Climbing For Mental Health

WE OFTEN TALK ABOUT the mental side of climbing, like how to overcome fear, visualize success, and be a better overall climber.

- Hailey Moore

But there’s another cognitive aspect of climbing that’s grown in recent years: Psychologists are using climbing as treatment for mental health disorders. Younghee Lowry, a crisis worker in Tahoe, California, uses climbing as a type of “mindfulness therapy,” a treatment described by the American Psychological Association (APA) as “paying attention to one’s experience in the present moment, observing thoughts and emotions from moment to moment without judging.” We spoke with Lowry about her experiences with patients learning to climb and how it plays into their mental health treatment plan.

What does your full-time job look like as a clinician?

I work for El Dorado County with a team of people that go out into the community to do outreach. We also have transitional houses inhabited by people who have just left behavioral court. [In court] they’re given a choice: Go to jail or go to these transitional houses. Oftentimes the diagnoses are co-occurring, meaning they have some kind of addiction issue along with a mental health issue, like being bipolar. Some of my clients have seen the most improvement from climbing are acutely schizophrenic; many have heard voices and been hospitalized multiple times.

How many clients have you taken climbing, and how many have benefitted?

The crux of getting the dozens of clients out is just getting them out—finding the motivation for them to get out of the house and exercise. I would say it was a very successful experience for every single client—once I managed to get them out. Schizophrenic patients have reported to me that they’ve been absent of their symptoms during climbing. That’s basically a mindfulness exercise where they are so engaged in the moment that it does seem to decrease their symptoms.