climbing trees as therapy?

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treeman82

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I have found that if I am really pissed off, upset, worried about something, etc. That if I go climb a tree, my mind becomes clear, and all those things stop bothering me. Have there been any studies done that would prove or disprove that climbing trees has some theraputic characteristics?
 
dude you do need therapy.....

its simple, tree climbing makes you focus on the task at hand. any loss of concentration could hurt ya. it allows you to put all that crap out of your mind. i don't think tree's have any thing to do with it though. if you climbed rock or ice you would feel the same way, focused

some people bike, rope splice, run etc. thats why i like to do my little mountaineering trips. all i need to worry about is food water shelter.
 
For laughs I go to sf.inymedia.org to read about the nuts in the San Fran area and all of their causes and demonstrations. They have a section called (i think)"forest defender updates" that talks about the tree sits and all of the crazyness that goes on to stop the logging of the big trees out there. They do some care free climbing.....Naked, smoking pot, and who knows what else. Sounds very relaxing. I asked my wife if she would mind if I went to Humbolt next year for a week and join a tree sit, but unfortunatly she said she would leave me if I did.... I don't agree with all of their political views, but I bet they would be a pretty cool bunch to hang out with for a few days.

T82 --- I hear you man!! Nothing is better than climbing a tree (at night usually) to unwind and clear your head. Take a hammock up there and you are really in a whole different world. I love it. Too bad I don't get to do it too often.
Greg
 
Hey, Greg, that care free climbing attitude has gotten some of those tree sitters seriously injured and killed. They tend to operate with undersized gear and an underdeveloped appreciation of the danger they court. Have great care if you decide to hang with that crowd :(.
 
I've found it to be great physical therapy as well as mental. Broken back several years ago. I ain't no youngster, either. But still love it so long as it doesn't lose me money or life.
 
I've read about several tree sitters falling to their death, and one who was in the way of a falling tree and got smushed. Trust me I'm not hanging out with that croud, I'm sure that I am much too straight for those folks. Just dreaming about how nice it would be to have -0- responsibility and not a care in the world...
Greg
 
Or dreaming what it would be like to be a trust fund baby with enough time to park your Range Rover and go tree sit for a few months with no worry about work or responsibility?
 
At this stage of the game, I wish I could climb as good as some of the other members of this site. Being in a tree once or twice a week isn't enough to really hone your skills. Every once in a while I have a day where everything goes just right. You feel like you own the tree and you climb as perfect as you can. These are the days when climbing does it for me!
 
As an instructor, the best part of the school year is my fall climbing class with the students. I still show them how to do each thing before I ask them to do it. The feeling gets better when one of them goes to TCI and completes the work climb in 3 min 11 seconds, almost flawlessly. I think he was 7th overall. I have always said that I will climb until it is no longer fun. Figure I have another 20+ years, since I am only 55 now. I still do occasional removals and trims for companies in the area when they are unsure which way to go. So far my mistakes have only bent a few eave troughs and my uncle's diesel fuel tank, many years ago.

Bob Underwood, in the snow covered hills of ND. 6" now and 3-6 still coming, with a slight 30 mph breeze. All courtesy of the folks in Ark, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa and thereabouts according to the radar. The wind is courtesy of Canada. Everyone shares with ND.
 
Therapeutic for the mind, and i've found for the back to if you have a back problem that is, really it works every muscle as you probably already know, but always remember to leave the saws etc in the truck....Jock, oh and hope all you people have a nice christmas and a prosperous new year, all the best..
 
It's all about doing something you enjoy. I can put a block of wood on the lathe and turn it out then realize several hours have gone buy because there is no more light to see by.
 
Tree climbing has been my peacefull repose, especially after finding earplugs i like; though, when there are no saws singing w/o earplugs is nice too!

There is a train of thought, that tree climbing is a perfect exercise that i read long before climbing professionally. For as yoga seeks to recoup essential movements, by leaning towards paraplays of more naturally well animals, by tracing the animate stages of existance in motions, massaging the organism to health and well being. So, tree climbing, achieves all the stretching, strengthening, massaging of skin, nerves, muscle, bone, ligament etc. and also and highest in their focus massage the intestines. The theories point out, that every other animate life form moves and exercises all this in their particular form of locomotion. As an amoeba grows and reaches, a fish waves it's whole body, a snake squirms its length, quadpeds walk in cross axis alignmeant, a bird flys (compressing adominals with every stroke), monkeys climb etc. all maximizing intestinal massage.

It goes on to modern man not having that, and that tree climbing mimicks the closest organism to our structure, that achieves this that we have lost. And without all this toxins build up etc. Also, that stuff builds up in the mind that isn't past out parrallelling that, so people have to go to shrinx, bartenders, hairdressors to get rid of those undigestibale masses!! So by exercising the mind and body, to the like functions of all other life makes some sense for total health. Also, they did a study where climbers are more 'regular', attributed to the compression/expansion-massaging of the intestinal cavity.
 
Treeman82 if you went to a career counselor(for about $70 an hour) they would tell you your "in the zone" when you climb and your doing what you are meant to do. Most people hate their jobs and live for weekends or retirement, poor saps.
 
Originally posted by treeman82
I have found that if I am really pissed off, upset, worried about something, etc. That if I go climb a tree, my mind becomes clear, and all those things stop bothering me. Have there been any studies done that would prove or disprove that climbing trees has some theraputic characteristics?


It's quite understandable why we enjoy climbing into trees. It wasn't all that long ago that we were living in them.


Bob Wulkowicz



(And it's very likely we peed out of them too.)
 

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