How the NFCT Changed Us … and the Post-Adventure Blues
When we went and thru-paddled the Northern Forest Canoe Trail (NFCT) we were told by many people “This trip is going to be life changing, and you will feel like you can accomplish anything after this!”, which understandably sets expectations quite high as to how we would feel post-adventure. On completion, and in the days and months since, we have found this has not been our experience. We’re sure we cannot be the only ones that feel this way, so here’s what we have found, and how we’re going forward. If you have any thoughts on this, or if it resonates, we’d love to hear from you, as it’s not easy to find others to chat with about these experiences and feelings.
We appreciate that this article is a bit of a long one, but as it has some quite important messaging. If you really need it though, here’s the TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read):
We changed. The world changed. Our bodies produce feel good chemicals on big trips, but when you finish a big trip you no longer have the feel good chemicals. This can make life difficult, but help is out there if you need it.
Let us start with the positive. We think the most significant change we have noticed was that we both became much more comfortable with being uncomfortable. We think that this is a large part of settling into living outside for an extended time, where not everything is easily accessible or usable, and everything takes effort to do. We found that we are way more flexible and malleable than we previously thought, and we can cope with more than we expected. To give you an idea of what we became comfortable with, these are a few of the highlights:
being covered in fabric from head to toe whenever outside the tent to stop the voracious bugs
being hot and dripping in sweat in humid environments for days at a time without a break
being soaking wet for hours at a time
Sitting on hard ground without chairs
Being muscularly tired at the end of each and every day
Being itchy from the inevitable bug bites in the most unfortunate locations (yes, we even got bites there!)
Sleeping with limited padding (especially when sleeping mats failed)
Going for extended periods of only being able to strip wash in the open (no showers)
And one not to be missed, is the lengthy faff of going to the toilet; as there is a swarm of bugs trying to feast on you whilst you go about your ablutions!
Not all bugs were bitey, some were quite pleasant. While on a portage we stopped for a drink and snack, and this delightful butterfly landed on Robert's head.
The modern western world is made for comfort and this arguably makes us soft. Don't get us wrong, when we made it back to civilization we enjoyed hot showers and soft beds as much as the next people. However, while we were out in the backcountry we can’t say that we really missed the everyday comforts. The same goes for the internet, films and music.
For Robert this trip was not as hard, nor as personally challenging in the ways that he expected. The physical paddling and living outside was the easy bit. The challenge was more around being there for the rest of the team, and being the default leader; making decisions that would impact everyone. Inwardly Robert changed the way in which he saw some of his dearest friends and indeed himself. He learnt things about his friends, family, and himself that without this experience he doubts that he would have ever got the chance to learn. As you can expect there were some hard lessons to learn, especially at the time, but on reflection they are all part of life's rich tapestry.
For Katrina this trip was harder physically. Having never done this amount of continuous physical exercise, there were a few phenomena that she had not found before. The concerning one was not being able to eat on days we were paddling. It affected her for probably about half the trip, only being able to eat properly on zero days. Waking up in the morning and feeling so nauseous that she couldn’t stomach breakfast was not great. Some days it wouldn’t be till the evening that she could stomach any substantial food. This may have been because she wasn’t eating enough to begin with. Later in the trip there were a few days in a row that she forced herself to eat everything that was prepared, and things did get better from that point. She was then eating more than she had the whole trip, as she finally found she was hungry, consuming double the amount of snacks than were budgeted for, calories wise. It was good that there was a resupply point just before the final two weeks, as it meant that we picked up enough snacks to then cover this increase in appetite. This experience has meant she might not ever look at a cinnamon pop tart in the same way though.
During the expedition we came across a number of people on the trail that spoke of needing to be outside and on the river. One even said “I was sent by my wife to be on the river for a couple of days, so I am not so much of an arse at home.” Robert could relate, the simpleness of life when it is just you, a canoe, and a paddle, it feels like you are connected to the river in a way that you would be with no other form of transport. To paint you a picture in words:
“when you are working with your boat buddy in unison, connected to the river with every stroke of the paddle and twitch of the hips, the smell of nature, the sound of the river, and sight of the great outdoors in all its visceral beauty… Bliss!”
