E33: The Therapeutic Potential of Adventure: An Exploration with Dave Gallagher

Ever wondered how the combination of adventure and neuropsychology can optimize your brain functioning and help you battle stress? Join us on this fascinating journey where we unravel the secrets with our special guest, Dave Gallagher, a Mountain Leader, Adventure and Chartered Psychologist, who firmly believes in the power of adventure for mental health. Dave takes people out into the natural wilderness and draw on insights from neuroscience to encourage an adventure mindset that can help thrive on the challenges of life! Working with individuals and organisations to promote this message through talks, workshops and guided experiences in the outdoors. His personal story of transformation from an anxious child to a confident adventurer is not just inspiring, but offers insights into the benefits of stepping out of our comfort zones.

In this dialogue, we explore the vast landscape of mental health, discussing how outdoor activities can provide a positive stress response and act as a catalyst for personal growth. We delve into the neuroscience and physiology of stress—a concept often misunderstood—and how it influences our immune system and ability to address challenges. We also share strategies on how to break away from negative patterns such as doom-scrolling and establish a healthier mindset through positive reinforcement and productive activities.

This episode will leave you contemplating the power of adventure, the resilience of the human spirit, and the impact of nature on mental health. Join us in this inspiring and engaging conversation.

https://www.cognitvexplorer.co.uk/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-gallagher/
https://www.facebook.com/CognitvExplorer

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello and welcome to the White Fox Talking Podcast. I'm Matt Chalifalentine and I'm joined by Seth. Hi, hello, seth. How are you? Coping, coping, we're always coping. Yeah, to be honest, it's good.

Speaker 2: 0:13

Coping.

Speaker 1: 0:14

Just about. Well, let's face it, the podcast is keeping us busy. It's like another full-time job on top of a full-time job. It is yeah, but we are getting some really good guests and some really good feedback, which is nice, yeah, and we keep getting them that message through. Every time they will keep thinking of packing up. Someone's sends us a message saying how inspired they are by our guests, so thank you to the guests.

Speaker 2: 0:37

And, if you're listening, if you would like to leave us some feedback.

Speaker 1: 0:40

Yeah, that'd be nice. Yeah, Although that's the thing that inspires us to keep going on, when we keep thinking we haven't got time to do this. We just have to keep going, so would you like to know about today's guest? Yes, absolutely so. We've got Dave Gallagher online and he's the cognitive explorer and we are going to be talking adventure and neuropsychology. Hello.

Speaker 2: 1:02

Dave.

Speaker 1: 1:03

Hi, Dave. The White Fox Talking podcast is sponsored by Energy Impact. So hello, Dave Gallagher. How are you?

Speaker 3: 1:11

I'm jolly good. Thanks and lovely to be here.

Speaker 1: 1:13

Hi, you've me most welcome, most welcome. So can we just kick off with you giving the listeners a little bit of an introduction about yourself, and then we'll get into what you do and why it's relevant to the podcast.

Speaker 3: 1:25

Absolutely yeah. So I call myself the cognitive explorer, and this is a synthesis of a couple of different things. So I tend to be about multiple different things coming together, and the particular things that I bring together were coming to the explorer, or adventure and psychology. So I am actually an adventure psychologist, which basically means I do lots of adventures, I take people on adventures, I extol the virtues of adventure for mental wellbeing, performance and mental health, but I am actually a research psychologist as well. So I'm a chartered psychologist.

Speaker 3: 2:00

So I study the benefits of adventure, I look at people in adventurous situations, I measure the brain, and I'll get into that in a lot more detail as and when you want me to. So that's what I am, that's what I do. So, yeah, I'm a mountain leader. I take people out into their hills and, you know, give them that full experience of being out in the wild. But I add a little bit of extra flavour around the psychological side of why this is good for you and how we can optimise our brains in kind of wild settings. You know all that kind of good stuff. So, yeah, I mean as a scientist, I talk a lot about the brain and how the brain functions, how the stress system works and how we can get a better handle on stress, particularly how adventure is really good for improving your ability to cope with stress. So that's basically in a nutshell what I am, what I do, and I can unpack that in a lot more detail as we're getting into conversation.

Speaker 1: 2:54

Excellent Because this ties in well. We met at the Nature Therapy Summit over at UCLan and this was one of yours workshop was one that appealed to me straight away, and then, obviously, getting talking to you and then having a look afterwards at your website cognitiveexplorercouk. We'll do that later as well. Yeah, so when I was going through all my PTSD etc, etc. And the way that I moved out, it was finding going out into the mountains and then the mountain leader and going on to the following awards, because it sort of focused my mind and took me away. Now I don't know if that was just a bit of healing or escapism from the alcohol escapism that I had, anyway, but yeah, obviously then this sort of rang, you know, I thought I'd need to get this guy on the podcast. So when we, when you're, getting people out into the mountains or doing the well, anything, really the adventure, what is it actually doing to the mind, to the brain, relative to mental health, I suppose?

Speaker 3: 3:52

Absolutely so. It was good that you referenced that conference at UCLan. So I, for the listeners, I delivered a workshop on stress response and ways to manage your stress and kind of what the brain's doing when we do adventurers, type of challenges, and the key in there is challenge. So adventure is generally about challenge. It's about pushing you a bit beyond the norm, getting you out of your normal kind of domestic or urban setting and, you know, giving you some kind of focused activity which can involve a degree of stress. And now stress is a bit of a loaded concept.

Speaker 3: 4:24

We tend to think of stress in very negative terms. We don't want to be stressed, we're all stressed. You know the fight off light response. But actually stress is part of our natural system for giving us that energy and emphasis to actually to rise, to the occasion, you know, and to whether that's in the distant past to go and hunt for our food, to survive, to thrive. So adventure can give us that, that type of stress response which is actually positive thing, something actually called U stress. So there is a definition U stress is positive stress, whereas distress is negative stress. So adventure just gives us that capacity to do something a bit out the norm.

Speaker 3: 5:02

It's often a very physical type of thing. It can actually provoke a little bit of fear or a little bit of trepidation, depending on the type of adventure. Now, for some people, just getting out in the outdoors when they're not used to, you know the countryside, the rural sort of setting, you know very constrained by the normal being in an urban type of environment. So just getting out in the outdoors can suddenly provoke you in this overwhelming response because there's so many sights and sounds and vistas and we're going off into the wilderness, so to speak. So we don't know what's around the corner. So there's uncertainty there as well. At the other end of the spectrum, we've got up-sailing, climbing and more extreme sort of seats which of course do really test us, test our resolve, stimulate that kind of almost that fight-or-flight response, and we've got to overcome it.

