Topographic intervention: reconciling terrain and neurobiology with your mental and emotional health needs

[Ryan Jordan]

Companion forum thread to: Topographic intervention: reconciling terrain and neurobiology with your mental and emotional health needs

Walking is often prescribed as a catch-all fix for mental and emotional distress. But when generic advice like “go for a walk” doesn’t work, it’s not your fault – it’s the prescription that failed. This essay explores a more intentional framework: topographic intervention. By aligning terrain with specific emotional states – like using uphill climbs to metabolize anxiety or forested trails to cradle grief – walking becomes more than movement. It becomes medicine. Discover how matching physiology, emotion, and landscape can unlock walking’s real power for healing.

[Stephen M]

This has to be one of the most valuable essays I’ve ever read from anyone any where about the value and types of walking. I’ve been on hikes that were very relaxing and not taxing on my system at all. I’ve been on hikes that taxed my cardio and mental strength, but we great in their own way. All in all a brilliant essay. Thanks. PS. I’m 74 years young thanks to walking, hiking, biking, etc.

[Carcajou]

Ryan, thank you for this very insightful article. It helped provide more substance behind something I have been doing much of my life (75+ years now) to deal with myriad mental and decision making situations.

One of the most striking, for me, was shortly after my first wife died from cancer and I had been her care giver for two years I was trekking the “O” Circuit in Torres del Paine. On the first day at our lunch break I suddenly experienced an overwhelming sense of grief, lose, loneliness whence I safely isolated from the group during our lunch break. I was sobbing uncontrollably. Our group leader/guide noticed an came over to enquire on my well being. I briefly explained what I was experiencing. He told me that the next day we would be passing through a lenga (species of tree in Patagonia) forest for several hours. He said I could stay behind the rest of the group so that I could experience the healing power of the lenga forest. It was a seminal moment in my grieving and healing.

I have intentionally used walking in nature on numerous occasions, however, that experience was one of the most powerful.

Thank you.

[Thomas Sabido]

Ryan, a fantastic article. It echoes my experience. I have incorporated 3-day, 5-day, and 7-day backpacking trips as part of my life coach practice. When people are at a crossroads in life and not sure which way to go, the experience of navigating through the wilderness in nature helps them navigate their internal wilderness.

Well done!

[John Wheldon]

That was very good

Thank you

[tkkn c]

Insightful indeed!

Thanks

[James Foxworthy]

Thank you for writing this. Your writing just gets better and better.

My “luxury item” is “How to Walk” by Thich Nhat Hanh.  3.4 ounces in a zip loc that reminds me to pay attention to my steps and my breathing. Highly recommended.

[Nicholas P]

Walking is a basic form of bilateral brain stimulation.

“EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy is a structured form of psychotherapy that helps individuals process traumatic memories and experiences. It involves guiding the client to focus on a distressing memory while simultaneously engaging in bilateral stimulation, typically eye movements, but can also include other types of stimulation like tapping or sound. This process helps to reduce the intensity and emotional impact of the traumatic memories, allowing for healing and reduced distress.”

My guess is just the simple act of walking and pondering can help the brain to reprocess trauma , add in the beauty and solitude of nature as well as the other physiological benefits of hiking and you have a potent combination for healing!

Nice article!

[Terran Terran]

Emboldening while simultaneously quite humbling.

[Brad W]

Fantastic Ryan. These are the kinds of things that sets BPL apart. Having dealt with near crippling grief recently and using hiking as an outlet, this is tremendous.

[jscott]

“My “luxury item” is “How to Walk” by Thich Nhat Hanh.  3.4 ounces in a zip loc that reminds me to pay attention to my steps and my breathing. Highly recommended.”

this is a great read, as is most everything by Thich Nhat Hanh. Thomas Merton is recommended too, in terms of finding the sacred in yourself by way of nature: or vice versa. We’re intertwined with our environments,  as we know. And that last brings us back to the article.

p.s.,, for me, mental and emotional health are one thing. They’re intertwined too. My argument with technology is largely based on the tech assumption that knowledge (“the brain”) is independent of our emotions. Hence people work in cubicles. Hence, people trust their devices and not themselves to tell them where they are.

[Terran Terran]

Hence, people trust their devices and not themselves to tell them where they are.

And who they are.

[Terran Terran]

[Steve Thompson]

Ryan, thanks for sharing your hypothesis and experience.  I agree with the hypothesis that a walk in and of itself is not always medicine.  For me, the effort and attentiveness I need to expend are the variables that make it matter.  It was 1999, at age 42 when I discovered how to “heal” my head and my heart on a walk.

When I am troubled or working through difficult circumstances terrain that allows me to get into an effortless rhythm for 2-3 hours is key.  My mind quiets and without the noise I can reassemble things piece by piece.

I worked through grief on Tonto Trail.  I saw the hand of God in the beauty and it somehow connected that my image of God was formed by what I saw my dad do, how he acted, treated others, etc.  And it hit that my kids’ image is what they see in me and, then the acceptance that I had lost my “guide”, my example.  I cried for nearly an hour in release of my grief.

During Covid just getting out and walking about the neighborhood kept life from feeling too closed in.

When scattered, a Class 3 ascent or descent focuses me in the moment.

And when frustrated or angry, pushing myself on a hard uphill seems to work it out of me.

Again, thanks for sharing, and also to those of you sharing your experience on this thread.

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