At irregular intervals we present here a text from anders - Journal of Psychological Morphology. It will be online for a few weeks. Today it is the column of Franklin Schmitt "How wandering moves us mentally" from anders 10/2012.
Franklin Schmitt
How hiking moves us mentally
"Hiking takes the place of an hour with a psychotherapist," says one hiker. Previously unnerved and depressed, she returns from hiking only a few hours later feeling balanced and as if freed from all the burdens of everyday life. "You come out of the woods a different person than you went in," another attributes to hiking. Hiking helps to straighten out the little problems of everyday life, but also to overcome life crises. Understanding the world a little better and thinking through problems can succeed better on a hike than anywhere else. On hikes we recharge our batteries for professional and private burdens. The statements show that hiking changes us, but how does this effect come about?
For morphology, the description of mental constitutions passes over into explanations. In the following, therefore, the specific constitution of wandering will be described in brief outlines, and in this way the effects mentioned will be made understandable. Which mental constitution is formed during hiking? What distinguishes it from other leisure activities and where does it merge with other forms of leisure sport?
When hiking, our lives are more manageable than in our everyday lives, which are otherwise overflowing with offers and activities: Provisions, clothing, equipment, routes and running times are limited. We rely on "fixed" equipment and try out few new things. What we take with us and what we don't, we don't think about every time anew. So luggage and provisions are always the same: typical are mineral water, fruit, bread and a change of T-shirt. As a rule, we want to stick to the planned route and not leave it.
Walking is different from other recreational locomotion. A walk is easy and smooth, whereas a hike is more tiring due to adversities such as bumpy paths, slopes and hidden routes. We expect to gain new impressions from hiking, but not necessarily from a walk: on Sundays, for example, we walk the same circular route around the lake. We equip ourselves for hiking, but not for a walk. Hiking ends where the striving for maximum performance pushes the experience of nature into the background. "Blindly" walking through the forest to complete a distance in as short a time as possible is perceived as sport, not hiking. In the mountains, if the difficulty of the passage is the main focus, as in tricky via ferrata, hiking turns into climbing. Hiking in the mountains usually involves going up by lift, along a panoramic path from hut to hut and overall more downhill than up.
Having delimited wandering, let us dissect its constitution descriptively. Wandering lets us experience pivot points of life in short periods of time. It shows that our life does not run evenly and only in one direction. In the morning we feel limp and need to get going. After the first few kilometres we have found our rhythm, feel strong and could run on forever. But at some point our bones get tired and now it's time to grit our teeth and keep going. Typical is the following intermediate high, but this does not last long. When we finally reach our destination, we feel relieved of all our burdens.
The constitution of hiking is a work between planning and trying. Hikes are usually carefully prepared, we inquire about the route, the time required and the weather. Map and compass help with orientation. Hiking signs help to stay on the path. However, hiking does not only keep us on the safe side, it also conveys the joy of the unknown: Surprises, diversions along the way and new vistas are part of it and enliven it. Getting involved with things that "just happen to cross your path" are the discovery joys of hiking. We conquer unknown terrain, follow winding paths and enjoy new vistas. We find dead-straight farm tracks with spruce forest on the left and right boring. The ideal hiking route offers, depending on the individual abilities, the right amount of orientation as well as free space for discoveries at the same time.
Thus, the description reveals that wandering is a dramatization of life. It shows analogies to the early human form of existence as "gatherer and hunter". In wandering we experience the struggle for survival as a parable. Other features of this constitution are apt to confirm this intermediate finding.
Making plans alone is not enough when hiking, only decisive action gets things moving. Because hiking sometimes challenges risky decisions. Procrastinating in the face of problems does not help. If you get lost and don't know which way to go, you have to decide on a direction in the end. Otherwise he will not get out of the forest. A drama of persevering to the goal, even in difficult sections, is typical of hiking.
In this way, hiking allows us to experience the relationship between opportunity and limitation: Overexertion of one's own strength, even danger to one's life, are often at work in the background. Getting caught up in catastrophes, mostly near catastrophes, is a rare but typical hiking experience. Getting lost, getting caught in a thunderstorm or a heavy snowstorm, but somehow still getting home safely, shows how little we have our lives under control. From hike to hike, we increase our radius and manage increasingly longer and more challenging routes. But hiking also shows us that there is no land of unlimited possibilities. We feel the limitations in our own bodies when we underestimate a route. Thus, hiking develops our self-assessment both towards our possibilities and our limits. After a tour, we can be positively surprised to have completed it, even though we had not thought we could do it beforehand.
Back to the initial question, how the positive effect of hiking comes about. The conclusion is in front of us. Hiking forms a constitution that responds to our need for planning and security as well as our longing for novelty and adventure. It allows us to savor limits as well as possibilities. Wandering acts as a parable because it makes the demands and contradictions of our lives comprehensively perceptible and enables us to experience them in a circle that is manageable in time. Whoever embarks on a wandering journey is taking on the fundamental conditions and risks of life. The route they take psychologically allows them to look at life differently when they reach their destination.