Speaker 3: 5:54

So it's that overcoming of that, you know that stepping out of your comfort zone, that what's around the corner, what am I going to be capable of? This which is really positive, much like and I use the analogy of going to the gym. You know, you go to the gym, you do exercise, you do an exercise regime which can be discipline itself, but it can also push you and then the next day you're stiff and you're like, oh, do I want to go through that again? But it's a positive process which kind of breaks you down and, you know, micro-tes your muscles in order to grow stronger and so on. So it's a very similar sort of thing with adventure from a mental perspective. It stretches you, stretches your boundaries of how you see the world and what you believe you're capable of, and then off you go and you know you start to progress through that environment.

Speaker 3: 6:42

So that's kind of how I see it and you know it mimics my journey through going into mountains from when I was a kid, when I went up the mountain with my dad a distant mountain which on holidays in central Scotland, we used to look at this mountain from a viewpoint and kind of, you know, wistfully thought about oh, one day I'll climb the mountain. Then I did climb the mountain with my dad when I was 14, and it was bloody awful actually, you know it was. It was like, oh, this is what climbing a mountain is like. It's like, oh, come on, stop now. No, what's up?

Speaker 3: 7:12

That next, that next sort of part of the hill, it's a false summit. Oh, what's the next thing and you know it was quite traumatic, but getting to the top, seeing the view, realizing well, there's no more false summits, this is the summit, and then having that you know amazing release, wow, I've done it. It's a progressive thing and it can then open up your mind to bigger vistas and, you know, a longer term journey to then broaden your scope as to what's achievable. So that's kind of that's how I went from being quite an anxious kid holding himself back to eventually going off and doing some quite crazy things with still the anxiety within me. But you know, part of that whole progression is mastering that anxiety, using it as an impetus to overcome and also to stimulate what's around the corner. Next, what can I, can I aspire to next?

Speaker 1: 8:06

Yeah, I think we do get. There seems to be a lot of people, or we're hearing more about people, suffering with anxiety. But is this because? Is this because they're not getting into these adventure? They're not. We're not pushing these parameters. I know when I was, when I was young and we've mentioned this quite a few times on the podcast you know, playing out, basically going on when the lights went, when the street lights went off, sorry, when the street lights went on. Well, sometimes when the street lights went off, and that definitely in, definitely in later life, but actually being able to go out and play in the woods, play on the rocks, play, play on the hills by yourself, whereas now we're living a very risk adverse sort of society.

Speaker 3: 8:46

Yeah, we're very causative now, aren't we? You know, there's so many health and safety regulations which have the time and place in certain industries but not necessarily others. But yeah, it's that fear of oh, you know what's the boundaries and we must keep everyone safe and in boxes, and yeah, it's, there's not enough of the kind of rough play, you know, there's not enough. I mean, you've got things like martial arts, mixed martial arts, things like that, which are bringing back a lot of the kind of rough and tumble of play, but we don't, we don't allow, I guess, our kids to go and climb up trees because well, obviously there's people lurking out in the shadows there and there's a lot more of that going on. But yeah, you're right, we have kind of lost that capacity or we've boxed it off where it was just natural. So you know, it was natural as a kid to jump in a river or the sea or a pond or whatever. Now it's called wild swimming or open water swimming. And now there's legislation.

Speaker 3: 9:47

You know, I saw something on the news the other day. It was about the government. I'm not going to go into big grant government, I know that may go down well, yeah, but trying to kind of trying to do the right thing which you know you might be cynical about by deciding which sections of water people can or can't swim in, and you know there's a good intention behind that because there's a lot of pollution. But now everything's got to be legislated. And I think about this when taking people out in the mountains. It's like I'd love to get people jumping in cold water, because there's a whole raft of evidence out there and you know practice around the benefits of cold water physiologically, what have you? But now it's like well, is there legislation? Do I go outside the remit of what I'm allowed to take people to do? But how do you encourage that kind of wild mindset if everything has to be kind of boxed off and determined in advance, whether it's legislation, you know, or you're going to get in trouble.

Speaker 3: 10:45

Yeah, it's yeah. And I think that's why things like you know, wim Hof method going off in your underpants in the snow or whatever, jumping in freezing cold waterfalls or Tough Mudder and all these kind of adventure challenges why there seem to be so popular. Because it's reigniting that sense that this is kind of what we're built to do. You know this is what our stress system has evolved to do, but we're closing it off and we're getting super stressed and burning out our stress circuits simply by, you know, focusing on emails and social media and all these things which we haven't evolved, you know, to deal with. So so, yeah, you're right, we've kind of lost that touch with it and I think, like you said, anxiety is now rife on the back of that because we don't know how to cope. We've got that innate mechanism, but we're not using it.

Speaker 1: 11:34

Yeah, so we've got I'm listening to another book at the minute, I'll not drop the author because I can't remember it a book about complex PTSD. And in there the guy mentioned you know, we've spent 99.8% of our evolution in stressful positions, as in can we get food or is one of our children going to be eaten by a saboteur of tiger? And now stress is, like you say, emails, having to pay your bills, road rage, etc. Etc. But the mechanisms that cause stress and that cause, you know, a sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system is not prepared for that. So these stress hormones are flying around the system and we're not, we're not controlling them and that's possibly leading to disease and issues.

