{"id":38920,"date":"2022-08-12T13:49:33","date_gmt":"2022-08-12T19:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorados-outdoors-offers-a-kind-of-therapy-but-its-not-a-magic-pill\/"},"modified":"2022-08-12T19:49:33","modified_gmt":"2022-08-12T19:49:33","slug":"colorados-outdoors-offers-a-kind-of-therapy-but-its-not-a-magic-pill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorados-outdoors-offers-a-kind-of-therapy-but-its-not-a-magic-pill\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado\u2019s outdoors offers a kind of therapy, but it\u2019s not a magic pill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Kylie
Kylie Bearse, the morning meteorologist for Fox31 in Denver, says outdoor activities including hiking and skiing are an important part of her mental health regime. During the pandemic she and a friend slowly built up their endurance on hikes until they were hiking 13 miles together in Staunton State Park. (Dave Puente\/Special to The Colorado Sun)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Spring, a time when the bluebirds sing \u2013 maybe on your shoulder \u2013 and the sun cracks the worst of winter\u2019s cold and the air smells like life, can be a time of darkness for Kylie Bearse.<\/p>\n

Spring means muddy trails and slushy slopes, a time when both hiking and skiing are difficult and, quite frankly, no fun for Bearse, and yet she needs that time outdoors, and not just because she\u2019s the morning meteorologist for Fox31 News in Denver.<\/p>\n

Bearse was 25 when she was diagnosed with anxiety eight years ago. She\u2019s comfortable enough with it now to make amusing observations about her job: People with anxiety need control in their lives, but the one thing no one can control is, of course, the weather. It makes her giggle.<\/p>\n

Her anxiety can be crippling. Even though Bearse says, over and over, how much she loves her work, there were days this spring \u2013 more than a few \u2013 when her job was difficult. \u201cEvery day, for a month and a half, I hated going to work and having to smile on TV every day,\u201d she said. \u201cI was tired of pretending to be happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bearse considers getting outdoors an important part of her mental health regime, in the same way others might jog four times a week to maintain their health and keep their hearts strong. It\u2019s an approach that some health professionals endorse, and some, including Weld County\u2019s health department, are asking doctors to push their patients to spend more time outside.<\/p>\n

The great outdoors isn\u2019t a cure-all, some mental health professionals caution, but activities as simple as hiking, bird watching or biking by the river can be a complement to talk therapy and medication.<\/p>\n

Bearse\u2019s therapist made the connection for her, after shin splints forced her to quit running half marathons and her anxiety spiked. The therapist said she needed physical activity to slow her racing mind. Bearse loves her spin classes and Pilates, but she also discovered hiking and skiing helped her perhaps as much as talk therapy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen my anxiety is the highest,\u201d she said, \u201cI need to unplug and go be in nature. I don\u2019t think I can put a name on exactly why. I just need to be outside. That\u2019s part of my medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n

A hike a day \u2026<\/div>\n

In Canada, doctors will prescribe passes to national parks for those struggling with depression, anxiety or other mental health issues. In Japan, residents have practiced forest bathing, or meditative walks through tree canopies, since they rose in popularity in the 1980s. It isn\u2019t much of a stretch, then, to consider the logic behind the Outdoor Rx program run by the Weld County Department of Public Health and Environment.<\/p>\n

The program launched in 2019, before the pandemic, to push the mental health benefits of being in nature. A year later, once we were into isolation, Outdoor Rx received almost too much affirmation from the rest of us when we crushed the outdoors like a shopping mall on Black Friday. As examples, Rocky Mountain National Park had to install a reservation system to cut crowds and restore sanity (as did other national parks), and residents flocked to state parks as well, increasing visitation in them by 25%.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all about physical activity and nutrition and physical well-being,\u201d health department spokesman Eric Aakko said. \u201cWhat Rx does is bring a new vitamin to the table. That\u2019s Vitamin N. That\u2019s nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Studies show time in nature reduces blood pressure, anxiety, stress and restores a sense of calm. Some suggest we need the outdoors, treating them as mandatory as daily exercise: Richard Louv\u2019s 2005 book, \u201cLast Child in the Woods,\u201d argued that children\u2019s separation from the natural world was causing \u201cnature deficit disorder,\u201d the root of a host of problems including ADHD, obesity and mental health issues such as anxiety. He has since expanded his thinking to adults.<\/p>\n

