Leaving It on the Mountain

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been writing about the pressures men carry and how the stress response shows up in the body. This piece builds on that theme, but moves closer to lived experience rather than explanation.

As the year winds down, many men notice their stress responses more clearly rather than less. When life slows externally, the nervous system often has more space to register what it has been holding. This isn’t a sign that anything is wrong. It’s the system doing what it evolved to do at a time when reflection and uncertainty naturally increase.

There’s a moment many men recognise when stress stops feeling manageable and starts to take over. Perspective narrows, the future can feel heavier, and there’s often an urge to pull back and deal with things alone. Thinking becomes more rigid, and the mind begins to fill in the gaps with worst-case scenarios. Even small uncertainties can start to feel overwhelming.

When this happens, the body’s priority is safety. The difficulty is that safety, in this state, often gets defined very narrowly. Threat detection ramps up, options seem fewer, and life can begin to feel foreclosed. For many men, this shows up as a strong urge to retreat – sometimes to escape entirely, at other times to withdraw quietly and cope alone.

I noticed this playing out in my own nervous system last week.

A personal reflection

I’ve been thinking and writing a lot about burnout recently, including my own experiences over the last eleven years. I’ve been aware of an underlying sense of discomfort, but not really giving myself the space to process it. I’ve also not allowed myself much time to properly switch off - and last week, my nervous system gave me a stark reminder of what happens when I don’t.

I found myself in a supermarket feeling trapped once again by a very ordinary decision: buying milk. It was exactly the same situation I was in eleven years ago. As panic rose, I felt an urgent need to escape. It was as if I was being hunted, and all I wanted was to find safety. That moment set off a chain of events that left me feeling wired and unsettled, and the effects lingered for days afterwards.

What stood out wasn’t just what I was thinking, but how I reacted. My thoughts felt tight and urgent, looping quickly towards dire conclusions rather than curiosity. Even with a good understanding of how stress works, my body was already acting as if danger was imminent. The instinct wasn’t to talk or create space, but first to escape and then to withdraw and get through it alone.

This is something I see again and again in the men I work with. Under pressure, connection often feels like too much of an effort, or risk, at the very moment it’s most needed.

Why reconnection changes everything

What helped shift things for me wasn’t someone fixing the situation or offering solutions. It was reconnecting with people I trust, particularly other men who know me well enough to stay solid rather than reactive.

There’s something deeply regulating about being alongside others without needing to perform or explain everything perfectly. Shared time, honest conversation, humour, and even silence can all send a powerful signal of safety to the nervous system. This is what I mean when I talk about the power of brotherhood - not forced vulnerability or surface-level bonding, but real human contact that reminds you you’re not carrying things alone.

Challenge, movement, and leaving it on the mountain

Photo by @Gilly Photography

Climbing Skafell Pike with this group of brothers offered exactly the kind of combination my nervous system responds well to: physical effort, shared purpose, and open space.

It wasn’t easy. At one point, I wanted to turn back. But as we climbed, talked, paused, and climbed again, something began to shift. The body had a job to do, and the mind followed. Conversations flowed more easily, silences felt comfortable, and the internal noise became quieter. By the time we reached the top, the problems I’d been carrying hadn’t disappeared, but they no longer felt all-consuming.

The idea of leaving things on the mountain isn’t about avoidance, but about deliberate release. Naming what you’re holding, acknowledging its weight, and allowing movement, landscape, and connection to help you set it down.

Alongside this, I’ve returned to simple practices that help me come out of my head and back into my body. Breathwork, meditation, and Qi Gong aren’t about switching thoughts off, but about slowing the system down enough to create space. When stress is high, more thinking often fuels the loop. The body needs a felt sense of safety before perspective can widen again.

Why talking helps us make sense again

What really consolidates these shifts is talking. Not unloading everything at once, and not searching for perfect insight, but speaking about what happened with someone who can listen without judgement or urgency.

Talking helps the nervous system integrate experience. It turns raw activation into something that can be processed and held. When men don’t talk, stress often stays trapped in the body and leaks out as frustration, shutdown, or harsh self-criticism. When men do talk, especially in trusted spaces, perspective begins to widen again.

A closing reflection on stress

If you recognise yourself in this – the narrowing, the pull to retreat, the sense that things feel closer to the surface – there’s nothing wrong with you. These responses are understandable reactions to pressure, especially at times of transition or reflection.

If it’s helpful, you may want to explore some of the earlier pieces on this site that look at pressure, stress, and how the nervous system responds. Together, they offer a wider lens on what can happen internally when life feels tighter than usual.

There’s no need to arrive at answers or clarity straight away. Sometimes it’s enough to pause, notice what’s there, and meet yourself with a little more understanding.

And if nothing else, I hope this reminds you that you don’t have to carry everything on your own.

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