Caching as therapy

July 19, 2011

Recently I received some bad news regarding my health.

Instead of going home, I decided to go caching and to try and cheer myself up.

I know what you're thinking, why wouldn't a scenic hike cheer anyone up?

Ha! I wish I could have gone on a scenic hike. I don't hike alone due to health concerns, and I don't have a car, so when I'm by myself I'm limited to places easy to get to by bus.

I decided that I didn't want to use a bus ticket if I didn't have to, so I cached in the area of my doctors office.

I really enjoyed it, but I bet I looked rather strange staring at a gps with tears in my eyes to anyone that passed me while I was on the sidewalk.

Back to the point, I have a geocaching addiction. It's so bad that I can't calm myself down without a hit of caching. Am I alone?

July 19, 2011

I'm planning on caching near my doctor's office later today. I have time to kill before picking up my wife at the airport afterwards.

July 19, 2011

Puff puff cache.

When I have a horrible day I like to get out and go caching too. Takes my mind off of everything until I have to go home.

July 19, 2011

I'm planning on caching near my doctor's office later today. I have time to kill before picking up my wife at the airport afterwards.

If you are talking about PHX, I'd need to cache to prepare to go to that place as well!

July 19, 2011

I'm planning on caching near my doctor's office later today. I have time to kill before picking up my wife at the airport afterwards.

If you are talking about PHX, I'd need to cache to prepare to go to that place as well!

I am! Her plane lands at 5:45pm and my doctor appt will be over by 4:00pm. I'll probably get a few caches along Dunlap AVE or Peoria AVE near 7th st +/- a few miles.

1.1k · July 19, 2011

I often go caching to decompress from work. Works great. Hope your health improves and all is well soon.

1.2k · July 19, 2011

You are not alone! I've used caching for physical therapy...my Chiropractor told me to get away from my desk and computer every now and again to give my back a rest. "Take a nice short walk" he said. You got it! My practice of not finding all the local caches paid off as I had a few left nearby to be found one-by-one. Made for a nice consecutive days streak!

Very sorry to hear of your bad news, and sending best wishes to you!

July 19, 2011

Recently I received some bad news regarding my health.

Instead of going home, I decided to go caching and to try and cheer myself up.

I know what you're thinking, why wouldn't a scenic hike cheer anyone up?

Ha! I wish I could have gone on a scenic hike. I don't hike alone due to health concerns, and I don't have a car, so when I'm by myself I'm limited to places easy to get to by bus.

I decided that I didn't want to use a bus ticket if I didn't have to, so I cached in the area of my doctors office.

I really enjoyed it, but I bet I looked rather strange staring at a gps with tears in my eyes to anyone that passed me while I was on the sidewalk.

Back to the point, I have a geocaching addiction. It's so bad that I can't calm myself down without a hit of caching. Am I alone?

Sorry to hear about the health issue. I cache after work to dump that excessive baggage before getting home. My kids say I'm a lot nicer now. Yesterday, I got caught in a storm, had tree branches falling around me, got soaked to the bone and had to trudge through the rain and wind a mile to get back to my car before driving 33 miles home. It was the best part of my day. All alone, just trying to figure out where someone placed a box of junk in the middle of a state park. I think I'll do it again today.

38.2k · July 19, 2011

The two best therapists I know are my left leg and my right leg. I feel so much better after a day of caching and/or hiking.

5.7k · July 19, 2011

Recently I received some bad news regarding my health.

Instead of going home, I decided to go caching and to try and cheer myself up.

I know what you're thinking, why wouldn't a scenic hike cheer anyone up?

Ha! I wish I could have gone on a scenic hike. I don't hike alone due to health concerns, and I don't have a car, so when I'm by myself I'm limited to places easy to get to by bus.

I decided that I didn't want to use a bus ticket if I didn't have to, so I cached in the area of my doctors office.

I really enjoyed it, but I bet I looked rather strange staring at a gps with tears in my eyes to anyone that passed me while I was on the sidewalk.

Back to the point, I have a geocaching addiction. It's so bad that I can't calm myself down without a hit of caching. Am I alone?

