Outdoors Rx
A Piece about Prescribing the Outdoors
Humans + Their Relationship with the Outdoors
This post is sponsored by Marmot.
Words by Holly Mandarich
Photos Courtesy of Holly Mandarich, Kayla Weber, Michael Loots, Katy + Cort Miller
Just as I do every morning, I wake up, get dressed and take my dogs out for a walk. What’s different now - is that on each walk I feel a deep sense of gratitude. I listen to the birds, feel the sun shine on my face, smell the fresh air and take in the simplicity of the fact that I get to be outside. Do I always walk my dogs in the morning - generally yes, but it feels different now, now it feels like a privilege instead of a chore. I think that is what is happening here, at least for me, but for others as well. Is that on a collective conscious level we are all realizing that our relationship with the outdoors holds so much more value than we ever gave it credit for. Before all of this happened, the outdoors were a “fun” place to recreate, or a “fun” way to spend time. And for us outdoor enthusiasts they have always held great meaning.
But right now i’m talking about the non outdoor enthusiasts, I’m talking about those who maybe don’t spend time outside unless they come across a national park on their travels, or make the intention to see something that they know will make them feel excited. I’m talking about those who don’t currently have an ongoing relationship with the outdoors.
For me it’s crazy to think about the fact that humans as a collective do not live and breathe the outdoors, because for me it’s a must, it's a necessity. In fact it’s said that 90% of our time as humans is spent indoors. We’ve replaced our jobs working outside for desks, and our time exercising outside for lavish gyms. We do what we can or what we must to embody a “healthy” lifestyle, but, shouldn't a healthy lifestyle include the outdoors, the very place we evolved from, originated from and will return too?
All this has got me thinking, what would happen if we could simply prescribe the outdoors to the people who need it most. The idea of Outdoors Rx is not a new one, however it is one that should be being talked about more now than ever. What happens to our bodies physically when we’re outside, what happens to our mental state? Could something like this even make a difference. This pandemic has certainly shed some light on the fact that when we are faced with collective turmoil, and faced to sit with ourselves and look at our lives and the impermanence of it all, we turn to the outdoors, taking walks, sitting in our backyards, flocking to trailheads. Why do we turn to the outdoors, what sense of comfort resides in them?
For me the outdoors mean a whole lot. Especially when I'm in the high alpine. When I'm outside I can feel my body physically and mentally shift almost instantly. Colors seem brighter, I begin to notice smells, I hear birds, or the wind whip across an open valley. I feel myself in ways I don’t when I'm inside. It’s almost like I ignore myself when i’m inside, I shove my emotions deep down, and away from others, I hide and run from things I don’t want to confront, but when I play outside I can openly air my grievances to the earth, and she listens - and then absorbs, so that I can move on with my day and embrace my motive to be happy, to be in a pure state of joy! This especially reigns true when I get to stare at those big rocky mountains. I can’t even put into words how aligned it feels to be near rocky peaks. It just feels like my calling, in a way.
I decided to ask a few people who were in tune with the outdoors to advise us on the benefits they receive from them. I asked each of them about their relationship with nature, and how it has impacted their physical state, mental state, and to share any experiences they might have had that helped them adapt to life and grow into themselves. The most common thread among each person I talked to, was the fact that when they step outside, they just feel better. They all feel a sense of belonging, or support and the word for word description was a “sense of coming home.” There is nothing fake about the outdoors, they are simply just what they are.
Don’t take my word for it? Here are a couple of quotes from the interviewees themselves.
First up is Michael Loots. Michael is a man of many talents, and many trades. As of current, he is a Language Arts teacher at Zealous Schools in Eagle Colorado. Michael has worked in the outdoor education industry for years and has a background in back-country and expeditionary education (NOLS and Outward Bound.)
“Ever since I was a little kid, the outdoors were an escape for me, not an escape from - but an escape to. It was like I was running to the things that I loved the most. I always felt really at home in the outdoors, like that the outdoors were my actual home, and that the life that I lived everyday wasn’t my “real” home. I love mountain biking! Each time I'm biking I feel like it’s the thing I'm supposed to be doing, as a human and as an animal. We’re supposed to be moving through nature, moving toward a goal, all senses are heightened. Sure it’s physical exercise, but it doesn’t feel hard in the way that counting 1099s feels hard, the physical exertion, the mental stimulus, it becomes easy, and it washes away the anxieties that riddle a lot of my day! Being outdoors is really my way of tapping into a reality that feels good for me, and every time I'm outside I continue to feel that sense of home.”
