, Healthier Life

Isn’t it obvious that something that’s saving you from a lot of diseases is actually helping you live a healthier and longer life? You can prevent yourself from many diseases that might deteriorate your quality of life and instead help you fit, hale and hearty!

Now, after talking about so many benefits that coffee might bring your way, there is something that might alarm you about it as well. Let’s get into the details.

Is Early Morning Coffee a Good Idea?

If you are someone who starts his day with coffee, and it’s been a routine, this might strike you as a piece of bad news. Daily coffee consumption in the morning might build a tolerance for caffeine, thereby reducing its effect.

What actually happens is that - our body produces a stress hormone known as cortisol. The production of cortisol is the highest in the early morning. This hormone is responsible for controlling our circadian rhythms and our sleep-awake cycles.

An early morning coffee might trigger the response of cortisol and elevate its levels to the extent that its natural production stops as a result of the reverse mechanism. If we continue to do so for a long time, we might ultimately start feeling dependent on the caffeine from the coffee rather than our natural cycle of cortisol production and release!

Hence, if you are to go on a hike every morning, coffee is not something that you should take immediately after waking up. It can wait for a while, after all! However, it is definitely something that might include on the list of what to bring on a short hike!

The Final Take

If you are a person who takes coffee early in the morning, you just need to change the timing. Take it - but a little later in the day. This might help you retain your natural cortisol levels as well as giving you the instant boost that you need every day!

Provided that you can save yourself from all these preventable diseases, there is no point in stopping them. All you have to do is make little changes in your routine, and you’re good to go! It contains certain other stimulants in addition to caffeine that help you stay active and increase your metabolic rate. Therefore, coffee is a drink of choice for people who are trying to lose weight.

Particularly talking about hikers, it is definitely something that you might take before going for a hike as well as taking it in a backpack. We’ll be back with yet another hiking-inspired article and another edition of “what to bring on a short hike?”

Until then, happy hiking!