Kashmir Is the Real Wellness App

As anxiety and screen fatigue rise across India, a mindful movement in Kashmir is inviting people to log off and step outside. It’s not a treatment. It’s a walk in the woods.

- Muneer Ahmed Gashi

Every morning, just after the sun lifts over the Zabarwan hills, a group of young men and women gather by the banks of Dal Lake. Some come with bicycles ad mats. Others with nothing at all.

They don't talk much. Instead, they sit facing the water, listen-ing to the sound of paddles cutting through the lake's soft surface. It's not a class. There's no teacher. Just the lake, the sky, and an agreement to be present.

Kashmir, long known for its beau-ty, is becoming something else too. A kind of natural therapy room. Not everyone calls it ecotherapy. Some just say, “Let's go to the hills.”

But the idea is the same: being in nature helps. And here, there’s no shortage of nature to turn to.

The rise in mental health issues is no longer a whisper. In India, the 2015-16 National Mental Health Survey found that nearly 14 out of every 100 people suffer from some form of mental disorder.

That was before the pandem-ic, before the lockdowns, before screens became not just a habit but a refuge and a trap.

Today, there are more phones than toilets in the country. A child might spend five to six hours a day on a device and still feel alone. An adult might scroll through a lunch break and wonder why they feel restless by dinner.

And yet, less than one in ten In-dians who need mental health sup-port get it. In Kashmir, where access to therapists is even harder, people are turning to what's always been around them: mountains, lakes, trees.