GO ON: RE-WILD YOUR BRAIN

Burned out? Dragged down? Cooped up? Hit “restore” with the truly great outdoors.

- NICK HEIL

BACK IN 2016, Manny Almonte joined some friends on a camping trip to Lake George in the Adirondacks of upstate New York. Almonte had grown up in the Dominican Republic, so he'd known nature. But since moving to New York City in the mid-'90s, he hadn't experienced the powerful restorative benefits bestowed by time in the wild. That camping trip unlocked something for him: Nature was a potent mental health tool—one not tapped by many people.

Almonte would go on to create Camping to Connect in 2018, a nonprofit that runs outdoor trips for young men of color, and soon he was inviting other New Yorkers to spend a few nights under the stars. At first, it was a tough sell.

“I said, ‘Let’s go into nature and go camping,’ and it was like, ‘Hell, nah! That’s what white people do,’” Almonte says. Yet people signed up—and reaped the rewards. “It’s nighttime around the fire,” he says, and they’re opening up, “talking about their fathers, and big, fit guys are breaking down and crying.”

I can relate. I’ve spent a lifetime outdoors and experienced this kind of social bonding, deep conversation, and real emotion. I’m so drawn to the power of the outdoors that I’ve shaped my life around it. Where I live (a small town in the southern Rockies), who I spend time with, how I work and play—I’ve optimized my access to the wild. Only recently, though, have I begun to understand exactly how and why the environment contributes in a big way to overall health and happiness.