What we are describing here is “Flow” and this trip contained some of the longest stretches of “Flow” that we have ever experienced. By “flow” we are referring to the feeling of “being in the zone”, which is the mental state that was identified by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi back in the 70’s. Coming to the end of the trip, and being ripped from this daily flow state was difficult, we almost felt like junkies needing a fix of being able to access that flow state again. The irony is that by wanting to get to the flow state, you find it so much harder to do! While you are pulling on a paddle for seven to eight hours a day, you cannot really do anything else but be in the moment. This means that we had plenty of time to turn inwards and think. We occupied our minds by spending time thinking about things that we had always put off due to not feeling like we had the time. We had deep conversations that spanned days on many topics, as they were broken up by hours of paddling, as it is difficult to talk front to back in a canoe. This gave both of us time to really think about what we were discussing, and led to a real deeping of a connection.
This is the type of view that greeted us in the morning, what a way to start the day!
Before the trip we knew about post adventure blues, and we were even warned about them. We would recommend Cal Major’s blog post on it, and how far it can go. It is something that we had both experienced the dark touches of before on previous trips. However, after this trip the blues hit Robert harder than ever before. We think this topic does not get enough coverage in adventure literature, and it can be hard to explain to others that have not experienced it. So we think it is important to bring it into the open, and discuss it with you.
It is worth considering at this point what is going on with your body, during and after, an adventurous trip such as this. For three months we had some of the highest sustained doses of endorphins from physical exertion, far exceeding that found in our normal lives. We got significant dopamine waves from seeing breathtaking views, as well as reaching our goals for each day, and celebrating each of the sections we completed. There were also some body shaking adrenaline hits from our bodies' perception of danger; be that whitewater, large fauna, close by gun shots, or logging trucks weaving down the road we were walking along (at speed!). When we got home all of that stopped.
“It just stops.
Cold.
No more nice feeling hormones.
No more… Not even a little bit….. NO good hormones AT ALL…
Welcome to the post adventure blues…
...sigh…”
Our bodies like reaching a balance point in most processes, with the fancy term for this balancing act being “homeostasis”. This applies to the internal regulation of hormones. In essence, our hormone receptors increase and decrease in sensitivity depending on the levels present. So our bodies react to endorphins, dopamine, and adrenaline in similar ways to external drugs. To get the same “fix” you need higher and higher doses. Towards the end of the trip we could feel like our bodies had become accustomed to the daily expedition routine, and we were comfortable being uncomfortable. Little did we consider at the time, but we had also become accustomed to all those lovely feel good hormones of paddling everyday as well. In the same way as some happy feeling drugs, if you take these high doses of happy hormones away, then you are going to feel like crap, as your body has been taken away from its balance point.
We had purposely planned time after our adventure to recover before going back to work. We cannot stress how important this was. We had also put in place some self-care activities to help with what we thought may happen. This took away some of the thinking that we would have to do on our return.
Once we got back we found it hard to hear people saying “that must have been amazing” as we were inwardly thinking “yes it was, way better than what we are doing now, I was happy then”, or the “you must be glad to be home” and replying “well home is more comfortable” whilst thinking “I couldn't care less for all this nonsense, this is not living. We are all just drifting through life, for what? A slightly more comfortable cave?”. It can be difficult talking to people about the post adventure blues as the thoughts of “Woe is me, I got to go do something awesome that most people don’t get the chance to, and now I feel sad that it has come to an end” are not helpful, especially as if you do bring this up with people who have not been on such a trip, and have not experienced this phenomena, it can inadvertently reinforce this negative thinking. The guiding thought that we kept hold of was that “we were happy before, and will be again. Our bodies just need to find a new normal (or is that an old normal?), and we are just a little out of whack” AND WE BELIEVED IN IT.
Self-care things we did to help when we got back:
Made time to talk to each other about how we were feeling on a regular basis.
Recognised the strange feelings for what they were, and reminded ourselves it will not always be like this.
Set up a regular sleep pattern and stuck to it as much as we could. Katrina struggled with excessive sleeping on our return, as her body recovered.
Ensured we had good wholesome food at regular times, and avoided snacking. Reduced our sugar intake. Robert struggled with always feeling hungry for well over a month.
Stretching and yoga at least once a day, if not twice.
Undertook gentle exercise at least one session a day, short (less than 5 mile) walks or runs, short paddles (less than 4 hours), and gentle body weight exercises.
Slowly built up social interactions, and the number of people around us at any one time.
We have purposefully held off on planning the next big adventure. Don’t worry reader, there are now many more in the works, we just didn’t jump back into planning anything for the first month back home.
