The Bear Trail

“Love mud. Love life.”

We know that being in nature does good things for us like making us less stressed and more balanced in our everyday lives. The Bear Trail takes this idea and runs with it by giving you full nature immersion in the up-to-your-knees/waist/neck mud version. This is an outdoor adventure assault course for adults and kids that starts with things to scramble over and ends in the showers!

We got lucky, in a way. We went at the tail-end of a heatwave, so those deep pools of mud were still there but maybe not as abundant as at other times of the year. You can decide how much you are all in so to speak. You get to take the course at its own pace, and choose the risks that you are willing to take. If you’ve brought flip-flops (don’t) and are feeling kind of quesy about mushy wetness you can probably half-arse a few of the obstacles.

Regardless of your timidity level around dirt, its joyful scrambling, jumping, zip-lining, balancing, bouncing and climbing your way around the 28 obstacles. There’s no judgement if you don’t get anything right, actually no tuition to even tell you that. Adults are given as much credibility for being here as kids, there’s no feeling stupid for wanting to do what your 9 year old is doing. Just an open field to play in for everyone. As they say here, “Remember, mud washes off… experiences stay forever!”

Website: thebeartrail.co.uk / Facebook @thebeartrail / Twitter @trail_bear

Mind Food

“We support people to improve their wellbeing through growing and selling food.”

Did you know that as you grow your tomatoes or tend that cabbage patch, you are also doing something deeply therapeutic?

The Ealing-based social enterprise MindFood has this idea at its core: its founded on nature and uses food as the framework for figuring out our mental health concerns, whether we’re struggling with common conditions like depression, anxiety, and stress, including PTSD, or we’re just curious about plotting and planning our own psychological health and wellbeing. As their motto goes, “Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes.”

Chatting to co-founder and director, Ciaran Biggins, he points out that, “An environment of nature and growing food is a perfect way to practice the Five Ways to Wellbeing as identified by the New Economics Foundation”. So if we break that down, you get connection in the form of the community around you. You are able to take your time and pay attention whether that’s to changing seasons or to something you planted. You take on the role of an active learner, specifically here about horticulture. You get to give back through the systems of sharing and support that MindFood is grounded in. And lastly, you get to be physically active, getting those wellies on and hands dirty.

Drawing from the evidence base of nature’s calming effect and the restorative practice of planting, cultivating and selling food, Biggins created a program that involved “spending more time learning about food, building community, and being in nature in a supportive environment.”

Want to get involved? MindFood offers a starter program: a free six-week course, Growing Wellbeing, which covers the theoretical and practical relationship of nature and wellbeing. It’s all “action orientated to encourage behaviour change.”

And for those who want to continue their involvement, there’s Plot to Plate, 12 weeks of working to cultivate the produce in their allotment, then selling it from their Market Stall in Acton (which inscribes a whole other level of value and purpose for what you’ve just achieved). 

To find out more:  www.mindfood.org.uk / Twitter  @MindFoodCIC / facebook.com/MindFoodCIC 

Magalleria

“Welcome to Magazine Heaven.”

At a time when we’re driven more and more into the informational world of our phones, Magalleria stakes physical/ actual space for the recent resurgence of independent magazines. It goes way beyond the newsagents of old with their chocolate buttons and Hello magazines, and that High Street staple W.H. Smith, that feels like it has everything but misses so much.

Since the storefront opened in 2015, owners Daniel McCabe and Susan Greenwood have refined their truly global selection of fine, independent and specialist mags that you’d probably need expensive subscriptions to even get your hands on. Plus there are mags here you’ve never heard of and want to, as well as exclusives to this store only. They’ve created one of the few places where anybody can get access to this kind of printed material:

“When we started planning Magalleria we found there wasn’t any ‘world of magazines’ the ordinary consumer could simply enter. Sure, there were seductive looking magazines draped around numerous halls and galleries across the internet that proved not to be real places but facades for vague, non-accessible or defunct commercial entities.”

Don’t worry about feeling overwhelmed when you first walk in. They will happily help you find what you are looking for. When I visited, I was looking for something specific. Any magazines that were doing interesting things in the mental health space. And they had those in piles with all the paper-based and perfectly bound perspectives that I had been searching out: Doll Hospital, frankie, Oh Comely and Flow. I also picked up Good Trouble, The Idler, The Happy Reader and Another Escape. I would have picked up more, but I had a baggage allowance to think about.

Magazines are not just to adorn your coffee table. They are for life, deeply embedded into who we are and who we might be. There’s therapeutic value in finding your publication of choice and finding yourself, your interests, your world, amongst its pages.

If you are not in the UK, you can order online but as we’re all about feet on the ground, if you are anywhere near Bath, get yourself here.

To learn more: www.magalleria.co.uk / twitter @MagalleriaBath / Facebook @Magalleria / Insta @MagalleriaBath

Mental Health Mates

“A safe space for you to walk and talk about your problems without fear of judgment.”

We love Bryony Gordon - let’s just get that out of the way now. We listened to her podcast Mad World (including the Harry one), followed her in awe as she ran the London Marathon (twice - once in her underwear), and hugely appreciated her openness in the books Mad Girl, The Wrong Knickers and Eat, Drink, Run.

But we’re not here to tell you about our love for Byrony. Nope, we’re here to tell you about Mental Health Mates, the organization that she started as “a sort of walking/running group for the people for whom it is perfectly normal to feel weird”. Right from its start in London a few years ago people have consistently shown up, with outings now throughout the UK and even abroad (walks have taken place in Melbourne, San Francisco, New York and Dubai). 

Mental Health Mates hosted walks are led by local people who have their own mental health issues, rather than therapists or medics. “It's all peer support, without the pressure and draining feeling that can come from group therapy,” says Polly Allen of the organization. In fact, people can bring their dogs, or their kids, family, friends and colleagues. Rest assured, Polly tells me “there's no pressure to talk about mental health unless you want to. You can just talk about TV or politics if you want.” And as it’s hosted and run by local people, it can feel more like a community get-together: “it’s designed to build links with the community and helps you meet like-minded people who live nearby—people you could pass on the street and not realise they were suffering just like you, with anxiety or OCD or depression.” 

Though most walks end up about 60-70% female, Mental Health Mates has hosted a special walk aimed at men, as well as special events for the LGBT community and for mums. In the future, it is hoping to organise a special event for carers. The walks are designed to be easy and accessible to everyone who needs them, and they are best of all free. Thank you Bryony! We love you even more!

To find out more: mentalhealthmates.co.uk/ Twitter @findyourwe / Instagram @mentalhealthmates / and Facebook (type 'mental health mates')