Olivia Egen, Weld County\u2019s public health initiative supervisor, ran Outdoor Rx at its inception and lobbied doctors to talk to patients about recommending time outside. That work continues with Olga Gonzalez, the healthy eating and active living coordinator.<\/p>\n

\"A
A skier skins uphill at Loveland Ski Area on March, 20, 2020, near Georgetown. (Hugh Carey\/The Colorado Sun file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cWhen doctors prescribe or talk to their patients about it, sometimes that\u2019s all the motivation they need to get outside,\u201d Gonzalez said. \u201cDoctors talk about diet and exercise, but we need to go a bit deeper with the patient.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aakko, like Bearse, understands the outdoors can be intimidating, unfamiliar or even unwelcoming, especially to groups such as Weld\u2019s large Latino population. And, for what it\u2019s worth, the health department doesn\u2019t necessarily want everyone to climb Longs Peak.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t have to go run a marathon. You don\u2019t even have to go to a park,\u201d Aakko said. \u201cYou can go outside your door and hear the birds and look up at the blue sky.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outdoor Rx is a good place to start, with a website profiling the county\u2019s cities and towns and what they offer for open space, parks and trails, as well as tips for heading out beyond your mailbox, such as what to wear and how to recognize signs of bad weather. Egen spent hours working with Weld communities to compile the information. Pro tip: Nearly all other Colorado counties and cities have information via websites on their trails, open spaces and parks and how to access them. So do state parks, the U.S. Forest Service and RMNP.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have been blown away by what their communities offered,\u201d Egen said. \u201cThey had no idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018That sounds a lot like me\u2019<\/div>\n

Bearse began to suspect she had anxiety when therapists would talk about it during news programs at the first station she worked for in Minnesota.<\/p>\n

\u201cHmm,\u201d she said, imitating herself listening to one of those interviews. \u201cThat sounds a lot like me.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she turned to a news anchor after a show ended and asked him, privately, if he worried about being fired all the time, and was answered with a quizzical look, she decided to seek help. She now realizes that she\u2019d had anxiety her whole life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I had gotten help in high school, I would have had an entirely different experience,\u201d Bearse said. \u201cIn fact I probably did too well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Kylie
Kylie Bearse, the morning meteorologist for Fox31 in Denver, launched a website Approachable Outdoors to help encourage people to make their way onto trails. For her, hiking and skiing are an important part of her mental health regime. (Dave Puente\/Special to The Colorado Sun)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Anxiety, after all, does have a few benefits, including a deep drive to get work done and eliminating the worry over it, and it doesn\u2019t always accompany bad times: In April 2021, she left 9News for Fox31 to become a morning meteorologist, what she calls her dream job, but went through one of the worst periods of her life. She had a rough but necessary breakup, and the job was a real triumph for her, so she didn\u2019t fully understand why her anxiety was so bad she couldn\u2019t sleep or eat well.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy therapist said even good stress is still stress,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She recovered by following a list she stowed away of things that had helped her through rough times in the past \u2013 sleeping and eating well were two of them. She added hiking to the list. During the pandemic, she went three times a week. She and a friend worked their way up to a 13-mile hike, Elk Falls in Staunton State Park, one of her favorite places, by picking a hike that was a mile more than the week before.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe stayed socially distant for a year, hiking 6 feet apart from each other,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen we got vaccinated was the first time in a year we got to hug each other. I don\u2019t know if I would have survived the pandemic without the outdoors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Around the same time, she started Approachable Outdoors with the help of her brother, who built the website. The site aims to make hiking less intimidating by offering suggestions, routes and tips.<\/p>\n