I also asked Kayla Weber, a certified Forest Therapy Guide and Grief Recovery Specialist how she has first hand seen people experience the healing effects of the outdoors through her work. She led me through an example of what it’s like to be on one of her therapy walks.
“On one of my practicum walks my husband, Zack, had a share in council, he had gone and talked to this tree, noticed all the offshoots that the tree had - tiny tiny little branches everywhere - he got the sense from this tree, that it was sending itself out in as many directions as possible. He shared that he thought it meant that not everything you do has to be perfect and that not everything you do has to land, you just have to put yourself out there and try as many things as possible and see what does land. It made another one of the walk participants cry, seeing the interaction between the tree and the person, and the person and the person, and now I get that perspective too! As a guide, my appreciation, understanding, and perspective deepens every single time I’m out there.”
We also asked Kayla to share her own thoughts on her relationship with the outdoors and her mental health.
““For mental health - yes! The outdoors are critical for my, and everyone’s, mental health and they mean so much to me in that regard. I have experienced some of my own deep grieving experiences in the outdoors. When I start to feel like a wave of grief is coming, it literally can feel like the walls are closing in, it can get to a point where it becomes so suffocating to deal with those emotions inside. Nature is a very vast, supportive place to go when you’re feeling that intensely. I was a naturalist the summer my brother died and I was able to spend so much time outside. I was there for work - and was expected to be outside leading nature walks and programs. My office was in close proximity to trails, nature benches and the creek, so I spent hours each day by gore creek in Vail. Through those experiences it was like I was able to feel connected to him, it allowed me to bring intangibles back to a place that almost felt tangible. I remember sitting on this log for hours on end, at Vail Nature Center, I could feel my brother in the sun, see him in the ripples, hear him in the birds that were singing, in a mental health capacity it opened my world up - so that things that were so far away, instead in a way felt closer to me. The word supported, I can’t emphasize that enough, when you as a human feel like you can’t move and you just want to collapse - look around you. ‘Oh there’s a tree, look there’s a stump’ You can fall down and the earth is there to catch you. You have all this physical natural support around you to pull from. I was one time supported physically just because I was crying and hugging onto a tree, for me it felt massive! That physical support translated into emotional support then too, when it felt like there was no one to hold me… The trees had me!”
We also asked mountain bike enthusiast, and ‘retired’ healthcare professional, Katy, how she feels when she hops on her mountain bike to experience the outdoors. She had a very simplistic yet jaw dropping perspective to share.
“First and foremost, my senses light up, and I settle into this feeling of aliveness. I feel a sense of belonging, and a sense of simplicity. Things just make sense outside. It’s where I feel like we're meant to be, and nothing about it is fake. Shopping malls seem so silly when you’re in the forest, it’s like... why do we need all that crap/product?? I wrote something a while ago, and posted it with a picture of singletrack: ‘I ride, because in a world that tries to pull you in a million different directions, having one ribbon of singletrack in front of you is a really beautiful thing.’ I feel this all the time outside, when I get outside it's an instant state shift.”
Katy on her mountain bike. Photo Courtesy of Cort Muller.
I really just want to share everything our interviewees had to say about their relationship with the outdoors, physically and mentally, but for the sake of keeping us on track, i’ll let you dive off into each individual interview yourself: Michael Loots, Katy and Kayla Weber.
So now that we have heard from a few folks about the impact of the outdoors on their well being. I decided to take the time to ask my interviewees if they could see a future, or another side to this pandemic, where we come out of this having a more whole relationship with the outdoors, where we respect and dare say honor it as medicine, and prescribe Outdoors Rx.
