Tirol has the best recipe

Enjoy the clear mountain air, let your mind wander on a hike, be enchanted by the breathtaking mountain panorama and forget about the stress of daily life. Tirol offers everything that a holidaymaker’s heart could want. And more still – since a holiday in the mountains doesn’t just make you happy, it’s healthy too.

Tirol does you good. The combination of the dreamy natural backdrop, exercising in the fresh air, the altitude difference and the distance from the usual daily grind makes your stay in the heart of the Alps not just the most beautiful but also the most restorative time of the year. A holiday in the mountains gets you fit and is also balsam for your soul - and has a really very positive effect on your health. Especially to counteract the scourges of our time – diseases of modern society, such as overweight, high blood pressure, blood fat and blood sugar (summarised by the concept of metabolic syndrome) – a stay in Tirol is a great tonic. The AMAS Altitude Study (Austrian Moderate Altitude Study), which was carried out on 120 people in the year 2000 also came to this conclusion. In the course if a pilot study, which was used as the basis for all other studies, test candidates with metabolic syndrome were sent on holiday to the Tirol for a period of three weeks - and the result: mountains ought to be on prescription. After just seven to ten days the health condition of the tourists had demonstrably improved. They lost weight without actually dieting, their blood pressure lowered, and blood fat and sugar levels stabilised.

Altitude + exercise makes you healthy
These positive effects are the result of the interplay of a variety of factors, claims Dr. Wolfgang Schobersberger from the Austrian Society for Alpine and Altitude Medicine, who headed the study with Dr. Egon Humpeler. A key component for success is regular exercise. „But that doesn’t mean you have to scale a summit on the first day", assuage the doctors. Exercise has to be much more individually tailored to suit the needs of individual guests.

In addition, hiking in Tirol's Alpine backdrop also improves coordination. Exercise in Alpine terrain uses more muscles, and in so doing trains ‘economic walking’. Schobersberger recalls the ‘most noticeable’ result of the series of tests. “At the start the participants could only do short tours, at the end of the test weeks they could tackle five-hour hikes with no problem.”

A further altitude-specific effect is that the number of red blood corpuscles increased: from around 1500 metres altitude the body produces more of the intense oxygen generators in the blood. In addition the quality of the blood corpuscles also increased and ensured that guests felt healthier and fitter with the improved oxygen supply.
And it isn’t just your body that benefits from a holiday in the mountains, your mind also gets to unwind. This was shown in a second study carried out by the AMAS in 2006. For this, 13 physically healthy test subjects, who were under extreme stress, were sent on holiday to Tirol. After six days of an activity and wellness holiday symptoms of stress such as overtiredness, lack of energy and a lack of concentration were clearly reduced and these stressed city dwellers felt good, relaxed and were sleeping better.


Take a break with us here in Tirol and feel all-round better
... we look forward to seeing you!