Psychology of Post-Trail Depression in Thru-hikers: What You Need to Know
My last post was about my own experience with post-trail depression (PTD). This post will be about what exactly PTD is and how it comes about. I’ll be following this post with suggestions for avoiding and healing from PTD.
I’d like to start this section by saying that I am not a medical or psychiatric professional, so I can only tell you what other people who have more education have to say on the topic of the how’s and why’s of Post-Trail Depression.
Symptoms of Post-Trail Depression
Some signs of PTD as designated by Dr. Chidester include: “If a person doesn’t want to re-engage at all in their life, they don’t want to do things that they previously enjoyed, they are isolating themselves from people, they don’t want to get a job, they are having suicidal thoughts, they’re coping with substance abuse, or if they’re feeling down, depressed or blue.”4
Some less common symptoms of PTD I’ve recently read about, but that make sense to me, include feeling overwhelmed by how noisy the non-natural world is, decluttering and selling off possessions to make home-life more minimalistic, inability to leave the house, and anxiety.5, 6 Other people describe their experience as “reverse culture shock,” with an emphasis on how they are now disgusted with the unnecessary consumerism and materialism that is rampant in today’s world.10
Something like PTD has been seen in other extreme athletic groups such as olympians, veterans and professional athletes when they withdraw from their respective activities. (It’s less studied in thru-hikers though, since this is a relatively newer and less populated sport.) These groups often also experience social estrangement, depression, grief at the loss of sense of self, and biochemical withdrawal.4 Identity of extreme athletes is often intensely linked to their status as an athlete, so when an athlete retires (or a hiker finishes their thru) they lose a big part of who they are.8
The Psychology Behind Post-Trail Depression
Cory Nyamora, a licensed clinical psychologist and endurance sports coach, suggests that feelings of depression are to be expected post hike. The abrupt transition from constant, healthy outdoor exercise in beautiful nature with few worries, to being stuck inside all day, out of the sun, at a sedentary desk job that brings up a lot of existential questions and worries can be depressing.3
In an article written on The Trek by Anne K. Baker, she opines from her educated position as a licensed therapist that “post-trail depression” is actually grief, not depression. She writes about hikers’ common post-trail experiences that she gathered in a series of interviews, and came up with the acronym SPACE for the most common themes expressed (Simplicity, Purpose, Adventure, Community, Extreme Exercise).1
- Simplicity: There is a positive correlation between a voluntarily simple lifestyle and well-being, as well as a positive correlation between the number of choices a person has, and the more dissatisfied they are. 1 I took this to mean that while on trail, we lead a very simple life-style that satisfies our monkey-brains, and the moment we got off trail, everything was way more complicated, with a lot more decisions to make, so our quality of life and satisfaction with life immediately went downhill, leading to our so-called PTD.
- Purpose: The entire trail we had a purpose, a destination that drove us: to finish the trail, to arrive at the border with either Mexico or Canada.1 But when we got off trail, either having accomplished the goal or not, we suddenly didn’t have a purpose driving us, and we’re left not knowing what to do, or where to go.
- Adventure: Hikers tend to daydream about the Type 2 fun they had on trail (which is essentially the hard shit that happened that sucked in the moment but that we look back on with fond memories and awesome stories). Daydreaming happens in the Default Mode Network (DMN) of the brain where self-referential processing happens when the brain isn’t occupied with other tasks, which is essentially how the brain knows who we are and how we fit in. Depression is often linked to negative self-focus in the DMN, but hikers are always focusing on good memories of themselves when they’re daydreaming, which Baker says probably means that hikers aren’t depressed.1
- Community: Community on trail (tramily) is one of the major ways that thru-hikers make it through the hard days and enjoy the awesome days. The trail community, be it other hikers, trail angels or just people in town who like hikers, are the reason most of us love the suffer-fest that is a 4 to 6 month trek through the woods. When you’re on trail, everyone is very real, and true to themselves, and for the most part that means that everyone is awesome and a genuinely good person that treats you well. It’s easy to make fast friends with everyone because you’re all sharing in your suffering, and because you have a common goal. But this means that when you get off trail, you lose this community that has been supporting you so heavily for so long. That hurts a lot. 1
- Extreme Exercise: The trail life is essentially exercise all day, every day, which ends up releasing a lot of endorphins which are basically the body’s natural opioids that are stronger than morphine. She compares the Opponent Process Theory, ie what goes up must come down, to what hikers go through: several months of constant endorphins (happy drugs) from constant exercise, leads to withdrawals when the exercise suddenly ends. ie post-trail depression.1
Baker’s conclusions after her interviews were essentially that the post-trail depression many hikers experience isn’t depression at all. It’s grief.
