What’s the Deal With Bouldering Therapy for Depression?

In 2021, 31-year-old India Kushner, who lives near Baltimore, started going to therapy. Kushner, who has experienced depressive episodes, sees a therapist who works primarily with cognitive behavioral therapy — a commonly used therapy technique geared toward changing unhelpful thoughts and behavioral patterns.

“We’ve really been working a lot with this idea of sitting with your feelings, even if you’re super uncomfortable, and not just trying to get away from them and seeing what’s going on in your body,” Kushner says.

Meanwhile, wanting a new exercise to try, Kushner also began rock climbing — and was surprised to find that it, too, helps her manage her depression. As she explains, rock climbing (also known as bouldering) involves concentrating on what you’re seeing and feeling in the present moment rather than focusing on the past or future. In other words, it pairs well with mindfulness, a type of meditation that is proven to reduce stress and help alleviate depression, according to Mayo Clinic.

“It’s a way of pausing all my depressive symptoms or anxious thoughts and just putting them aside because I have this thing that I can concentrate on,” Kushner says. “It also makes me feel a lot more confident and empowered, and I think that really helps a lot with my depression.”

Bouldering Therapy for Depression: What It Is (and What It Isn’t)

Kushner isn’t the only one finding that bouldering helps her “climb” out of her depression when its symptoms arise. In fact, several studies, including one published March 12, 2020, in the journal BMC Psychiatry, have suggested that “therapeutic bouldering” can play a significant role in reversing depression.

What is “therapeutic bouldering” exactly? On its own, physical activity is “an effective, cost-effective treatment for depression,” according to the American Psychological Association (APA).

What makes therapeutic bouldering potentially more powerful than exercise alone is that it’s led by a mental health professional who integrates the physical activity with other well-studied interventions. It also is often done as group therapy, which helps reduce the feelings of isolation that, as the APA reports, often accompany depression. And it is usually offered alongside standard treatments for depression, such as counseling (talk therapy) and medication (antidepressants, such as SSRIs).

In short, manualized bouldering therapy — meaning bouldering therapy in which specific therapeutic protocols are followed — appears to work better at managing depressive symptoms than physical exercise on its own, which is exactly what a study published in March 2020 in BMC Psychiatry concluded.

What the Science Shows

Existing research suggests that bouldering therapy can be very effective. For example, a small study published in November 2021 in the British Journal of Clinical Psychology showed that bouldering therapy was “equally effective” for people with depression when compared with cognitive behavioral therapy.

The benefits of bouldering therapy also appear to be long-lasting. Another small study, this one published in the December 2019 issue of the journal Heliyon, found that patients who took part in once-weekly bouldering therapy sessions for eight weeks felt less depressed immediately after the sessions ended — and when researchers followed up 12 months later the participants reported that they still felt less depressed.

Pros of Bouldering Therapy for Depression

Why might bouldering therapy be so helpful for people with depression? “Bouldering or rock climbing can be a more successful activity than a walk or hike when treating depression, as the tactile experience of a person achieving or conquering this type of activity instills hope,” says Michael J. McGrath, MD, a psychiatrist and medical director of the Ohana Addiction Treatment Center in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, where some patients participate in bouldering therapy as part of their treatment.

“The thing that struck me about it is that it’s integrating a lot of other therapeutic interventions,” says Carly Claney, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist and director of Relational Psych, a psychodynamic therapy and psychological assessment practice in Seattle. For example, bouldering helps strengthen problem-solving skills and increases confidence, plus it provides the immediate reward of accomplishing a challenging task — three things that can help break the negative thought patterns linked to depression.

It should come as no surprise that connecting this form of physical activity with therapy makes for good medicine, adds Cassandra Fallon, a licensed marriage and family therapist and regional clinic director at Thriveworks Counseling in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It logically evolves from a variety of nontraditional or “complementary” treatments that have been used for decades as supplements to traditional treatments, she explains.

“We have begun with trauma-informed yoga, animal-assisted interventions, equine therapy, and more. Bouldering is a more recent and fantastic addition to our growing toolbox to help humans grow and become the best version of themselves,” Fallon says.

Are There Any Significant Drawbacks?

Although bouldering therapy for depression has shown promise, Dr. Claney emphasizes that there hasn’t been enough research to claim that bouldering therapy is sufficient on its own for treating depression. This is especially true since many of the studies that do exist involved small numbers of participants. Additionally, more research is needed to find out if bouldering therapy can help people who live with a combination of depression and other mental health conditions.

It could also be important to compare therapeutic bouldering with other forms of exercise combined with manualized therapy to better understand if and what specific aspects of bouldering positively impact mental health.

“If there’s anything else that is going on, like if there’s anxiety and depression, or if there’s depression and trauma, I would want to see what the research shows about the interaction of those kinds of conditions,” Claney says.

Initial research investigating rock climbing’s impact on anxiety suggests it may not be as significant as its impact on depression. A study published in March 2021 in Current Psychology found no link between rock climbing and increased well-being or decreased anxiety when compared with regular physical activity.

As always, it’s wise to check with your doctor before trying any new exercise, especially if you have any coexisting health conditions or limited mobility.