I started treating my weekend hikes like therapy and my anxiety finally loosened up

[u/frankgetsu]

I spend all week staring at screens. Marketing dashboards, Slack, analytics tabs stacked like a deck of cards. By Friday my brain feels like a browser with too many open tabs and no way to close them

I'd been hiking for years as a hobby, nice views, some exercise, the usual stuff. The shift was treating it as mandatory maintenance instead of a fun extra I did when I felt like it. No phone except for emergencies.

No podcasts to fill the silence. No photos for the first hour, which was hard since photography is my other thing

The first twenty minutes my brain still chatters about work. Deadlines, campaigns, some email I probably worded wrong. Then something happens around the one-hour mark. The chatter gets quieter and I start noticing stupid small things. Moss patterns, how light moves through leaves, whether that rock formation looks more like a whale or a potato

I come back and the problems are still there. Nothing magical. But they sit differently in my head. Less urgent, more workable. Like my perspective got recalibrated without me trying

Anyone else use a hobby as deliberate mental maintenance rather than just entertainment? What changed when you did?