Hello, my name is______.

My addiction began when I was a teenager. Remember ping-pong on Atari? Then it was Donkey Kong, and soon I was shooting pool, but that did not have the fix like a "electronic" one. Play Station, Xbox, Wii, Xbox 360, and now? Xbox live! Geocaching just fits right in. Don't let people tell you that it is not addicting. Sure, you will say "I can handle it". Only other people get addicted. Then it will start when you buy you first GPS unit. Don't go cheap thinking that you won't use it often, buy a real good costly one. Next thing you know you might find yourself on a numbers run far from home. We have meetings where we can get together and talk about our addiction. They are called "Geocache Events". They even have "Mega Events", and things like "GeoWoodstock". So you are not alone my friend. Peace. :rolleyes:

July 19, 2011

We totally understand how that goes. Neither of us particularly like where we are working, and sometimes down right loathe it. So to cheer our selves up and make sure we don't bring the negativity home we go and grab at least one cache on the way home from work. That normally works great, except last night. We were not having particularly bad days, but not particularly good. Just as we got off work the sky decided to open up and rain on us. We thought we could at least grab an easy P&G on the way home. Problem is we have grabbed all of the easy P&Gs on the way home. We ended up spending 2 hours looking for 3 caches that I'm sure would have been easy not in the dark and not in the rain. We didn't find any of them, we broke our current streak of 28 days with a cache, and ended up at home more depressed and crestfallen than when we had left work. But on the upside today starts our new streak of most consecutive days. :lol:

July 19, 2011

I think caching is fine therapy; in fact I am need of some of that myself, as I'm in a high stress phase of life too! :blink: I find that just getting out there and hunting for a cache is very satisfying, well all need a challenge in our lives and success to feel good and caching can provide this. Mind you, I have on occasion finding myself screeching (internally, otherwise I'd look crazy!) when it seems every muggle in the entire district decides to mosy on past me as I'm trying to pick up a cache in an area that normally has zero muggles! This acutally happened to me about a week ago: I went to get a FTF on a cache in a small country town at a spot that rarely sees any visitors....but not the night I was there! The district had a black tie event and all the nicely dressed people were arriving in dribs and drabs for about an hour to this event, which was right next to the cache! So I was hopping around, lurking, loitering, looking innocent, hiding and dashing back and forward between groups of arrivals, trying to find a fiendishly hidden micro on a 40mm gun outside a Returned Services Club! I finally found it, dashed back to the car (cursing and puffing) signed the log then went through it all to return it without being seen! Now THAT got the blood pressure up, but funnily enough driving away, I was calm and cheerful! :anibad:

2.3k · July 19, 2011

I use caching to process my thoughts basically. I've said it in other threads but I don't always notice the walk out to somewhere (people say log about the scenery) and I don't necessarily notice the search. I'm kind of on autopilot and processing my thoughts about stressful situations. Now I could log about the yucky stuff I'm thinking through but I'm guessing people don't want to read that stuff.

Sometimes I'll do more rigorous physical stuff if I don't want to be consciously processing my thoughts because then I can just let stuff churn away unconsciously while consciously focusing on not sliding down the rocks by the waterfall.

Either way I'm typically focused on either my thoughts or the physical stuff. Occasionally something catches my eye in the process and I take some pictures or if it's really special stand in awe.

When I put my dog to sleep last year I got a puppy the next morning. But I needed a break from the puppy and some time to cry about my dog and I went out and found a couple caches. Was kind of nice.

7.3k · July 19, 2011

I went to physical therapy for several years, due to three consecutive car accidents (no fault of our own). In a way, the therapy was good for me outside of the car accidents, because my ongoing illness is really helped with steady mild activity (as well as the wonderful interaction with real people which I rarely get outside of family). It's a bummer that insurance ran out. :anibad:

Anyway, my physical therapist has cached a few times, and he always encouraged me to get out and cache, especially caches on trails. He said that he prescribed caching for my physical therapy outside of the clinic.