Speaker 3: 12:19

Basically, that's very true, and that's a lot of what my research talks about, and I think that's some of what I talked about when we had the workshop that you're involved in. Yeah, I mean, we're going into the complexities of the neuroscience and the physiology. There are stress. There's a couple of stress systems that are involved. This is stress system which kind of is faster acting and it prepares you for that fight or flight, for urgent action, and also sharpens your kind of perception to do what's needed. But then you have the longer term and the slower acting part of that, which is all about adaptivity ultimately. But all these things impinging on our time and energy are actually, you know, prolonging that longer term sort of stress system so that it compromises your immune function into the future, because we're never getting that kind of when, I'm never dialing it down and getting the proper rest, and it comes down to things like there's lots of talk about nutrition, sleep, getting proper sleep. It's the same with the stress system. If you look at it that way and that's kind of how I look at it You've got to exercise it in a certain direction to get more resilient and more attuned to how it's meant to be used. But you've got to be able to dial it back and not be always on, and you've got to find a way to balance that. And this is something called a challenge mindset, which, again, is something I promote through the adventure, because when, when we just react to circumstance, we're never giving ourselves time to stop and pause. Even in our downtime we're scrolling through social media and you know, and I find myself doing Admonish myself and looking through Instagram, and it's all. People have an accident, doing stupid things, trapping their arms in industrial machinery. I'm like, why is this popping up? But suddenly I've spent 10 minutes getting more and more into it. That's just so bad because my attention is just reacting to that. It's not taking, you know, as a breather, it's not not getting any downtime and what this puts us in is a threat response. So we have challenge and threat, which are two different aspects of this, and we tend to react, we tend to go into threat, threat mode, and this actually has a physiological effect on these stress systems that I've just mentioned. It stops us having this efficient Blood flow and energy flow to bring in a muscle, muscles which would help us, help us be more strategic, more balancing our approach to things and it puts us in that reactive state.

Speaker 3: 14:47

Now A challenge mindset is. It's quite a simple thing with you when you're appraising, when you stop and think about the situation and the response you're feeling, you can actually see it in terms of, well, what's the situation? The situation is a challenge to me to overcome and that Simple kind of reframing of that situation does actually activate the physiological system Towards the the more balanced sort of approach and it downplays the impact of that longer term stress system which is kind of, you know, for your longer term immune function. So this is kind of where the research is really interesting. That's why I bring it into the discussion of you know, setting challenges for people, getting people in that Adventious or a mindset and take them out of the wild. Simply by knowing a bit of that, you can kind of go okay, let me just take stock of how I am, what I'm responding to these emails. Let's just push them aside for a second and just have this challenge mindset what is the challenge in this current situation and how can I approach that better? And, of course, going out in the wild and doing things like that can help us get more attuned to this system.

Speaker 3: 15:55

So it is, at the end of the day, how do you pay attention to the right aspects of what you're doing? And and I think, everything in the modern age? I think it comes down to attention, and I will say that because I'm actually a attention psychologist. That's where I study, that's where I study how the brain works, how it pays attention in different ways, and there's so many things Distracting us and, like I said, social media Scrolling through, nonsense of things, we don't realize it. Our attention is pulled here, then everywhere, and again that's contributing to this anxiety, because at the end of the day, anxiety is kind of a disorder of attention. In a way, you're attending the things internally, you get distracted, you're ruminating, and that's again that's where my research kind of focuses on.

Speaker 1: 16:41

Yeah, I know there's a term popping up now called doom scrolling. I hear quite a bit doom scrolling where people instead of oh I thought everyone does it, I do it myself. Where, instead of taking a bit of a downtime that you could do and doing a bit of self-maintenance or anything, just head down on the phone just flicking up and watching reels or whatever you. How do we get away from that anything? There's a big question.

Speaker 3: 17:07

Yeah, well, again, I kind of take the. The bigger sort of Way to do that is is to take yourself out of your normal environment, and there's practicalities, pros and cons of that. So if, for instance, we've got some downtime coming up at the weekend, it's easy to flop on the sofa to get the phone out. It's easy to adopt that position. Or Netflix You're just going through the phone, go up in it, netflix or whatever. That's not great because all the cues in that environment are just draining your attention in the normal way that they do. You just automatically start habitualizing your behaviors towards that kind of doom scrolling mentality. So the, the the easiest in inverted commas is to get outside, to go and do something focused and purposeful and Ideally, from where I'm coming from, the adventurous side of things than that the nature, so nature, immersion and what have you. So that's kind of a gross way to do that. Now that's not practical. Every minute, every minute of every day, sometimes we've got we've all got demands, family commitments, time commitments. It's just having that ability to take stock and Understand that you're in the throes of what you might call an addiction. Really it's an addictive type of behavior to do that and the first thing is to go well, is this Benefiting me? Is this best for me? Is other things that can do to snap myself out of that, even if it's just for a moment, can I go outside for a walk and I go around the shops? Walk around the shops or the drive or go to a green space. That's the kind of the initial thing wouldn't think of to do. Better Still, if we can get excited about doing a more adventurous thing whether that's an adventure challenge, park run or Planning a trip somewhere go up Snowden, whatever you know, whatever's the nearest place that you can think to do so, getting yourself in that kind of Adventurous sort of mindset is is one of the things we can do. Now I'd a more kind of localized level. If you can't do that and this is where all the research I'm doing about the brain and how this revolves around things like anxiety, stress, depression is to actually do practices like mindfulness. Now, again, you know people might grow on these days are not another one talking about mindfulness and and also breathing exercises, but these are simple things we should be incorporating in our daily routine. In the same way we look at our nutrition, we'll look at our sleep patterns. You know we'll have a holistic approach to health and exercise. Things like mindfulness Actually turned down the parts of the brain which are stuck in kind of ruminative loops, and also this helps you Exercise your attention, and this is something I'm quite evangelical about.

Speaker 3: 19:51

I would be because it's what I've studied for about 20 or 20 odd years how the brain manages its resources for attention, and that's for attention, in order to not get distracted, not get stuck in rumination, but also to then free up your mind to think of the things you really want to do in life, things which drive your passions and things which can help you get quite far in whatever you want to achieve. So mindfulness practice actually turns down something called the default mode network, and this is something I do talk about quite a lot. The default mode network is basically the set of brain regions which turn on when we're not really engaged in doing a task. So if we're just sat here not really doing anything productive, or lying down or whatever, this set of brain regions will just start sparking up and it might set you off on a train of thought, just mind wandering. You might think about things you're going to have to do in the future or you might think about things you've experienced in the past. That can start becoming a bit like doom scrolling on Instagram. You're kind of doing that in your head and you're using up a lot of resources and this is the interesting thing when you look at the signs of this.

Speaker 3: 21:04

It was found about 20 years ago to discover this set of regions and they thought, well, when we're not engaged in doing a task which you know, by virtue of doing something, you're kind of putting effort in, you're actually using your brain's energy. Your brain should kind of be on idling mode. There should be less energy being used. They actually found in these sets of brain regions. There's a lot of energy, there's too much energy. Your brain is actually drawing energy and kind of wasting it really and it's very hungry this set of brain regions that are draining your energy resources when you should be resting.

