Ashley Medlock

This article shows a study of long distance hiking trips. They found that in patients with
cancer, hiking long distances can improve the antioxidative capacity in the blood. This helps
fight off the disease and also helps from recurring cancer. I will use this source as evidence to
support that hiking can improve your physical health.
This article relates to my topic by supporting the fact that hiking has physical health
benefits. I believe that this source is very accurate because it was an experiment done by a group
of professionals at a sports medicine university. I believe that the purpose of this article was to
inform people about the benefits that hiking can have on cancer patients, or people who have had
cancer in the past.
Knop, Schwan, Bongartz, Bloch, Brixius, and Baumann. "Sport and Oxidative Stress in
Oncological Patients." International Journal of Sports Medicine. U.S. National Library of
Medicine, Dec. 2011. Web. 22 Nov. 2015.
This article is about how hikers are happier and healthier than others who do not hike.
While, that might not be true entirely, hiking does provide many health benefits for people. This
article talks about some descriptions of hikers, and goes into explanation. I think that I will use
the hikers are happier for my research because it gives information about how hiking can be
used as therapy for people who are depressed or suicidal. It gives mental health benefits that
other activities cant give.
This article relates to my topic by supporting the fact that hiking has mental health
benefits. There are parts in this article that are bias and make you want to believe that hikers are
something that might not always be true. However, they provide evidence to support their

reasoning. I think that the part I will use most out of this article is the section called hikers are
happier because it talks about mental health benefits.
Wise, Abigail. "Proof That Hiking Makes You Happier And Healthier." The Huffington Post.
TheHuffingtonPost.com, 18 July 2014. Web. 22 Nov. 2015.
This is a short article about the physical health benefits on hiking. It is off of a medicine
website that has many doctors who review each page. There are many cardio health benefits of
hiking, and this page lists a few. I will use this page as a reference of physical health benefits of
hiking and use the list for examples.
This source relates to my topic very well in the physical health category. This category is
the most obvious of the six, so I know that there will be a lot of information over this. However,
it is good to have this source because it was reviewed by a doctor and is on a medical website.
This helps confirm the relevancy of my source. The article is current, and is up to date as far as
any changes or studies that were done to prove any of the examples wrong. I believe that since it
was reviewed by a doctor, this article is a good source to use and it is a good quality article.
Robinson, Kara. "Hiking Benefits Heart, Mind, and Body." WebMD. WebMD, 15 Sept. 2013.
Web. 22 Nov. 2015.
This article is great because it covers a variety of the different aspects of health. This
article covers four of the six aspects: physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual health. It
talks about how hiking is good for your soul and how each of the aspects relate back to being
good for your soul. I will definitely be using this source for the social and spiritual health aspects
because there arent many articles over these topics. I am glad that I found this source because it
gives good information over the realms of health.

This article relates to my topic very well and is quite relevant. It gives examples of how
hiking is good for you socially and spiritually. One unfortunate downside to this article is that
there was no published date to be found, so I do not know how current this article is. This
information is great and it gives good examples and states where the information is from,
however, not knowing how recent this information is makes me wonder if there are other sources
that found more information or counter information on this topic.
Miller, Ashley. "Hiking for the Soul." Healthy Living. Demand Media, n.d. Web. 22 Nov. 2015.
This article is about reasons why this particular author hikes. Her reasons are supported
by different experiments and evidence by professional doctors. She explains how hiking is a
good way to connect with nature and put things into perspective. I will use this for my topic by
explaining how hiking is good for you in the environmental and spiritual realms of health. By
using the supportive facts in this article, I will be able to support how hiking is good
environmentally and spiritually.
I think that this article is very relevant to my topic for two of the six realms of health. The
two realms of health that this article is a good source for are environmental and spiritual. This
article, however, is bias because the author even notes that she is a hiker and wants to persuade
the audience to hike too. The information that she gives is accurate and is supported well by
different experiments and professional cites.
Sergi, Nicole. "6 Reasons Hiking Is Good For Your Body, Mind & Soul."MBG. Mind Body
Green, 5 Feb. 2015. Web. 22 Nov. 2015.
This article talks about stress and how hiking can relieve it. It also talks about forest
walking and how there was a study over adults walking through the forest and through urban
areas. The hikers who were in a forest environment had reduced stress, lower pulse rate, and

lower blood pressure. I will use this as an experiment providing evidence for the part of my topic
in the mental health realm.
This source is relevant by supporting the mental health realm of my topic. The author
gives many supporting cites which makes the source more accurate and credible. The purpose of
this article is to inform the audience on how hiking is good for your mental health.
Bergen, Teresa. "How Hiking Can Relieve Stress." Healthy Living. Demand Media, n.d. Web.
23 Nov. 2015.
This article is another medical article that gives mostly physical health benefits. It was
reviewed by a doctor, and many of the facts were from a doctor. The professional talks about
various ways hiking is healthy for you. I will use this article to support the physical health
benefits of hiking. I think that by being reviewed by a doctor, it helps validate the source.
This source is quite relevant to my topic, however, I have a lot of good sources for
physical health benefits. I think that using a few from each will be the way I go when doing my
research, but knowing that I have plenty might mean that this source is redundant of some sort.
The purpose of this article, however, is not to persuade. This article only has facts which is a
positive for this source.
Vogin, Gary D. "Hiking Your Way to Better Health." WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 22 Nov.
2015.
This article is about how hiking relieves stress and the many different ways it does relieve
stress. The article goes over how it creates relaxation, how hiking regulates stress on a chemical
balance, how hiking works the brain, and how it fulfills the spirit. I will use this source for the
emotional, spiritual, and mental health realms.

This source is very relevant to my topic by supporting three of the six realms of health. In
this article, it shows that the author gets the information through different experiments and cites
that are reliable and are experts in the health category. This source has many positives to it but
unfortunately there is no published date so therefore, I cannot determine how current this source
is. I do still think that it is current enough for relevancy, and that many of the supported factors
are still up to date.
Raven, Robin. "How Hiking Relieves Stress." Healthy Living. Demand Media, n.d. Web. 22
Nov. 2015.
This source talks about hiking and the mental and physical realms of health. It also talks
about how to properly hike: what to do, what to be aware of- physically, and how it will
positively affect your physical health if done over an amount of time. I will use this source in the
mental and physical realms of health, noting all of the positive affects hiking has if done the
correct way.
This source, like the others, is relevant to my topic, but I do have many sources on the
physical aspect of health. I will use this one, unlike the others, to describe the proper techniques
of hiking. This source is a little outdated, unfortunately; however, I think that everything that is
stated is still true to this day. The only thing that might be a problem is that there may be new
findings that are not stated in this source.
Rice, Lori L. "Hike For Your Health." Health Education through Extension Leadership.
University of Kentucky- College of Agriculture, Aug. 2005. Web. 22 Nov. 2015.
This source is about how hiking positively affects your mental and physical health. The
author talks about the seasons changing and the weather becoming milder so it is easier to

withstand being outside for hours. I will use this source just like the others that support physical
and mental health realms.
This source is relevant to my topic by supporting the physical and mental aspects of
health. This source is very recent, only a couple months old, so the information given is new and
recent. Every fact that was provided was supported by either a professional, a credible cite, or an
experiment. The author herself does not necessarily have the credentials, but she does use
supportive cites to show that she has done research herself. This, to me, makes the source very
credible and reliable.
Medlock, Katie. "Hiking Can Improve Your Health In More Ways Than One."Care2 Healthy
Living. Healthy Living, 21 Sept. 2015. Web. 22 Nov. 2015.