I really don't know how well I'd have gotten through the last 6+ years without geocaching. There are just so many things that caching has done for me to get me out of the slump that has been my sickness: mental stimulation, physical activity, the outdoors, volunteering, socialization, traveling. The list goes on. I really do owe a lot of my life to caching. The friends that I've made through caching have been some of the best that I've ever had, and I thank God every day for them. :wub:

I hope that whatever you are going through gets better, or that you find a way to get through it. I hope you have lots of support from people in your life. (hugs)

July 19, 2011

I cache for the numbers. The more, the better, right?

Just kidding- :lol:

I cache for a few reasons. Discovering cool (and uncool) places close to home that I would only have found due to the geocache nearby. The fresh air helps me process my thoughts (and no, I didn't steal it from previous posts.) clearly and gives my mind a "mental" exercise.

July 20, 2011

I just started but I am totally hooked. I try 4 a cache everyday after work. It is for sure the best part of my day. I feel like I can stop thinking about all the big stuff for a while and focus on something small. Most cache, even the city one around me, are in places you may have passed 500 times but never really seen. I guess it's that stop & smell the roses principle.

3.7k · July 20, 2011

Sorry to hear about your health news.

I've found caching to be a wonderful way to blow off some steam. My family's noticed that if I'm having a bad day, if I go out and find a few caches, I'll come back a happy person. I won't say there's no other way to change my mood, but I've found the exercise that comes with caching to be by far alot healthier and more effective than chocoalte or chips.

Edited July 20, 2011 by The_Incredibles_

July 20, 2011

Good luck with your health. Getting outside and walking is something we loved before caching but caching adds another dimension. Now if we have high stress or pressures from work we can lose all of that by going after a high terrain cache (if we can find one in our area). Sometimes just a mile into the woods and you can tell the difference. I imagine the same would happen downtown near the doctor's office due to the focus on the find. What a great benefit to be able to use caching so positively. You were wondering if you looked strange with the GPSr and tears. I imagine not very strange to the many who walk around texting! Good luck to you.

7.5k · July 21, 2011

In May I broke my leg (fibula) while geocaching. The second thought after '*&$#! I think I broke my ankle' was, 'I wonder if I can reach over and check under that brush pile before I try to get up'.

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night nor ill health stays these geocachers..."

I hope your health improves and doesn't interfere with your geocaching.

Edited July 21, 2011 by Lone R

3.7k · July 21, 2011

In May I broke my leg (fibula) while geocaching. The second thought after '*&$#! I think I broke my ankle' was, 'I wonder if I can reach over and check under that brush pile before I try to get up'.

LOL. I would totally do that too. I had a bad fall the other day, tripped over my own pants and slammed down hard on my shin. Nothing broken, but still had to limp around painfully for 10 minutes looking for the cache.

In the 'winter' here it rains every second day. We have gone caching in the pouring rain many times.

July 21, 2011

Yeah, Geocaching is therapy for me. A while back, I had to go to the emergency room because I was REALLY sick. I ended up staying in there for about two weeks and not knowing if I was going to make it out. Well, making it out and going through several months of treatments, I knew that I had to get healthier. I know that I'll have to make regualr visits to the doctor and keep up my meds and treatments, but I'm doing a lot better. I'm not one to 'work-out' nor am I the one to join a gym and do any type of aerobics. So, I was searching the net to try and buy a good commuter bicycle that I can ride to work. Well, low and behold, I came arcoss the Geocaching website. Ever since then, I've been hooked and loving it! Since I've started, my health has gone up, my drive to get outside (because there was a time that I just didn't want to go outside) has gone up, and it's a pretty darn fun thing to do! I also love the surreptitiousness of this gameplay!

Well, I carried my addiction to work. I'm an art teacher and I have now began a Geocaching group at my school. For the past month, we've been going hiking in the mountains for caches. We'll do sketches and drawings of the area and one time we went to the top of this cliff over looking the beach and spent the afternoon painting! I love being a teacher in the summer!

Again, Geocaching for me has been therapy and I hope to make it last for a long time! I'm glad that this thread is here. It's nice to know that there are some in the same catagory as I in the Geocaching world!

