Mark Berman

That's a good question.

I think in part because they had some feeling that being in nature might be beneficial.

So being out in the ocean, seeing the ocean waves, being on the beach, having the sights, smells, and even the textures of the ocean could be beneficial.

It was also somewhat of a social activity because they were taking these veterans out in groups of about 20 people.

And, you know, when you're trying to catch a wave, sometimes there's a lot of sitting on your board waiting to catch your wave.

And, of course, too, there's also an exercise component to it.

Surfing is challenging.

It's a hard physical exercise.

And I think they probably also thought that that would be helpful as well.

They found that PTSD symptoms and depression symptoms went down when these surfers were involved in the program.

And they also had sort of improved moods, so more positive mood, less negative mood.

and that the severity of their depression and anxiety symptoms tended to decrease amongst these surf therapy participants.

Yeah, the two main places that I would go to were Barton Park.

That was kind of right on the Huron River in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

And I would also often go to the Ann Arbor Botanical Gardens, which was a little bit farther away from campus, a little bit farther away from where I lived, but a very beautiful botanical garden that had a lot of nature trails that you could walk on.

Yeah, there was this gigantic oak tree.

kind of in the middle of the trail on Barton Park.

It was almost kind of off by itself, this kind of singular oak tree that had a really, really giant trunk.

And it always kind of caught my eye.

You definitely could hear the wind kind of rustling through its leaves.