What are you doing right now as you read this? Um. Well, you're obviously reading this, but think about what you WERE doing before this. If you were climbing a tree, then, this article will cause you to go climb a tree again. Or, at least, that's the goal. But if you weren't previously climbing a tree, then this article will make you want to climb a tree. It's guaranteed. 100%. Seriously, I'm not bluffing. Really. Anyway, here are some reasons why you should climb a tree.
First of all, climbing a tree gives you basic physical strength - if you use your muscles, they'll get bigger and stronger. But they also give you mental strength, providing you with self-confidence and self-esteem. If you can get 40 feet off the ground, you can do anything, right? It strengthens your concentration abilities because you have to concentrate on where to place your feet and hands, otherwise a fall could result in injury or worse, death. You gain better flexibility and you become more agile, which many people could use. You gain memory skills if you climb the same tree repeatedly because you have to remember how you climbed up and how you climbed down each time, and even if you don't climb the same tree twice, you're likely going to remember how you went about climbing almost every tree you do climb. Of course, you get more fine-tuned motor skills and especially for kids, you get to engage in risky play. Though many parents and adults would probably agree that the best kind of play does not involve any risks, this isn't the case. If you never take risks you don't have to in order to survive, your life won't be as meaningful or fun. Plus, if you climb trees carefully and precisely, there's a very low chance you'll get more than a scrape from the bark. And if you're going for a casual climb, meaning not a climb where you have to go up, like, 100 feet with ropes and safety gear, rather, a climb where you climb up to a point in a tree and sit, the best way to do this, I've found, is barefoot. Being barefoot has its own health benefits (which I may or may not discuss in another post), but climbing barefoot is actually safer in itself when going for a casual climb than with footwear, and this is why: because you can feel the bark under your feet, and like I said, it's safer, but also, it feels a lot nicer. Bark is like a massage to your feet once you have them "trained" properly, meaning exposed to walking around in the natural world without, you know, shoes.
And then there's the big point, the whole reason. You go back to your roots with Nature, or others would say, Mother Nature. Because Nature is the mother in a sense, the mother of all animals and water, soil, plants, including trees. Climbing a tree is like climbing on the back of the natural world, and you can do this without leaving your own backyard (provided you have a good climbing tree in your backyard).
So, get your feet and hands ready and climb the nearest tree. Enjoy!
