Hiking and Mental Health

[Amelie]

My boyfriend and fellow hiking enthusiast is also a mental health care worker. Last summer he put a poster up at the hospital inviting patients to walk together with an emphasis that there is no requirement to talk about any issues in their lives.

The monthly walking group has proved to be very popular and some members have said that it helped them with their issues.

Any similar experiences ?

 

[Lorax]

Yes.



Let me hike and nobody gets hurt.

 

[jason]

The wife tells me to go for a hike or kayak trip when she feels I'm too grumpy to deal with. Does that count? She says I come back in a better mood.

 

[Lorax]

The wife tells me to go for a hike or kayak trip when she feels I'm too grumpy to deal with. Does that count? She says I come back in a better mood.

My wife also knows when I'm due for a night or two under the stars or a paddle down a river.

 

[Bambi]

We are a part of nature. I think it stirs something very soothing for most people to connect with nature, though many have lost touch with this. Good on your pal!

 

[dinosaur]

I agree. All of us are sick Anyone who would rather be outside in the weather must have a screw loose. All you have to do is stay inside, play virtual reality games, watch reality TV, complain about the slightest inconvenience and call the repairman. You buy cold weather gear to get you to the nearest restaurant that features haute cuisine and to get you to work in the morning and home at night. Other than these discomforts, why would any sane person venture out into the cold cruel world?

Because there's nobody else there. Other than those places close to "The Real World" where you run into morons who think they are on an adventure by walking through a park, you have the rest of the world to explore.

Yeah for us!

 

[Chippin]

It makes sense to me. What better way to get away from all the stress of working with annoying people? Get farther away from them for a while and all is better! I can't always go on hikes whenever I'm upset about something, but when I'm able, I always walk the trails for a few hours. It does wonders.

 

[Refrigerator]

I think my health as been attributed to me staying out there in the woods ,on a trail, in a tent, under the stars, setting in a room with a view, smelling smoke from a camp fire, dreaming while sleeping on the ground or in a hammock, leaving the vortex of our civilized life at home and having an escape has got to be worth something and Mental Health is a great way to get payment.

 

[Michael]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I start to get moody if I stay out of nature too long. I definitely feel more emotionally well balanced after getting out into the woods.

 

[IndianaHiker]

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. ~John Muir

I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least - and it is commonly more than that - sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements. ~Henry David Thoreau

Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow. ~Henry David Thoreau

"Our suicidal poets (Plath, Berryman, Lowell, Jarrell, et al.) spent too much of their lives inside rooms and classrooms when they should have been trudging up mountains, slogging through swamps, rowing down rivers. The indoor life is the next best thing to premature burial."
- Edward Abbey

Seems that some other people have caught onto this same idea in the past.

 

[Amelie]

Hi everybody - great stories and quotations above. We had an interesting thing happen on one of these group walks. A young man who gets panic attacks had one in the middle of a field. Most of us moved away and left him just with his counsellor. But he was frozen to the spot.

Then a horse approached - the counsellor is nervous of horses and moved away trying to tug the young man with her. The horse ignored the counsellor and simply stood very close, barely touching, the man frozen in a panic attack. Eventually, the man and horse started walking together. They walked around the field - then the young man rejoined us in the next field. He was happy, relaxed and carried on as though nothing had happened.

 

[dinosaur]

This happens often. Horses aren't very smart but they can sense someone in distress and will huddle around them in a protective gesture.

 

[IndianaHiker]

There is a fairly near therapy for many people with panic anxiety. Animal therapy and equine therapy is gaining supporters as being effective. I new a young lady with a form of social anxiety that was help greatly by equine therapy. So went from not being able to speak to strangers to starting a nonprofit organization to help raise funds to help other kids that suffered from her condition. This also included her doing public speaking for fund raising. I was very impressed by this young lady and her success.

 

[Amelie]

IndianaHiker - that is a great story. What an achievement for her. Animals never cease to amaze me in their sensitivity and compassion. I shall pass your story on to my BF - perhaps it will help him inhis funding efforts for his walking group.

 

[mccallum]

It has been shown that exercise is good for mental health. The "Runner's High"! I would expect that the clients that do the walk are better off for it. I think the mental health system in the USA should push the idea of walking, running or hiking ofr mental health but then again if enough of the clients get healthy someone is out of a job!?! On second thought lets not tell them --- it puts the food on the table at my house! My wife is a mental heath therapist and yes we have had this same discussion on the fact that the mental health system does as little as possible to cure and a whole lot to maintain just like the regular health system! (Did I say that out loud and in public?)

 

[dinosaur]

Wow, Mccallum! I suppose mental health is a question of acceptability. People who act out of the norm are considered crazy unless they have money. Then they are considered eccentric. Any time one deviates from the conventional pattern, one is termed mentally unbalanced. I've been there for many years. I hike, I boat, I fish, I camp, I hunt. Anything else is an hiatus from my path. Am I crazy? Most likely I am, at least as it would conventionally be defined. So was Henry David Thoreau, Benjamin Franklin, Julius Caesar, Gandhi, Kevin Heinemann (you don't know him but i do), Sir Francis Chichester, Malcolm X, and Beaver Cleaver. If you think outside the box, you're a nut.

Daddy always said you need to think sideways. You have to look for things that others don't. This is what promotes health in all of those on this site. Why would any sane person put themselves in harm's way? Why do you go out into the wilds when it is infinitely easier to sit on your duff in a civilized area and order a pizza while watching a bunch of overpaid athletes beat the crap out of eachother on a gridiron or a diamond? It's because you are nuts!

 

[Hayley]

Definitely, in a bit of a different way. I worked in a place where people hated each other. It was horrible, but some of us made it a point to get out and take walks on breaks. It was our survival in many ways.

 

[mccallum]

Dinosaur;
There are two kinds of crazy; those who thinks outside the box who maybe thought of as wierd though I would place them in what I would call crazy then are those whom society wants of the street and commited to the mental ward. None of those you meantioned I would place in the latter group. Now, serial killers; those who go postal fit my crazy grouping!!

My point was two fold 1) exercise helps mental illness and 2) the system that is providing the Mental Health care (just like medical care) lose money if they lose clients!!