Although I tend to agree with Baker’s assessment and conclusions that PTD is actually PTG, since the current colloquial term is post-trail depression, I’m inclined to continue using that term, as its more recognizable.
But she clarifies that the grief isn’t just from the loss of SPACE, or the loss of the trail. There’s more to it. She says it has more to do with loss of one’s sense of self, the loss of who the hiker was when they were on the trail.1 To exist properly in our society today, a hiker can’t easily be the person they were on trail. “Relationships orient us to ourselves. A hiker’s relationship with the trail is no different: the trail allows us to experience ourselves as strong, patient, loving, resourceful. The trail allows us to experience ourselves as the forms of self we value and respect the most. The perceived loss of that sense of self feels almost unbearable; we don’t want to let go of it, or of the relationship that facilitated such a valuable way of being. This, it seems, is the core substance of what is actually post-trail grief.” (Baker)1
Baker makes it clear that a lot of people consciously or subconsciously relate their relationship with the trail to a relationship with a significant other or a lover. As in, getting off trail is like a break-up that leaves the hiker broken hearted.1Something interesting she shared from her study is that age (at least between 20’s and 30’s, since that is the age group of the random people she happened to study), gender and previous history of depression have nothing to do with how people are affected by post-trail grief.1
Contributing Factors to Post-Trail Depression
From a less scientific perspective, but that someone who was a psychologist or doctor might be able to shed some light on, here are some other contributing factors to Post-Trail Depression:
- Money & Finances2, 4, 5: Coming off trail, a lot of people don’t have a job, are out of money, can’t afford a place to stay, and more; I’ve even heard of hikers that end up homeless on the streets, and although many of us are essentially homeless while on trail, that’s by choice, not by circumstance. The stress of worrying about money and finances can be a big drag on the mood post trail. Additionally, after 4 to 6 months hiking, plus however long beforehand that they spent preparing, and however long after the fact that they spent recovering, they might have over a year of a gap on their resume that might be hard to explain to many employers.
- Responsibilities2: Some people get off trail and have to return to responsibilities that they’ve had half a year away from, like dependents, family, higher education, or stressful jobs. Life off trail is a lot more difficult and complicated than life on trail.
- Psychological Factors2, 5: The moment you get off trail, you’re not receiving the steady stream of endorphins that is a direct response to intense physical exercise day in and day out. This means you’re not getting all those happy drugs anymore, so you’re going through a sense of withdrawals. Also, you’re now not getting constantly bathed in that delicious sun drug, Vitamin D, and you might in fact be Vitamin D deficient as many people in today’s world are, which is linked to depression and other mental and physical health problems.
- Physical Factors2, 4, 5: Linked to the psychological factors and less endorphins, you’re not getting constant exercise anymore, which means physical health can start deteriorating. You’re also still in “eat everything in sight” mode due to Trail Hunger (on trail you needed 5-6,000 calories/day to survive), but since you’re not burning calories anymore (let’s face it, even if you manage to force yourself out of your PTD long enough to go to the gym a few times a week, you’re not going to be burning nearly as many calories as you were on trail), you’re starting to gain weight rapidly. Lot’s of people also get hurt on trail, and either get off early as a result or push themselves to the end and end up more injured as a result, so even if they wanted to, they couldn’t do much exercise once they get home.
