How Playing Golf Can Help You Tackle Stress
Wherever you go in the world, golf is a consistently popular sport. It’s the kind of activity that families and friends can engage in on a lazy weekend, that amateur competitors can enjoy, and that busy professionals can use as a networking activity and a means of blowing off steam.
Golf has a range of fairly unique benefits associated with it. For one thing, it’s a physical pastime that involves getting outdoors, but it’s gentle and low-impact enough that individuals of all ages and fitness levels can — and do — enjoy it.
Golf also offers a great opportunity for a bit of social interaction, as a game of golf typically allows plenty of time for conversation and companionship, relative to other sports.
Golf can also be as competitive or as laid back as you want it to be. Any given game of golf can become a tense and highly involved way of testing your skills on the one hand, or a leisurely way of having a bit of fun on an afternoon, on the other.
In addition to its other benefits, golf can also be great when it comes to helping with stress management.
Here are some of the stress-busting benefits of playing golf.
Regular time spent in the great outdoors, in beautiful surroundings
Today, more and more people than ever before spend the majority of their waking hours indoors — whether at the office, at home, or in any number of other buildings, designed for leisure or shopping.
Needless to say, this “always-indoors” way of life is very different from how human beings existed for the majority of our history prior to the past 100 years or so, and there’s evidence to suggest that it’s taking a toll on the wellbeing and health of the general public. Initial research published in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, for example, suggests that increasing the amount of time spent outdoors may confer mental health benefits.
Golf is an excellent pastime for getting into the great outdoors, and the fresh air, more frequently.
Not only is golf by its very nature primarily an outdoor activity, but many of the world’s leading golf resorts are noted for their natural beauty and unique and breathtaking surroundings – such as the Oitavos Dunes in Portugal, the Kauri Cliffs in New Zealand, and the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai, Hawaii
The potential for regular social interaction
As already mentioned at the start of this article, golf has great potential as a source of regular social interaction.
For many of the most popular sports in the world, the high-intensity nature of the activities, paired with their emphasis on competition, means that there isn’t much room for catching up and sharing stories or anecdotes with your friends during a game. This certainly applies to sports such as football and rugby, for example.
Golf is somewhat unique, in that it is a low-intensity sport even when done quite competitively. For this reason, golf is stereotypically a favourite pastime of business executives who are engaged in networking, or who are mulling over a deal or agreement.
Whether you’re engaging in a golfing competition with your friends, or are meeting up at the driving range together and comparing your accuracy, golf allows ample opportunity to catch up, share life updates or discuss sports updates from a service like https://sportnews.in/.
Regular social interaction is well-known to be a potent stress-buster, particularly when done face-to-face. Golf can serve as a great opportunity for this kind of interaction.
Varying intensity levels tailored to your mood
When it comes to reducing stress, some people like to immerse themselves in competitive activities that take up all of their attention and that allow them to burn off energy, while others like pastimes that are a lot more casual in nature.
Golf is quite unique, in that it is a sport that offers various intensity levels depending on your mood.
If you just want to work out a bit of stress and frustration while practicing your swing, a visit to the driving range (with a few dozen balls at your disposal) can certainly help you to achieve that.
If you want some time by yourself, working on your teeing accuracy at the range can be an almost meditative endeavor, that helps you to get a bit of distance from your frustrations, while working through your own thoughts.On the other hand, if competition is more what you’re in the mood for, there are all sorts of amateur golf tournaments to be found. The golfing vacation resource YourGolfTravel.com, for example, lists couples golfing packages in the Algarve, Portugal, for pairs golf competitions, in addition to 5-round invitational competition trips to Turkey, and more.
This variety in intensity – and the ability to easily enter into amateur competitions if you so choose – tends to be much less prevalent in many other sports.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about ho golf can tackle stress.
If you’re looking for a stress free round and want to improve your golf why not check out our other articles on the best golf balls, or the best putters. Alternatively, if you want to look great on the course this year then we’ve an article helping you choose the best golf shoes so that you can take your game to the next level