With us both having office jobs, there were then a fair few changes we then had to get used to once back at work. Robert found it hard just sitting down for 8 hours a day. Quite often he found himself just standing up for a bit while working, or wandering off whilst on a phone call. Just being inside now for extended periods has become uncomfortable in a way that it never was before. There is a pull of the wilderness, it is definitely real, and it has a hold of Robert. He feels the need to get outside and in nature in a way that he has never experienced before. Getting this feeling can be a little tricky in the UK, as you have to go a fair distance from where we live to get to anywhere that even resembles wilderness.
Even in the darkest moments there is beauty and hope. When this picture was taken there was a storm rolling in, and even in this moment there were flowers making the most of it.
One of the more immediate issues on our return was that our wardrobes did not fit. Makes sense when you think about it. An easy fix, but a right pain! We also noticed that some of our behaviour had become a little eccentric. It was not long after we were back in the UK that we went to see a family member in hospital (they’re okay, nothing to worry about). There was only one visitor chair and Katrina was sitting on it. Without thinking twice, Rob looked at the ground, assessed that it was “clean and comfortable”, and just sat crossed legged on the floor and carried on talking. This seemed to be bewildering to the nurses, and other patients thought so too. Only when it was pointed out by the health professionals that this was a little odd, did Robert go and ask for a chair.
Whenever you are away from the normal grind, there will be things that happen in your absence that you will not be present for. This can feel exclusionary on your return, be that in your personal life with friends and family, or even at work. To give you a flavour of what the rest of the world was doing while we were away:
A number of weddings of family and friends occurred
Significant social gatherings of family and friends
Family members ending up in hospital
Work projects progressed (and some even got completed)
Various events that shaped the social zeitgeist which we were ignorant of
All in 3 months!
We experienced first hand a phenomena that surrounds memory. On our return we found that for many three months of the daily grind and routine did not appear to be a long time, but for us it felt like forever. Just take a moment and try to remember for yourself. What have you done in the last 3 months? Does it seem like a lot, or a little? Probably not too much, right?
There is a theory that novelty feeds memory. The more novelty you have in your life the more new memories you make. Our brains are lazy and do not make new memories if an occurrence is only minorly different from the last time we experienced something. At the end of this trip we had so many new memories, it felt like so much had happened. For us, 2023 feels one of the longest years of our lives. Meanwhile, back at home and work when we asked “so what has happened” people struggled to tell us what had transpired over those same three months. When we were asked “so how was it?” we struggled at times to be succinct enough to give the person who asked a flavour of what we did, without being those people who always bang on about it (we know we are talking about it a lot on this website, the irony is not lost on us, but you are here reading it). We found that in groups we would normally interact with there were ‘in jokes’ and experiences that we had just not been a part of. This was due to us not being present at the time, and people struggled to remember what had happened to fill us in on what we had missed. It is worth mentioning that this is a double-edged sword as we too experienced things that others had not as a group and we now have ‘in jokes’ that exclude others. It is all part of the opportunity cost of undertaking an extended trip away from normal life.
If you are currently reading any of this, and finding that it rings bells for you, and you are finding it hard to manage then please reach out for help. There are people out there who care about you, and there is no need to suffer. You can find below a few places that you can turn to if you feel like you need a helping hand. The following recommendations are very UK centric, but there are equivalent support organisations all over the world.
Your NHS GP (General Practitioner) - Yes they are there for mental as well as physical health and can be helpful for local signposting, as well other assistance.
Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) - if you are lucky enough to have one of these where you work, then they often come with counselling and other mental health support.
Mind - Mind provides a wide range of services relating to mental health, including information and support.
The Samaritans - If you need someone to talk to, they listen. They won't judge you or tell you what to do. They have a 24 hour helpline which you can contact on 116 123 from any UK phone.
We would love to hear from you if you’ve experienced something similar to us. It really is an odd thing to feel, and we would love to hear about it if you’d like to tell us. The change between being self-sufficient in the wilderness and then going back to the normal hustle and bustle of everyday life is a weird one, and maybe something we can all help each other with.
We think that it has taken us a good three months after returning to get back to “normal” (whatever that is). Was it worth it? 100%. Would we do it again? 1000%. Is that just our desire for those feel good chemicals again? Maybe? Who knows at this point? All we really know is that there will be more adventures!!