She was self-conscious about it at first. She was a theater kid in high school, not an athlete, and she still calls herself a slow hiker, not an extreme person who eats 14ers for brunch. She found that her attitude was refreshing for those weary of all the blogs and comment boards filled with peak baggers bragging about how they\u2019d \u201cbombed\u201d Longs Peak.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt embarrassed sharing all these short hikes,\u201d Bearse said, \u201cbut I discovered there\u2019s a ton of people like me who want to enjoy them.\u201d<\/p>\n

She hopes the site helps people work through their fears of the outdoors. But she also wants to use the site to normalize mental health struggles: She occasionally mentions visits to her therapist on the air. When she does, people send her emails or tweets thanking her for empowering them.<\/p>\n

All fun, no follow up<\/div>\n

Stacy Bare spent many years telling people the outdoors saved his life. He is a war veteran who found rock climbing two years after his return from Iraq. The climbing and other adventures that followed, helped him, as he bluntly puts it, \u201cnot kill himself\u201d as a result of the mental health problems that followed him home from war, including post-traumatic stress disorder.<\/p>\n

He still believes in the outdoors, calling it \u201csuper good\u201d for people. But he also has some regrets about spreading the gospel.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have these transformative experiences in the outdoors, and then we think we are healed,\u201d Bare said. \u201cAnd then we form organizations to try to help others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bare did that, too. He was the director of Sierra Club Outdoors and works now as the executive director of Friends of Grand Rapids Parks in Michigan and as a consultant for organizations working in conservation and in health and wellness related to the outdoors. But his attitude has changed: He later considered the fact that there\u2019s no follow up with veterans once those trips were over. Many suffering from mental health still had a lot of work to do.<\/p>\n

\"Steamboat
Steamboat Springs residents Jason Stephen, left, and Scott Smallish float on their Big Agnes sleeping pads July 20, 2020, at Dome Lake in the Mount Zirkel Wilderness. (Matt Stensland\/Special to The Colorado Sun)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cCan we use the outdoors? We can,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I have failed by creating a narrative that all you need to do is get outside. Maybe that is all you need to do, but what helped me was connecting with people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bare eventually found his way back to traditional therapy and even medication after initially selling people on the idea that the outdoors was enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cCampfire therapy is great, but we have to recognize it for what it is,\u201d he said. \u201cMy biggest fear is that we actually hurt people. A third had a great time and feel better; a third had their lives transformed; and a third did really well but then we dropped them off without engagement, and they really need more engagement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bare returned from the war in 2007, when resources weren\u2019t there for soldiers unless they had a physical disability, he said. Bare had to find his own way out of the darkness, and the outdoors were there. That\u2019s no longer true: Mental health treatment is still tricky, but there\u2019s a lot more awareness and information about treating mental health, partly as a result of the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do need people feeling awe. 100%,\u201d Bare said. \u201cBut also, 100%, it\u2019s not enough to address the mental health crises in our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Kylie
Kylie Bearse, the morning meteorologist for Fox31 in Denver, says outdoor activities including hiking and skiing are an important part of her mental health regime. During the pandemic she and a friend slowly built up their endurance on hikes until they were hiking 13 miles together in Staunton State Park. (Dave Puente\/Special to The Colorado Sun)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Bearse relies on therapy and, occasionally, medications to help her as much as the outdoors. She knows now that it\u2019s OK to feel sad. When she does, she will watch a sad movie and cry, or bawl on the trail with a girlfriend.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no exact way to say, \u2018Here\u2019s how you are feeling better,\u2019\u201d Bearse said.<\/p>\n

Bearse is in a good place now. It\u2019s summer. She\u2019s off meds and spent many hours outside, including a recent trip to Vail, where she camped \u2013 more like glamped \u2013 in a bougie outdoor setting, complete with a bed. She\u2019s an extrovert and loves it when people who recognize her come up to say hello. She\u2019s also learned how to sometimes pull herself out of a funk. Sometimes, when she\u2019s forced to smile on camera, it makes her feel better.<\/p>\n

She also knows hiking gives her strength and recalls one trip to Lake Isabelle in the Brainard Lake Wilderness Area, high above Boulder.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re forced to breathe,\u201d she said. \u201cI feel a weight is lifted off my shoulders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her legs hurt, she said with a laugh. But her head was clear.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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