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11 years, Australia
6 years ago
How Mountains Help Anxiety and Depression
Instead of Doctor House advises we decided to ask ‘Doctor Peak’ — how the mountains can help you to cure the depression and midlife crisis. He was strict but fair: take one part of trekking, one part of hot sun and two parts of incredible azure sky. Shake, don’t stir. Take these medication during one week or more (depending on the diagnosis).
Diagnosis: office burnout
Recipe: shift the picture
You are emotionally dried to the bottom? There are different methods to manage, but the mountains are top-of-the-line. Furthermore, they are cheaper and healthier than your average alcohol and parties budget. So change your environment!
In addition, highlands are bigger than your office problems and yelling boss. And coffee, made outdoors by yourself, will taste way better than your regular machine coffee.
Destination: Nepal, Annapurna Base Camp (4130 m)
Photo: Simon English for Unsplash
Why Nepal? To see the greatest peaks of the world, to switch off city addiction and to feel and accept the wisdom of loneliness.
Diagnosis: remorse
Recipe: become a hero
You are 40 years old, you love your wife and kids (and even relatives); you are satisfied with your job, but by night you continue to recollect your student dreams about conquering the world… And apparently, your physical form has been buried by daily car trips and weekend beer years ago.
Destination: Kilimanjaro, Africa (5895 m)
Photo: Sergey Pesterev for Unsplash
There is a let-out. Travel to Kilimanjaro. There you can feel yourself like a writer (remember Ernest Hemingway?), a pathbreaker (say hi to David Livingstone) and an alpinist (not Sir Edmund Hillary, but close).
And regarding the physical form: even 7-years old and 80-years folks can climb the highest African peak. You can conquer it as well.
Diagnosis: divorce
Recipe: make your wife proud
Recall that poor moment, when you catch your wife’s delightful look at James Bond? And you are not so fitted, handsome, clever (underline as appropriate). But you can be James Bond nevertheless! It is not as difficult as you may think.
Сlimb Mt Kościuszko in Australia (and do not forget to take your wife along). In prospect, the Swiss entity from “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” movie can be imagined as Mt Kościuszko in Australia. And upscale Schilthorn restaurant — as local Eagle Nest café.
Destination: Mt Kościuszko, Australia (2228 m)
Ride the chairlift up to the end: from this point you need to trek or snowshoe to the summit. When you will be back tanned and happy, your wife, after awaiting you in the café, will see her husband from a different light. Refresh her memory with the knowledge, that George Lazenby (James Bond from before-mentioned film) is native Australian, and there was a possibility that he also climbed this mountain… The case is closed and your family is saved.
Diagnosis: inevitable mortality
Recipe: touch the sacred knowledge
One of the depression and/or midlife crisis specifics is the returning speculation “Oh God, oh God, we all have to die”. Fight it with trekking of Ararat mountain in Turkey. Eventually people continue to search for Noah’s Arc there presently (including American astronaut James Irwin, the 8th person on the Moon). Not interested in Noah’s vessel? Think about him as the person, who had been mentioned in the Bible as the first winemaker. This and the fact that Noah lives through 950 years, must set you up for the positive thinking about your aging.
Destination: Ararat Mt, Turkey (5137 m)
Photo: Artak Petrosyan for Unsplash
If you are not an experienced climber, but want to trek anyway, you can ride a donkey or horse until you reach 4000 m of altitude (but the last animal doesn’t look that biblical, isn’t it?).
Diagnosis: sense of purpose deprivation
Recipe: look at the lost Inka’s city and pull together
Take a look to the Machu-Picchu city: no one knows the purpose of its installation or true name. The reason why its inhabitants flee remains an open question. Were their efforts useless? Certainly not. Then, your meaning of being may lay ahead.
Destination: Machu-Picchu, Peru (2450 m)
Photo: Jamie Davies for Unsplash
Touch the ancient stones, look around and clear your brains. Think twice: if your office or social life so intimidating, maybe you should change it not only for the vacation but forever? Be brave and let yourself choose freely. Cities are captured by boldness! Or bouldering. It’s up to you.
***
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