July 31, 2011

Caching is the best therapy! One day I was particularly low at work, and when I left for lunch decided to look for a cache or two. Signing a logbook is better than Prozac! I had quite perked up when I returned to work.

I would say it's impossible to shed tears while making a find, but a couple of years ago a cemetery cache had me wiping away a few. Yes I have done many cemetery caches and find the cemeteries interesting ... I always pause to read the headstones. This one was different though - it was a *pet* cemetery. Try getting out of one of those dry-eyed!

And Lorne of the broken ankle - did you find the cache??

2.4k · July 31, 2011

Caching has been great therapy for me.

I had a really bad break up a while ago. He had taught me to cache. Since he started caching years before me, he always wanted to stay ahead of me the same amount he had before we started caching together.

So after the break up I was home alone and depressed. I could have given in to that, as I've heard many have, but instead I'd get mad and go out and go caching. Every time I got mad at him I'd go out and try to get more caches than him. It kept me out of a spiraling depression. It may have saved my life.

(and yes, I'm about 500 ahead of him last I checked)

My health is not the best either. So when I'm not up to going out, I use new caches as a way to kick my butt out the door. I may have the need to run some errands or something, and can't get up the energy to do it and then my phone will go off with a new cache. I say to myself, "now you've just GOT to get out." and I'll use that and get out the door and get done what I needed to do.

I hope your health issues can be quickly resolved.

Blessings.

7.5k · August 1, 2011

Caching is the best therapy! One day I was particularly low at work, and when I left for lunch decided to look for a cache or two. Signing a logbook is better than Prozac! I had quite perked up when I returned to work.

I would say it's impossible to shed tears while making a find, but a couple of years ago a cemetery cache had me wiping away a few. Yes I have done many cemetery caches and find the cemeteries interesting ... I always pause to read the headstones. This one was different though - it was a *pet* cemetery. Try getting out of one of those dry-eyed!

And Lorne of the broken ankle - did you find the cache??

No.

Turns out it was missing. The CO archived it after a couple more visitors reported DNFs.

BTW, I'm back at it. I'm hunting lower terrain caches (and not LPCs ) and using a hiking stick at all times.

I know what you mean about the pet cemeteries. It's easy to get choked up by some of the sweet heart-felt markers.

6.8k · August 2, 2011

BTW, I'm back at it. I'm hunting lower terrain caches (and not LPCs ) and using a hiking stick at all times.

Quite a speedy recovery and you are fortunate to have that many lower terrain caches in your area that are not LPCs.

Cezanne

2.4k · August 2, 2011

Sorry to hear about your health news, dorqie. Work and caching have been my salvation........

6.8k · August 2, 2011

I really don't know how well I'd have gotten through the last 6+ years without geocaching. There are just so many things that caching has done for me to get me out of the slump that has been my sickness: mental stimulation, physical activity, the outdoors, volunteering, socialization, traveling. The list goes on. I really do owe a lot of my life to caching. The friends that I've made through caching have been some of the best that I've ever had, and I thank God every day for them.

What you write above sounds very familiar to me in some respects. Geocaching also has played an important role in my life throughout the years and has helped me a great lot in coping with difficult phases in my life, both mentally and physically. In particular, in recent years geocaching helped me to remain physically active at some reasonable level at times when the activity was no fun in itself due to physical limitations.

It appears that in the US it is more common to go geocaching despite health problems than in my country. Therapy comes much closer to my personal understanding of geocaching than any of the terms game. sport, leisure activity etc

Cezanne

6.8k · August 2, 2011

It's so bad that I can't calm myself down without a hit of caching. Am I alone?

Actually, for me rather the physical activity does the job of calming me down, but there are phases in my life where I need some external motivation to start off for some physical activity and geocaching does a good job for me in providing me with the needed motivation. I loved to go jogging when I felt particularly bad, but had to give it up due to problems with my joints.

I wish you all the best and a lot of energy for whatever you are going through.

Cezanne

Caching as therapy

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