Outdoor activity is being positioned as a route into men’s mental health care
A new Isle of Man charity is betting that the path to better men’s mental health may begin on a hillside, in cold water, or beside a barbershop chair rather than in a clinic room. Connect Outdoors is launching with an International Men’s Day event at the Venture Centre in Maughold, where about 80 people are expected to take part in activities ranging from hill walking and archery to breathwork, ice baths, yoga, bushcraft, and guided walks.
The premise is straightforward but clinically relevant: some men will engage more readily with wellbeing support when it is delivered through activity rather than through formal talk-based services. For a population often described as harder to reach, the setting itself can become part of the intervention. Natural environments may lower social threat, reduce the pressure to perform, and create the kind of side-by-side interaction that makes disclosure feel less exposed.
Kate Bergquist, chief executive of the charity, said the project grew out of years of work in social care, public services, and outdoor wellbeing programmes. She framed the island’s natural environment as an underused health resource, arguing that outdoor spaces should be embedded in routine wellbeing rather than treated as leisure alone.
Green and blue health is being used as the service model
Connect Outdoors is being built around what is known as green and blue health, a framework that uses forests, beaches, the sea, and other natural settings to support wellbeing. The practical appeal is obvious: movement, social contact, and sensory exposure are bundled together in a way that is easier to access than a traditional appointment model for some people. The clinical logic is equally direct. Physical activity can improve mood and sleep, while structured social contact can blunt loneliness, which is a major driver of psychological distress in men who withdraw from family, work, or community networks.
Bergquist said a key focus will be men’s mental health, but without making mental health the sole reason to attend. That matters because many men do not respond well to interventions that feel overtly remedial or stigmatizing. An outdoor session can create a more acceptable doorway into support: a man arrives for a climb, a walk, or a swim and leaves having spoken about strain, grief, or stress without having to present himself as a patient.
The charity also wants to gather research on which activities men are most likely to engage with. Surveys distributed at the launch event are intended to identify which approaches work best and which formats men actually choose to return to. In service design terms, that is a useful correction. Too often, interventions are built around what professionals think should work rather than what target groups will realistically use.
This launch is not just about wellness branding. It is an attempt to map engagement itself, which is often the first failure point in mental health care.
Social connection may be the most powerful ingredient
Several of the activities on offer are less important for their individual novelty than for the conversations they permit. Gary Thomas, who runs Walking for Wellness, leads Manx hill walks where participants can talk through whatever challenges they are carrying. The former serviceman and mountain leader said many people find it easier to open up outdoors than in a conventional counselling setting.
“Nature’s not clinical, nature’s natural,” he said.
That distinction matters at the bedside and beyond it. In a clinic, the formality of the room can intensify self-consciousness. Outdoors, the absence of eye contact during a walk, the rhythm of the terrain, and the shared focus on a task can reduce defensiveness. For men who have spent years avoiding emotional conversations, those small environmental changes can be the difference between silence and speech.
Thomas also pointed to a second mechanism: group activities can reduce isolation by building friendships that persist after the event itself ends. People who meet through shared movement often continue to walk, swim, or explore together later. In mental health terms, that is not a soft outcome. Social connection can alter the trajectory of anxiety, low mood, and hopelessness by replacing withdrawal with routine contact.
Barbershops and informal spaces are being recruited into prevention
Joshua Moore, a Douglas barber involved in the event, brings another setting that has become increasingly relevant to men’s mental health work: the barbershop. He completed suicide prevention training through the Lions Barber Collective and said the barber chair can be a place where men feel comfortable talking about difficult issues.
“The barber chair is a very special place,” he said.
Moore’s comments point to a wider truth about prevention. Early intervention does not always begin with a referral letter or a psychiatric consultation. Sometimes it begins with a haircut, a routine conversation, and the rare experience of being listened to without judgment. Men who might never volunteer distress in a formal appointment may speak more freely in a familiar social setting where the purpose is not explicitly therapeutic.
His involvement also reflects the reality that mental health strain is not confined to the individual. Families, workplaces, and communities absorb the effects when men become isolated, irritable, or unable to cope. Support efforts that identify distress early may reduce the burden before a crisis hardens into emergency care.
The event is testing which forms of support men will actually use
The International Men’s Day launch is designed to do more than introduce people to outdoor activities. It also aims to point participants toward support available for both physical and mental wellbeing. The strategy is practical: reduce the barrier to entry, make the first contact informal, and then offer a route onward if someone needs more structured help.
For clinicians and public health teams, the important question is not whether nature feels beneficial in theory. The more useful question is which formats reliably draw men in, keep them engaged, and create enough trust for meaningful support to follow. Bergquist’s team appears to be testing that in real time, with the island’s terrain as the setting and men’s willingness to return as the measure that will matter most.
What happens next will depend on the survey responses, the take-up of different activities, and whether the community-building element proves strong enough to sustain participation after the launch event ends.