Speaker 3: 21:40

So we have this natural tendency to go into that kind of cycle of inner kind of rumination and what we need to be doing is snapping that out, snapping out of that and, you know, focusing our attention on something productive. But if we're having a rest, we want to kind of somehow give our brain a rest, and this is where mindfulness type of practices and relaxation practices give your brain a rest. They literally stop you using that energy wastefully, which then means, like a good night's sleep, you wake up refreshed and ready to attack the day, ready to attack your goals, ready to, you know, motivate to do things which can push you to the next level. So things like mindfulness are really worthwhile to incorporate into your daily routine. And that doesn't mean spending an hour and a half sitting in a meditative pose, it just means stopping, don't doomscrow, just sit there, relax and do some kind of, you know, mindful type of awareness exercise. Just notice what your thoughts, what thoughts are kind of spinning around. Don't get caught up in them.

Speaker 3: 22:43

And we can do breathing techniques as well. So breathing one thing I advocate, which I did in that workshop, is to breathe out for longer than you breathe in. This can activate the parasympathetic system and really kind of bring that that sense of calm and restoration back into your system, especially when you start getting stressed about oh well, I can't sit here because I've got this job to do, that task to do, I've got to pick the kids up from there, or what happened with that neighbor down the road. We had a bit of a fallout. You know, all these things which are spinning through our heads. We have to stop and take a moment and draw on these physiological and psychological things which we've evolved for in order to give us that rest. So this is the trouble we're not having rests, we're just like our attention's going on something else when we should be just chilling out a bit.

Speaker 3: 23:31

And these are little things we can do. And you know, I've coached people who say look, I've got a busy life. I'm a mother I hope with kids, I'm a career professional. I've got no time to do meditation. Well, you've always got a little bit of time and space for yourself, whether that's in the bathroom, doing your routine, before bed or whatever. Just reinforce that.

Speaker 3: 23:52

There are moments which we take out and we can exercise a little bit more control over these mental processes and these physiological processes and they'll stack up. You know, we'll feel more refreshed, we'll find better ways to organize our time and then we'll start to get towards the things we really want to do, you know, once we've got the chores out of the way, because we're, you know, more energized to do that. So it's a bit of a long wind of question. Answer to your big question. But, like I say, there are things we can do aspirationally and, you know, get out in the outdoors and there are things we can do in terms of our moment to moment existence and just have a bit more of a routine about it it all sounds a bit like trying to change your diet.

Speaker 2: 24:32

You know, a lot of people are addicted to junk food and what we're currently doing is a bit like junk food for the brain and we're trying to mentally change our mental diet.

Speaker 3: 24:43

If you could transfer it that way absolutely, yeah, and you know, and that's what everyone's selling these days. So if everyone's selling, there must be a market for it. And well, there is a market for it. Everyone wants to improve themselves and you get like gadgets such as wearable fitness trackers, and these are great for getting people the couch to 5k type of brigade idea, you know? Or doing how many steps can we do in a day. These are brilliant for getting people motivated because there's there's that feedback loop and that's that's the key in behavior change as well. If you can get some kind of sense of immediate feedback or longer term progression, then that helps you automate that behavior change. And, yeah, absolutely, it is diet, it's it's mental fitness, and that's kind of how I sell it. I prefer to use mental fitness from the way I talk about the mental health, because it tends to, you know, I think it's a bit more motivating the idea of mental fitness, which does encompass looking after your mental health, much the same as getting fit, you get healthier. So I think there's, yeah, there's great appetite for for exactly that, for for looking at your mental diet in correspondence with your, your holistic sort of health and fitness, and that's, I guess, where I try to sell that type of promote that type of framework.

Speaker 3: 26:05

It's kind of a bit like a philosophy, like in the past we had religions and spiritual traditions. This is how I've approached it. Through my life I was interested in oriental philosophy. I've done martial arts since I was 13 and I was super interested in the whole Zen and the meditative side of that. And as I got more into science I realized my pathway is more about promoting the, the object of science behind all this. But it's a philosophy built on the back of that. It's about understanding how our minds and bodies, brains and bodies work and how we can get the most out of them by putting the right things in, by managing the resources, putting ourselves in the right environments which are stimulating in a positive way and, of course, getting out of the, the negative environments which keep us in those, those loops of thinking. So yeah, diet, holistic health. It's a philosophy that.

Speaker 1: 27:00

That's the way I can promote it we're tobe in quite a while ago now, and he was talking about mindfulness and how it changes. Like the, the brain scans have seen brain plasticity change over a relatively short time a couple of months could. Is it for something like that? And so, because then pathways have been bought, being toughened or thickened by by that practice, where so when we're, when people are doom scrolling or something else, it's good.

Speaker 1: 27:28

Is this because it's going to get a dig here, because it keeps it, doesn't take enough time for himself, and I've been telling him he needs, you know, an hour, at least an hour. I think we all should have an hour in a day where we can look after ourselves, because how can you be, how can you work at your best the next day, or, you know, I mean, if we're all constantly burnt out? So, with the answer, the well, just talking about the brain this just a question from me, really but does do that? Are we building negative pathways by this doom scroll, like you say it's, for it's almost like an addiction. I believe an addiction is something that's harmful to yourself rather than a habit.

Speaker 3: 28:03

Yeah, that's exactly right in fact, and I actually talked so without getting too convoluted on the brain science and the kind of the spiritual, almost identity side of things. But the self, this, this default mode network I talked about, is actually the, the self network. It's the network of brain regions which create the idea of self and identity and ego, and what I mean by that is it's all about I, me, or this has happened to me. This is how I'm going to do this, I'm going to have that effect, or someone thinks this of me, so that that set and that that network is very self-centered and it's very self-obsessed and it's the thing which doesn't want to let go of itself. It's kind of like so, so kind of bound together that it doesn't want to let that go. But actually, when we get involved in things which are productive activities or we're engaged in tasks or in this so-called flow state, this optimal state, or even if we're doing altruistic acts and helping other people, that self network is kind of released a bit, because we don't need to be so self-obsessed in everything we do. We don't we're so frightened of letting go of the self. So, you know, getting a bit kind of Buddhist type of territory now, but what that means.

