Skiing and Mental Health

As someone who is poised to to re-enter the ski world after what seemed like a never ending hiatus, with one of the big reasons im going to start immediately skiing my ass off is that I really do believe that skiing makes me truly happy, allows me to enter of a state of Nirvana, I was mulling over the idea of an article about Skiing and mental health (that's a very general theme).So heres my little story, seen in whats on my mind thread as well, So I Have Missed every chance I had to go skiing the past two seasons, not because I had to focus on my studies, or my schedule was too busy, but because I was in too much of a depressed funk, or was made to feel guilty about "wasting" the money on this seemingly unnecessary and expensive "hobby". Needless to say after two years im more than happy to be done with a toxic relationship, and re-embrace my absolute favorite thing to do in the world. These past two years without skiing have really made me think about it, and actually think alot about skiing's affect on my physical well being as well as my mental health. It seemed to me that when things would get especially bad in the relationship, I could always very easily recall a few specific very happy memories from when I was young ( thats significant as well, I can barely remember anything except a few truly traumatic or extraordinary events from when I was born to around Grade 7-8) of me skiing in Quebec, Mont Tremblant with my close family and family friends. It seems no matter what, what someone is screaming in my face, whatever thoughts are racing through my head stopping me from sleeping at 5am, whether im sleeping on the floor of a shelter on nothing but a high school gym stretch mat; I can almost perfectly recall any the hundreds of amazing memories I have of skiing, and no matter where I am I can draw comfort from that memory. Anyway, when I joined this group I was thinking of some pretty different ideas for articles, and I think that added along with the crap situation I was in, my mindset, and my daily consumption of alcohol made me let those ideas and inspirations slip away, but now Im back and im hoping better then ever.

This is my first night of coherent and truly individual thought ive had in awhile, so my ideas of the article are very basic, very early. But I know for a fact that skiing helps my mental condition, some of the clearest and greatest times of life were when I was skiing as much as I could, So I cant help but think that many of my fellow newschoolers feel the same. My idea so far is just that id like to do skiing justice for all the help and guidance its given me in my life, possibly just talking about my experiences, especially concerning the upcoming months and how Im able to deal with ending a long and serious relationship. But then that got me the idea that maybe theres more stories out there, then I thought hey I KNOW theres more stories out there about the benefits of skiing. So anyway, just thought id create this to get a little discussion going, throw some ideas around, id for sure like to eventually wind up creating and releasing an article with this theme in mind, a collab kind of thing with several different peoples stories and how they all benefited from skiing would be a blast too, god knows im already diggin a huge hole saying I can write my whole own article.

Anyway Newschoolers, its 2017, weve all been admitting or showing were pretty fucked up for awhile now, ld love to throw a feel good piece together about it, oh but I was thhinking someone MUST HAVE done something pretty similar to this so please shut me down if they have, if not please Newschoolers, lend your voice and tell me what skiing has done for you.
 
TLDR; SLIPPERY PLANKS MAKE YOU HAPPY?! Truly happy? Like the kind of happiness that not even the darkest memory or thoughts can intrude upon, then please share.
 
Hey mate!

Stoked you're keen on mental health. You may have seen my article about mental health in ski communities a while back but in case you didn't here --https://www.newschoolers.com/news/read/Unbuckling-suicide-belt

Im glad you want to write a more positive vibe piece because I was trying to draw attention to the problems we face as a community and it can be a little confronting..

As a suggestion it would be awesome to focus on specific experiences like you said instead of regurgitating obvious things like endorphin's from excercise, getting back into nature blah blah crap because I feel like that's been written about.

I know when I held one of my events for mental health we talked about things that make us happy when we ski and something that was mentioned that I'd never realised before is that skiing is kind of like meditation in that it can empty your mind. You don't focus on anything but fun, line choice, trick choice etc. so it gives your mind a break from your daily stresses.

People also mentioned creativity a lot which is great for depression and anxiety.

If you can really capture quality stories on happiness I think it will be awesome. Why skiing makes people happy is one of those personal ones - it's something that can't be described to someone who doesn't ski, you have to become a skier to find out! They will be cool stories to share.

Message me if you have any questions on mental health!!

slushawareness.com
 
13787166:Lymecity said:
Hey mate!

Stoked you're keen on mental health. You may have seen my article about mental health in ski communities a while back but in case you didn't here --https://www.newschoolers.com/news/read/Unbuckling-suicide-belt

Im glad you want to write a more positive vibe piece because I was trying to draw attention to the problems we face as a community and it can be a little confronting..

As a suggestion it would be awesome to focus on specific experiences like you said instead of regurgitating obvious things like endorphin's from excercise, getting back into nature blah blah crap because I feel like that's been written about.

I know when I held one of my events for mental health we talked about things that make us happy when we ski and something that was mentioned that I'd never realised before is that skiing is kind of like meditation in that it can empty your mind. You don't focus on anything but fun, line choice, trick choice etc. so it gives your mind a break from your daily stresses.

People also mentioned creativity a lot which is great for depression and anxiety.

If you can really capture quality stories on happiness I think it will be awesome. Why skiing makes people happy is one of those personal ones - it's something that can't be described to someone who doesn't ski, you have to become a skier to find out! They will be cool stories to share.

Message me if you have any questions on mental health!!

slushawareness.com

God damn thank you so much for that reply, I know im going to be talking to you alot to get this going, I was still on the fence about giving my all to this, but damn did you just kick my ass into high gear. Ive been skiing all week, and I can tell the difference in my attitude and general demeanor, so can my family. All it took was week, 2 nights at an actual hill then every night spending hours on end just riding one big tube. That not only convinced me that I really shouldnt get back in that relationship, cut it right fuck out, but as long as can ski im content. which is more than I can say for my mood in the past little while
 
13788026:ZeMagnificentKev said:
God damn thank you so much for that reply, I know im going to be talking to you alot to get this going, I was still on the fence about giving my all to this, but damn did you just kick my ass into high gear. Ive been skiing all week, and I can tell the difference in my attitude and general demeanor, so can my family. All it took was week, 2 nights at an actual hill then every night spending hours on end just riding one big tube. That not only convinced me that I really shouldnt get back in that relationship, cut it right fuck out, but as long as can ski im content. which is more than I can say for my mood in the past little while

For sure give it a shot. We've actually had a lot of people come through our system who just gave writing a shot because they had an idea and found out they really liked it. Could be a whole new side to skiing for you as well.
 
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