Kayla shared a parallel sentiment:
“That is absolutely a goal for me, it’s a personal goal, but more so a shared goal that was born out of The Association of Nature and Forest Therapy, Amos (the founder) talked about this specifically during my training in 2017. His whole goal of creating this training program was to train 1000 guides to take people on forest bathing walks. He at one point talked to Kaiser Permanente and they loved the idea of prescribing people time in the outdoors, they communicated that to make this a reality, they needed trained practitioners in every region that they offered coverage. So his goal came to be training enough guides to get this incorporated into the system. Guides have adopted this as a personal goal for themselves, because they see the ROI that will come from it. So many people don’t financially prioritize themselves, and their well being, I hear things like ‘Why do I need to pay you 30 dollars for you to take me outside for 3 hours’ The personal value isn’t there yet, hopefully people will change their perspective after this, having therapeutic practices like this covered in insurance will be a way to get people to prioritize it.”
A typical scene of one of Kayla’s therapy walks.
Katy also shared her thoughts on this:
“Yes absolutely! In my old role in public health, it was one of my goals. I wanted to see more specific things prescribed. Doctors are great at prescribing physical activity, but people need specifics, small tangible realistic specifics. Like going outside for 10 minutes every morning, that is super attainable. I think things like this could really excite somebody who maybe thinks they can't control or change their life. Maybe after a while of those 10 minutes a day, they start to embrace other activities like exercising, or eating kale (my favourite food haha). Leaning into ritual can be powerful. We've lost a lot of ritual in our ways of being. It's really important for your mental health and physical health to have rituals and routines. We could all use a little RX outdoors therapy, so why not try? We've tried everything else. Over 10 years at my previous job, we did lots of research on childhood obesity markers. We generally stuck around the 24 - 26% mark. So whatever we were doing wasn't really working, it wasn't hitting the entire population.
We also asked Katy, as a former professional in the healthcare network in Canada, if she thought something like this would be easier to implement in the great white north, vs. the States:
“I think it'd be easier than the states, we don't mess around with insurance companies. We do have a large budget in public health, and a lot of it goes to vaccines, but I could see some of it going to outdoor treatments. It would be a pretty simple implementation, ‘Here's a prescription: 10 minutes outside every morning, 7 days a week, report back in 3 weeks.” We could do something like this pretty easily, because we just don't have all those hoops to jump through. I could see it being a part of the employer benefits pond. So if you have a job here in Canada, you generally will have employer benefits. Universal health care doesn't cover things like dental and glasses. But employer benefits will, and I could see perhaps outdoor benefits being included in there.”
Michael had nothing but agreeing thoughts as well regarding the idea of Outdoors Rx:
“Medically - yes I can see a future where doctors prescribe the outdoors as medication to their patients. That reality is already here for some doctors. Western medicine is great at treating symptoms, and it is getting better at treating underlying causes. The more that the medical field treats the whole patient and not just a subset of symptoms, the more we’re going to see outdoors prescribed.”
I also asked Michael about his time in outdoor and backcountry education. Specifically about any first hand experiences he had seeing the effect of nature and it’s healing properties on the people he worked with, here’s what he had to say:
“Here's my favorite thing about putting people into nature, it doesn’t matter how old you are, you could be a kindergartner or an elder, if you put someone in nature, in the right circumstances, you can see the same wonder in anyone's eyes. The same wonder that you see in a child's eyes, you can see in an octogenarian’s eyes.”
Michael Loots as shown, spear fishing in tide pools in Baja California, Mexico.
It makes me feel good to hear that others are optimistic about this idea taking a lead. It’s also so validating to hear others resonate similarly about their experiences outside, and how it’s impacted their lives.
So how do we get people that aren't like you and I to digest this information. How do we get the city slicker who lives and breathes his work to make time to get outside everyday at his local park. How do we get doctors, insurance companies and beyond to support the conscious collective that we call society to shift and embrace the outdoors as medicine.
There are lots of initiatives out there, and I know Marmot personally is hoping to get their feet wet in this cause.
If you’re looking to dive deeper into the topic, there are boatloads of clinical research surfacing over the last few years. I would recommend pointing you in the direction of www.outdoorrx.org to explore the ideas behind the above.
Through all of this, we are coming together as a society, and I personally would love to see us come together to support this earth we inhabit, while allowing it to support us.
In the meantime, take walks, and stay safe, my friends.
- Holly Mandarich