Speaker 3: 29:23

So the negative to your question about negativity, well, it kind of becomes quite negative in the sense that you're holding on to all this kind of narrative around or this is going to happen to me. I'm not good enough. People think this of me. Oh, what about? It's self-limiting beliefs as well. And there's the way that the brain works, is it binds together certain regions into these what's called functional connections, and there are other, say, emotional, parts of the brain as well which get connected up as well. So you get these different networks, emotional networks and this default network, which connect together and are self-reinforcing, particularly from a negative perspective. And I read somewhere once that I don't know exactly how this be measured, but is it three? One negative thing is as strong as three, you know, or you need three positive things to offset one negative thing. And that's kind of true because the brain is so self-obsessed in these particular regions it's hard to undo that kind of self-doubt and that negative sort of thinking.

Speaker 3: 30:29

But going back to that challenge mindset I mentioned before, simple reinforcement, reinforcing positive statements like I can do this, I'm good enough for this, this is a challenge I can rise to this can actually turn down some of that connectivity in the brain, so it can actually start to slightly rewire or at least redirect the energies which are keeping it in a more negative and self-obsessed loop, start to switch you into a more outward focused, productive, goal-oriented and purposeful way of doing things which can also be more community spirited and more conscious of the environment and more kind of at one with what's going on out there.

Speaker 3: 31:09

So it's about being productive and useful to beyond yourself. So I could go on for hours about this and talk about the psycho-spiritual kind of side of it, which I don't really want to get into. But there is a bit of brain basis for this and, like you said, negativity does seem to like create these connections which are hard to get out of and, without going into details, like someone quite close to me is going through some really bad anxiety at the moment and is trapped in that loop.

Speaker 3: 31:41

And when you start looking at the more clinical side of thing, I'm not a clinical psychologist per se, but my research is very much in that kind of territory around. What's the next step in treating things like depression, anxiety from and PTSD from this kind of standpoint of how the brain connects up, and how can we shift these pathways into more positive, outward focused, not being stuck in these kind of anxious loops that take the side of things? Can't remember exactly what your question was because I did go off on a little tangent there, but it is true that there's these negative connections and how do you break out of those into more positive, neuroplastic states?

Speaker 2: 32:22

So, dave, I've had a quite long conversation with one of my friends recently about how you become more scared of doing things the older you get.

Speaker 1: 32:36

Is that me?

Speaker 2: 32:36

No, we kind of came to the conclusion.

Speaker 1: 32:42

More risk averse.

Speaker 2: 32:45

Yeah, we kind of came to the conclusion that we're getting to know the consequences of what could go wrong and hence we're kind of getting into the fear mode and then don't want to do these things and do more comforting things. Does that kind of tie in in some sort of way? Is there a way to get out of it?

Speaker 3: 33:04

Yeah, it does very much. I mean, I take a very mechanistic approach and I've sometimes got to balance the kind of academic, the scientific understanding of what's going on with it. How do we, like you said, how do we snap out of that and go in and basically get out in the outdoors and do transformant things? Now, from what you said there, yes, we have this stress system. We have the part of the stress system is to give us energy to arouse our system to act, and what we tend to find is when we are stressed and by stress I'm also encompassing the kind of fear side of things that you've said because the fear network, the stress network, are very tightly combined. You know, they're very similar kind of aspects and what this does is it restricts our perception and it partly from what I was talking about before, this default mode.

Speaker 3: 33:59

When we go into that stressed out, anxious or kind of self-limiting sort of we're getting older or we're not as young and agile as we used to be, therefore we can start bringing our scope of what we can do into a tighter sort of constrained sort of box, and what this means is that we are less liable to explore new things. We're stuck in our patterns of what we know. We're stuck in what's worked before and we tend to be more conservative in that and this particular, this arousal system. But it's kind of two modes that this arousal system feeds. It feeds a mode of exploration and it feeds a mode of exploitation, and that's what they kind of call it in the literature. We're either in an explore mode or an exploit mode and we're kind of we tend to fluctuate moment to moment in this and this has ramifications for how, what we look for in the environment, how we interact with the environment, how we chat and what we feel we are capable of doing and actually, as and this has been shown in studies when we get older this system which dictates whether we're in explore mode or exploit mode, so whether we're looking out and scanning the environment and seeing things and meeting connections, or whether we're just like looking in one place and going, well, I know what I know, I don't need to look around, I don't need to reach around or whatever, I know what I know and this is what we will engage in conversations.

Speaker 3: 35:28

We'll tend to be stuck in one position of debate and these circuits actually sort of close down the connectivity, the strength of the functional connections with other aspects of the brain, can it become a bit enclosed. It's like we have let a muscle atrophy, we've not used it, so we become less strong, less capable of lifting that weight, or suddenly you find that things you used to do you haven't done for a while. You can't lift that object, that bag or whatever. So we are predisposed, if we don't keep exercising this capacity to try new things, to explore the environment, to look for new opportunities and to put ourselves out there and be quite humble about it and go well to learn new things. To put myself into a new situation, a new activity, I'm gonna come across as a bit of a klutz. I won't know what I'm doing and I might have to be humbled a bit and be treated a bit like a child. But that's the ego, of course, because you wanna be good at everything, especially when you're older. So, yeah, so we become less capable of exploring the environment because we're exploiting what we only know and just to mention this is such a fascinating piece of work I've read about is that older people I don't know what demographic per se, whether it was in retirement homes or whatever they actually looked at their eye movements and found that the eyes become sort of lazier, they would not move around the environment, sample as much information, just kind of fixate and be harder to disengage from certain things. So at the neuro, physiological level, if we're not using this capacity to explore new options, to even just looking, I'm not suggesting you sit there and you'd sort of fling your eyes around the room 20 dozen. But there's a principle about trying to note this more in the environment, trying to see new things and going and following your gaze and trying new activities and whatever.

Speaker 3: 37:25

And it's funny because I, as much as anyone, I'm 50 now and that was a major milestone for me recently. To achieve that, I thought, well, I'm going to seed now, aren't I? Where's my life going now? It's a stupid thing 40, I was just as bad when I was 40, I decided to go and ski across well, ski in the Greenland ice cap. I got frostbite and I was like suddenly upping my game by the end of my 40s, like last year I did my first base jump. So you know, some of this was a bit serendipitous and there wasn't necessarily planning.

