Adventure is The Real Cure

“Whereas traditionally mental health issues have primarily been dealt with by therapy and medication, more and more people are turning to adventure in the outdoors as a means of managing the problem and the results are very promising.”

In the age of life coaches, wellness retreats and Matcha green tea pills, it feels like everything and everyone is trying to sell a cure to life’s ever compounding issues. The only real certainty in all of it is that as urbanization has increased so too have the levels of anxiety and stress related illness. Whereas traditionally mental health issues have primarily been dealt with by therapy and medication, more and more people are turning to adventure in the outdoors as a means of managing the problem and the results are very promising. Here are a few reasons why we believe it’s working.

NO DISTRACTIONS
In the age of smart phones, which are essentially portable marketing devices used to constantly feed you news, products, issues and a whole host of mostly irrelevant material repacked to seem relevant and imminent, there is almost no real way for us to switch off and block out distractions. Trekking to a place like Kilimanjaro or exploring the trails of Patagonia means intermittent reception or none at all. That’s a week or more of no distractions from just being where you are and living only what’s relevant to you here and now.

PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENT
Regardless of how far we walk or how high we climb, just being somewhere different and challenging gives us a sense of achievement and the reward for it is an experience that only the person engaged in it can actually have. This also feeds into the next point.

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
When we’re in the outdoors there is no one else to fall back on. We are responsible for ourselves. We get as far as we’re going because we’ve chosen to.

“There really isn’t anything as transformative or that gives us a sense of real purpose in the world as seeing the natural wonders of the world with our own eyes.”

We join and adventure in the first place because we’ve chosen to. It is certainly an overwhelming feeling but it puts us in the driver’s seat which is a stark contrast to city life where we often feel that things are happening at us and to us.

NATURE
There really isn’t anything as transformative or that gives us a sense of real purpose in the world as seeing the natural wonders of the world with our own eyes. Whether it’s taking your shoes off on a sand dune or seeing the sunrise from the roof of Africa, nature has a way of transforming our perception of things and grounding us in something very real.

COMMUNITY
Meeting people on an adventure is almost as incredible as the adventure itself.
From the stories we hear to the kind gestures that we’re offered, it’s refreshing to be amongst people who aren’t elbowing their way to a job promotion or want something from you. Out here it’s just about people sharing incredible experiences.

IT’S THE SIMPLE THINGS
Things are simple on adventures. Going to the toilet is simple. Eating is simple. Walking is simple. Life suddenly becomes simple because we strip away all the layers we’ve created for ourselves through the social structures that govern urban life.

WE GO BACK
It’s great to be out there but it’s also great to go back. The point of life isn’t to disappear into nature never to be seen again but to be able to contribute positively to the environment in which we live. By venturing out into the world and finding profound experiences for ourselves we’re able to balance our lives and bring that balance back with us into our families, our jobs and our communities.