How does coaching in the wild differ from ‘normal’ coaching? Great question – coaching should be an open and honest relationship between coach and coachee. There’s just something that is difficult to verbalise that takes place in your brain when you change the scenery and start to discuss the things that are causing you pain in your life in the wild. Scientifically, your prefrontal cortex, the brain’s command centre essentially dials itself down – my own suggestion is that this is partly due to the lack of distraction of technology, but also to the new environment giving other areas of the brain something to think about. Whatever and however this magic happens, just being outside can absolutely increase our focus and ability to consider our issues in a different light.
In fact, numerous studies have shown that even moderate walking can have hugely positive effects on your brain, including the reduction of stress and anxiety, improved problem-solving capabilities. Recently another study from The Lancet showed that on average, people who were suffering from depression and/or anxiety that engaged in exercise reported a 43% drop in the number of ‘bad days’ they had.
People tend to open up WAY more in the outdoors than they do sat in an office environment with a coach – again, it’s something I struggle to document, but simply breathing fresh air and having someone there who allows you to challenge yourself about the things holding you back is such a positive thing to do.
Just some of the benefits of walking in the hills with your ManCoach:
- Improves overall fitness and builds muscle
- Helps you lose weight
- Helps you become more creative
- Improves overall mental health
There’s a high probability that the outcome you come to when considering your barriers while out in the hills, will be much more creative, and how you actually come to those outcomes will be different due to the increased problem solving abilities while doing medium to strenuous activities such as walking up a hill.
And lastly – man, you’re going to get fitter, feel healthier and have a really interesting and exhilarating time, meet different people with different problems they’re looking to overcome and generally feel like you’ve achieved something after the day.