Speaker 3: 37:58

But as long as you keep having that mindset of exploration and try new things, you will actually exercise these stress circuits, these arousal circuits which give you that impetus to act. And it doesn't have to be extreme, it can just be again taking stock and going okay, am I tending to be too exploitative in my approach to life? Am I stuck in the same old arguments? Am I reticent to take on new things? And I'm afraid of being like a newborn child, trying something new? You've got to try and put your ego aside, which is that set of brain reasons I was talking about.

Speaker 3: 38:37

And the more you can look out into the outside world, the more you can go out into the outside world, the more you're stimulating that system to focus on what's out there and to increase your possibilities to act and to do new activities.

Speaker 3: 38:51

Which is why you know going out in the outdoors is brilliant, because your brain is kind of like oh, I'm normally stuck in a more urban environment, which kind of dictates the sort of activities and actions and thought patterns that I would you know that are commonplace in my everyday life. When I'm out in the wild. It's like more unconstrained that the environment is so stimulating, it's a bit overwhelming. There's a tree over there. Oh, I could climb that tree, or I could sit under it, or there's some rocks there, or there's a viewpoint, or there's a river. It's almost like there's so much you like a child, because a child is like oh, what's over there, what's this? Can I run over there, can I climb that, can I do this, can I explore? So yeah, it's like I say I'm tying together what's going on the brain and how this relates to things like anxiety, depression, self-limiting beliefs, and then how we can act in the world and use that world to facilitate, strengthen these circuits which help us achieve things more than just doom-scrolling in our heads.

Speaker 1: 39:54

We talk about what adventures you've done, what sports you've done because I've got your website up in front of it and how we can now explain to the listener how this can benefit. You know things like these, maybe not quite as extreme. There's one of you best jumping here. You know it's not for everyone.

Speaker 2: 40:11

I've also seen Arctic diving.

Speaker 1: 40:14

Yeah, there's a lot of good stuff, so I mean it doesn't have to be as adventurous as this. But we say extreme, but what's going on with the brain as in to make it? What could people do? What are they going to benefit? How is it, you know, turn their lives into a better life really?

Speaker 3: 40:32

Sure, sure, yeah, I mean. Yeah, I mean in terms of my I've done, basically because I'm so interested in different environments and their effect on the brain and I'm so interested in exploring the world in different modes. I've done most type of activities. I started off climbing mountains, climbing hills, climbing mountains, getting more into the kind of alpine, technical type of mountaineering, terrain and skills and winter mountaineering. Then going off into the Arctic agreement of claimed attire, latitude and the Andes, and that's been a very progressive thing. And I say in terms of progression because I never thought. I mean I might have fantasized about that as a kid but I was terrified of even wanting to school. I was anxious as a kid and I could never envisage doing stuff, certainly not on my own, but going to some of these far-flung places. So one of the things I impress upon people is I'm very down-worth and very kind of. I've been anxious as a child and I still am to an extent and I manage that. But it's a progressive thing. So, starting off getting out for a walk outside, maybe joining a walking group, people who are a bit more experienced, going along with them, and starting to see get a flavor of different activities you know, rock climbing might be the thing that you go for. You can start off indoors doing bouldering, you can do rock climbing, indoor wall climbing and some people don't feel the need to graduate beyond the indoor. And there's such a social aspect and a community aspect to some of these activities and I think that's a really key thing the community side of all this. And you know other activities I've done so in the last few years I've gotten to sailing, which was never really a major thing I was going to do, but not so much sailing in terms of going down the local lake and on the small boat. I mean sea voyaging around the UK having some quite good adventures in quite testing conditions. But it wasn't so much about that. It's about the community, the camaraderie and learning to be part of a crew. And again I said about being humbled earlier on. I mean, I've tried things and I've been completely inept on some of these escapades of you know, until I've learned a bit more about what I'm capable of and learn a bit of technical knowhow to then become confident. So I really impress on people. It's about a progressive thing. Just try something a bit different, something that maybe you've got a little itch. You haven't scratched. You don't have to go straight off into Indiana Jones Territory, which is look for your local communities who do these sort of things. You'll find most of these communities are really receptive to people and really welcoming and you get this kind of sense of progression and confidence. And then, you never know, you might find you've got an innate talent for climbing another age six or something in climbing and then you find that you know there are great kind of benefits in overcoming fear, really enjoying the excitement of the thrill of some of these type of more challenging activities and so on.

Speaker 3: 43:45

Scuba diving yeah, I've done a lot of scuba diving. When I first went to Egypt to do it I never put my face underwater with a regulator on. I did this and I had this terrible urge to panic in both surface and I didn't. And I suspect if I did I wouldn't have carried on scuba diving. But you know I did. And then I've gone on and dived in some Arctic places. I've dived under ice, I've done kind of part of the introduction to cave diving and had some quite heavy experiences underwater sort of doing all that. So yeah, it's a progressive thing and it's just finding where on that spectrum of progression kind of resonates and inspires some kind of curious potential passion which you can then take further and explore those kind of options down the line.

Speaker 1: 44:36

I mean from a personal point or from a career point. When I'm teaching mountain leader people to become mountain leaders, what I try and do is encourage them, the future mountain leaders, to take their clients and push, bring them slightly out of the parameters, but not massively, so that they have such a terrifying time that they're never going to come back. But then the clients do come back and then it's one of them keeping clients doing what they own clients with you know to show them a little bit more.

Speaker 1: 45:02

Show them a little bit more, and they're getting that satisfaction. So, what's going on in the brain there. They're just getting a bit more confidence or they're just getting that reward system.

Speaker 3: 45:09

Yeah well, they're overcoming the expectations and their preconceptions. Importantly, because we all have these preconceptions. Or I've never done that this is what it will probably be, because I've never done that before, I probably won't be very good at it. And then it's just the experiential side of realising. Actually it's not that bad.

Speaker 3: 45:28

I've learnt, I've got a bit of neuroplasticity because my brain connections are now linking this new territory to what I've done before. So now you're learning skill and that that brings confidence. And also you're getting out of that internal loop of expectation and thinking ahead. And, like I said, that part that default mode involves future thinking. It's part of the simulation of what's going to happen in the future. So you're getting out of that simulation and into the okay, I've done this, this is what it's shown me. I'm focusing on doing the thing and the cues in the outside environment or getting me out of that kind of headspace. So, yes, you're getting more confident in that sense and you've you've grown your mental model of the world to accommodate.