- Friendship & Family Transition2, 5: Nothing can compare to the friends and tramily you made on trail. Those people shared everything with you: a purpose, the challenges, the pain, the joy, the views. They were also the people that know a completely different side of you than anyone else in the real world. And they’re different from people in the real world, in the sense that trail folk are a different breed. The transition from those people to the people at home is difficult. Additionally, you may have changed while your home friends didn’t, making it difficult to remain friends with those people.
- Personal Factors2: You probably changed while on trail, and now your puzzle piece might not fit as well as it did in the puzzle of your old life. New things matter that didn’t before, and old things don’t matter as much. Your sense of self has changed or maybe been lost entirely.
Suicide & Depression Hotlines
If you were hit a lot harder by PTD, or are having some other problems, I’d like to provide some resources for you to contact. Please find someone like a trusted friend, family member or therapist to help you through these tough times. But if they aren’t enough, call one of these hotlines:
- Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
- For deaf or hard of hearing folks, see this website: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/help-yourself/for-deaf-hard-of-hearing/
- Para la Línea Nacional de la Prevención del Suicidio en Español, llame: 1-888-628-9454
- For the Crisis Text Line, Text HOME to 741-741
For other resources that might be more specific to your demographic and include 24-hour hotlines, see the list below:
- American Association of Suicidology
- American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
- Befrienders Worldwide
- The Columbia Lighthouse Project
- Covenant House (The 9 Line)
(800) 999-9999 - Families for Depression Awareness
- The Friendship Line
800-971-0016 - I’m Alive
- International Suicide Hotline Listings
- LGBT National Hotline
888-843-4564 - National Parent Helpline
855-427-2736 - National Runaway Switchboard
(800) 621-4000
- Psycom.net
- Sage LQBT Elder Hotline
888-234-7243 - Safe Place
- Self-harm Hotline
1-800-366-8288 - 7 Cups
- Suicide Hotline Listing by State
- Suicide Prevention Action Network USA
- Suicide Prevention Resource Center
- The Trevor Project
- UCLA School Mental Health Project: Hotlines for suicide prevention and other crisis resources
- ULifeLine: Resources for college mental health
- Vets Prevail
If you live in another country, I’m not sure how effective some of these hotlines will be, but please look up your country’s options and get the help you need.
Coming Up
The following post will be about how to overcome Post-Trail Depression. Stay tuned!
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Sources
- https://thetrek.co/post-trail-depression-not-think/
- https://appalachiantrail.org/official-blog/post-trail-depression-what-its-like-how-it-happens-how-to-get-over-it/
- https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/hiking-and-backpacking/post-trail-depression-coping-thru-hiking/
- https://medium.com/in-fitness-and-in-health/what-happens-when-you-dedicate-6-months-of-your-life-to-hiking-then-stop-cold-rurkey-9a9f58316c59
- https://nomadhiker.com/ptd-post-trail-depression/
- https://www.hyperlitemountaingear.com/blogs/ultralight/the-other-kind-of-thru-hiker-funk-adapting-to-life-after-the-trail
- http://www.eathomas.com/dealing-post-hike-depression/
- https://believeperform.com/life-after-sport-depression-in-retired-athletes/
- https://www.rei.com/blog/hike/life-after-the-pct-post-hike-depression
- https://www.wayfaringkiwi.com/post-trail-depression/
admin
Kirsten is an enthusiastic, bilingual naturalist with 11+ years of experience as a non-formal environmental educator, 6+ years as an outdoor recreation guide, 6+ years as a content writer, and 13+ years as an eco-friendly horticulturist and landscaper. She has designed and maintained 2 websites dedicated to public-facing environmental and outdoor education information for community consumption. Successfully taught 5 online, multi-week zoom workshop series to 5-10 regular participants on an international scale.
2 Comments
Kimberly
Coming off a ten day hike, i find myself feeling PTG- a term I’ve never heard before reading this. With this knoweldge, I’m trying to connect back to the beauty of simple things in my off trail life. Thank you for the thoughtful and resourceful article!
admin
Hi Kimberly, I’m glad that this post meant something to you. I hope you have recovered fully from your experience with PTG! I also hope you have a chance to get back on trail soon 🙂
-Just a Girl and a Backpack