Speaker 3: 46:14

Alright, this is where my boundaries were. I've just stretched them. I've just grown the boundaries of what I'm no incapable of doing in the world. So, yeah, so the brain is very much adapting, and that's what all these kind of systems are doing. That's why going back to start the conversation about why are we doing? What's good about adventure? Well, we're getting back in that capacity to adapt to the environment instead of react and kind of constrain ourselves because we're frightened of using these adaptive mechanisms that we've actually evolved to use. So, yeah, so you did ask me a question, which I then went off on quite a long discussion of my activities, but you were talking about the brain, weren't you? No, it's all good, it's just it's you know, it's these things.

Speaker 1: 47:05

It's it's sort of explaining what's going on, because I do find I'm a certain age now. I'm a little bit older than you, mate, would you believe. Yeah, even older than you, fully enough. I'm doing the MCI. I'm doing the MCI this year.

Speaker 1: 47:17

So, yeah, hopefully, yeah, we're swinging around on off-stannage, not just onage swanich yesterday and Almscliff today, so frightening myself to death, climbing, but you said frightening yourself to death, you sort of getting just what's going on in the brain and they said this is you know, this is why we've had you on. Is that there is so much positive and forward momentum to lessening the symptoms of mental health issues by just getting back and simple things, really just getting out in the mountains, getting out in there, getting out walking, running, whatever. It is. Like I said, you don't have to be as extreme as what you're doing now. Is this, is this sort of? Is it an escapism? Is it, is it like, well, we've just said you've you know, you're getting a confidence and you're getting a satisfaction, or is it that we've come, we've got into such a world and such a society that was just cut off from our evolution and nature?

Speaker 3: 48:11

to be fair, yeah, I mean, we can navel, gaze to the end of time about all this and put some, you know, trying to kind of over analyse it. But yeah, I think at the end of the day we've become so insulated of the whole lockdown thing. We've got locked into our urban environments and a lot of cases and taking away what's normally abundantly available makes you realise actually what you're, what you're missing. So getting back out there is is, of course, the rebound from that and suddenly everyone realising that nature is there to you know it's we've learned, we learned the fact nature is something we were kind of deprived of and that it is so beneficial. But yeah, I mean, escapism, escapism is fine, we all need escapism. You know, going down the pub after work on a Friday and a hard day of hard week of work is escapism. And you'll know a lot more about the negatives stuff like from your, your prior career and what I'm saying, yeah, not only engaging in that, but actually yeah, look, then looking after that.

Speaker 1: 49:15

But then my mountain family, mountainy stuff was an escapism from that.

Speaker 3: 49:18

So yeah, so. So, yeah, it's obviously fresh air as well, but it's exercise and it's exercising a purposeful way, and there's nothing wrong with going to chamber course, or isn't? It's brilliant. But nature gives you different possibilities to exercise in for the purposes of what, what we're built to do, you know, to run and jump and claim and swim and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, I mean, there's a massive appetite, of which I'm part, of the science side of things to know, try and understand and optimise how we use nature in certain ways, things like the Wim Hof method showing well we've adapted away from our kind of cold response, and actually certain things like brown I think it's adipose tissue, his kind of we've lost the capacity to activate that in our bodies which insulate us against the cold because we don't immerse in the cold. So we must get the coat on, we must get the inside, the warm building.

Speaker 3: 50:20

You know it's funny, it makes me laugh because I love cold, I love cold water, I love jumping cold, but I have cold showers, all this kind of stuff, and I've researched this for a long time as well, and it's one of the most visceral things if you say it to someone like the grown man or whoever, or should we go for a dip in the cold water or should we have a cold shower? Not, we should have a cold shower, but you should try having a cold shower and they kind of whoa I'm not doing that in the visceral kind of violent reaction and it just tickles me because that's that preconception. It's not for everyone, but it's not that bad, you know. And by cold jumping in the sea in the summer some people are like get lost as opposed to. I've dived in minus two Arctic water up near the North Pole, albeit with a thick dry suit. But yeah, it's those preconceptions people have. Modern lives taught us that the wild is out there and we must keep it at bay, almost, and it's like terrifying.

Speaker 1: 51:20

They're going to counter it because we might learn something about ourselves yeah, this idea that going out climbing is dangerous, and I remember a few years back, unfortunately, there was quite a few fatalities in Scotland from avalanches because we've got such complex weather systems not set for stable conditions, and they were in the media saying you know, we should shut the mountains in the winter. And you're thinking, well, it's true, honestly, look at it. Be like, no, it's true, yeah, close the mountains, don't let these people and you think it's statistically, it's more like the most dangerous thing you'll do in the mountains is driving there and back, without a doubt.

Speaker 3: 52:03

So, yeah, we seem to be cut off from these adventures and the benefits of them well, I mean, I'd like to draw attention so some of this stuff I'm doing at the minute which really is just blowing my mind. I'm working with charities that take people, you know, with mental health backgrounds and issues and traumatic backgrounds and all sorts of you know traumatic life stories, you know. But it's homelessness, substance abuse, all this kind of stuff, and you know the people are getting behind this type of stuff to fund to a small degree, small programs which take people on prolonged programs, looking at different adventure activities, whether that's starting off with a, you know, a kind of walk in a talk in a more kind of hilly environment, through the rock, climbing, paddle sports and leading in the mountain, scrambling and all that kind of stuff and the positives that these people are showing in the camaraderie and the support. And you know, it's just it's humbling to see and it's just amazing to be part of this and to see the knock on effect from one you know week or one program to the next and how some of them are kind of coming up and saying, well, normally I go out on a weekend and I get myself absolutely smashed and all this kind of stuff. I'm not doing that now because I know if I do that, I'm going to be in a right state through the week and I'll probably miss out on the session midweek. And I really need this session now. I don't need it, I want it. I want to be part of it. I'm loving being out there. You know some of it's like climbing and getting quite worked up and you know stressing out climbing, but it's such.

Speaker 3: 53:41

This goes back to the positive stress set and just to see that kind of that behavioural change in attitude change from one week to the next, that it's impacting back in every year life and what I do, I, as well as being a mountain leader, I also impress on them some of these stress response type of ideas. I don't go too much into the neuroscience unless they're actually interested in it, but it's just those breathing techniques, that kind of mindset, that challenge kind of attitude which you can just simply engage with in everyday life. And that's what I'm trying to do really with this is say, look, there are moments, a little bit of knowledge about what's going on in your system. You can employ this for 10 seconds, for a minute, for two minutes, as and when you need to, but importantly, the more you do it and go about the mental diet thing we talked about before. The more you integrate that into just your toolbox and your everyday life, the more you're equipped to use it when things go wrong. You know and I've been in situations where I've called them the mountain rescue team someone's not necessary, you know is not feeling well and just having these type of things in the toolbox already I'm not saying it immediately kicks in, but having these kind of ideas to be able to manage your own stress response can really help in traumatic situations you may encounter.

Speaker 3: 55:00

And that's something I really want to try and push through into the mountaineering community, the mountaineering industry.

Speaker 3: 55:09

If we have some of these tools already in our toolbox and we engage in them, we're equipped a bit better when things inevitably could go wrong.

Speaker 3: 55:17

You know we're not just relying on the search and rescue to get us out of a pickle. We have to get ourselves out of a pickle or we need to be in a better stage status to do. It's kind of mental health first aid in a way. So I'm really passionate about kind of pushing some of this psychological thinking into the normal way of doing things when you're learning to go out in the hills, certainly leading people, but even as a recreational person getting out in the hills, the more you're equipped to sort yourself out and to act as a team and do the appropriate things and control that stress response, the better. So that's kind of some of the stuff I'm really keen on promoting, that I do with work with charities and people who are quite, you know, very vulnerable and being on hard times and really can make the use of these type of these interventions and techniques in their everyday life as well as doing the adventurous activities.

Speaker 1: 56:11

Where can well? We'll put this all in your little description that we put on them. What are they called? Blurbs Description, I think you call them birds.

Speaker 2: 56:20

I got them.

Speaker 1: 56:22

Someone said where can people get old of you, Dave, if they want to, and have a look through.

Speaker 3: 56:27

Yeah, look at my website, which is probably the best place to go Because it's got the most kind of images and interesting kind of description of things. It's cognitiveexplorercouk. Yeah, it's got a slightly funny spelling c-o-g-n-i-t-v.

Speaker 1: 56:43

Yes, yes, it does. I've only just noticed that.

Speaker 3: 56:47

The reason, the only reason, it's missing an I is because when I went originally on Twitter, I was on the flatters.

Speaker 1: 56:53

It's kind of stuck Fair enough, why not?

Speaker 3: 56:56

Quite easy to find. So Dave Gallagher's money. And I'm a psychologist, so Dave Gallagher psychology, dave Gallagher adventures, the old pop up. Yeah my website online.

Speaker 1: 57:06

Cool.

Speaker 3: 57:06

Well, we will put that it's probably the best.

Speaker 1: 57:08

Yeah, we'll put that in your profile.

Speaker 3: 57:10

I mean I'm on Instagram Dave Gallagher adventures, but I don't I need to engage a bit more about my website.

Speaker 1: 57:16

Don't get stuck into that scroll, the doom scroll in there. Don't be getting onto that Instagram and Facebook scroll and it's ridiculous. That's probably why I stay away from it. Yes, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 57:27

I put up a picture up yesterday of climbing it where we're at Swanage and you're getting hundreds of likes and then you're trying to promote, trying to help people live their lives Right or better, and you're getting the odd like and stuff like that. But I'm sure this will get plenty of uptake. So thanks a lot for joining us, Dave. I know he must be a very busy man. Great to catch up with you again after you. Clan, I know I've got we've got Richard coming on in a few weeks. I would just sort it out because we're going to do a series of about nature therapy, but we just thought this would be a standalone because of the psychology of adventure. So brilliant, Thanks a lot.

Speaker 3: 58:02

Well, I hope that wasn't too convoluted. I mean, I'm not sure about the neuroscience, but I'm trying to make it more accessible because it's it's really practical stuff.

Speaker 1: 58:10

And understanding.

Speaker 3: 58:11

This is kind of like understanding how the engine of your car works. To about a degree you can tweak it and that's what it's the engine of the mind.

Speaker 2: 58:19

And I guess there's still so much more to explore, isn't it? From from your point of view, from everyone? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 58:25

Well, I do work with you, Clan. I do lectures to the outdoor education students. I'm trying to get more involved in the outdoor education community and organisations that do adventure training and all that kind of stuff. I wrote an article on this in the professional mountaineering yes, I saw it. It came out last month, so I'm getting much more embedded in that in the industry to promote these ideas, talk more and do workshops.

Speaker 1: 58:49

Cool, amazing Right Again. Thanks for joining us, dave. Thank you, dave, brilliant.

Speaker 3: 58:53

Cheers. Thank you so much for being a blast.

Speaker 1: 58:55

Thank you, bye, bye, thank you, bye, cheers. Wow A lot of information there.

Speaker 2: 59:01

Yes, it was very academic, wasn't it, but it was great. Oh, it was great, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 59:06

It's all. Do you know? It's these things of what adventure and what being outdoors and what good stress does to you and does to the brain, for a healthy brain and mental health.

Speaker 2: 59:18

It just shows how important research actually is. Well, this is it, if you put it in the right area, yeah.

Speaker 1: 59:24

Yeah, and it's all right Us going on and talking about you know, I often talk about how good the outdoors was for myself going through PTSD and things, but people just think, well, you know, OK, brilliant. But now there's evidence to back this up. And what is actually changing? And you're a neuro-psychology, I had to get it wrong at some point, didn't I? Anyway, you weren't wrong, were you?

Speaker 2: 59:46

What With being outdoors? No, no, so never am I really. So yeah, thanks, dave. I heard we've got a special guest in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 1: 59:56

Oh, when I got you know what, I watched a film called Running for Good and I sent an Instagram message off and I got a reply and I was like I was tingling when I got it because it's Fiona Hooks. Now Fiona Hooks ran the stuff she's done running. She's run a lot, she's run a lot, but she's run it through compassion and empathy for animals. That is her focus, that is her drive, and when you listen to anything by her or watch the film, she's like I'm not a runner, but she's run marathon to Sabre. She's got four world records. She's run marathons on every continent. She ran the polar marathon and smashed the record. She were there before the officials to finish it. It's an unbelievable, remarkable story and what a remarkable lady.

Speaker 2: 1:00:46

I'm certainly looking forward to that, yeah it's going to be good, so tune in.

Speaker 1: 1:00:52

Right, take care bud Bye.