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Essential Guide To Work-Life Balance

Guest in Robe Relaxing at Mountain Trek Health Reset Retreat overlooking Mountains and lake

If you could gain two extra hours every day, how would you spend this newly-found bonus time? Would you commit to a morning meditation practice? Would you pursue a creative passion project? Or would you focus on developing and maintaining deeper connections and relationships with those you love? There are many permutations, but it would come as a surprise if the answer was a resounding, “I would love to work more!”.

However, if our actions do the talking, it is the truest answer. Since 2020, the average work day for salaried employees in North America has elongated by almost two hours. Call it the remote work era. Call it ambition. Call it guilt. Call it what you will, but the dark truth to this extended workday is that we are no more productive than we were pre-pandemic. Instead, we are more distracted, more interrupted, more often “on”, and most importantly — more out of balance.

No matter the environment, industry, or job level, being unable to turn off work and re-balance one’s life is leading to a decrease in attention spans, an increase in stress and burnout culture, and an overall mental health crisis.

If you find yourself exhausted, constantly blurring the lines between work and life, and generally unable to shift your thoughts and focus away from your theoretical “nine-to-five” – this article is for you. Here, we’ll explain work-life balance, why it’s important, and offer up a proven, easy-to-implement framework for establishing a sustainable work-life balance.

Hiking across bridge in lush forest
Exercise, movement, and time in nature are essential to work-life balance.

Evolution of Work-Life Balance

In the 1970s and 1980s, baby boomers began labeling their increasing challenges related to juggling career performance, raising young families, and satisfying personal goals with the term work-life balance. Once taboo, the term grew to be a persistent point of discussion around dinner tables, boardroom tables, and media. So much so that in 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) formally recognized “burnout”—the direct result of poor work-life balance— as an “occupational phenomenon”, and defined the “syndrome” as chronic, unmanageable workplace stress that leads to “depletion, exhaustion, mental distance from one’s job, feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job, and reduced efficacy”.

Today, the conversation around work-life balance may be sparked by our connectedness to, and distractedness from, technology. Our devices are always on, and therefore, so are we. Work communications overflow into our personal time, stretching our work day, while constant notifications, often from multiple devices, have diminished our attention span to less than that of a goldfish. Each distraction we attend to has a true cost. Gloria Mark, Ph.D., led a productivity study at the University of California, Irvine which concluded that it takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds to refocus after every instance of disruption. Compounding this is the fact that we rarely return to the original task right away and instead, slot one or two intervening tasks in between. We find ourselves struggling or unable to maintain productivity, focus, concentration, and so we work longer hours to complete the same deliverables within the same deadlines.

Another aspect of work-life balance we are confronted with is that while remote working arrangements appear to be beacons of flexibility, they tend to lead to an increased number of meetings per day, often scheduled back-to-back, while spanning multiple time zones. Because we no longer have serendipitous “water cooler talk”, every interaction needs to be scheduled, and we find ourselves expanding our availability to accommodate others’ schedules, opening up the edges of our calendars and blurring boundaries once again.

Combine the above with the loss of our “transitional” commute, which once physically separated work and life and offered a moment to decompress and self-reflect between the responsibilities of each, and the “nine-to-five” boundaries are blurred to an almost unrecognizable, non-existent point. Our weekends are then overbooked in an effort to pack our schedules with deferred personal, family, and social commitments, and we deplete our energy reserves even further. Come Monday, we find ourselves already longing for another weekend to rest and recharge, and a negative cycle is born.

Sadly, it often takes a “wake-up call” to realize that work-life balance is unsustainable if only attended to when we are off-the-clock. Without self-appointed permission to establish work habits and boundaries that respect our most precious asset—our time—we put our mental, physical and overall well-being at risk day-in and day-out.

healthy plate of food being served by a chef
Eating healthfully is essential for balancing hormones and stress levels.

10 Benefits of Work-Life Balance

  1. Hormone Balance. Overworking leads to excessive stress, less than ample exercise and movement, and under sleeping. This throws hormone levels out of balance and causes cortisol, our stress-horomone, to be chronically elevated, which has been proven to cause metabolic disease, heart disease, anxiety and depression, and deteriorate brain health. Rather than cortisol levels being sustained at abnormally high levels throughout the entire day, work-life balance allows natural, healthy fluctuations (learn more about stress hormones). This leads to an improved hormonal balance that is integral to one’s overall health and function.
  2. Improved Sleep. When sleeping, our body and brain heal, restore, and regenerate. Healthy sleep is crucial for long-term health and vitality. It’s as important as nutrition and fitness, but is usually the first thing that falls off our priority list when overworking. A healthy work-life balance will improve sleep patterns, and support the critical 7-9 hours of deep, restful sleep we need on a regular basis. View our Sleep Hygiene Checklist to ensure a deep and restful slumber tonight.
  3. Reduced Anxiety. Long gone are the days of hunting and gathering and with that, long gone are the days of acute “fight or flight” mode, where adrenaline and cortisol hormones spike for a short period of time and then naturally return to “rest and digest” baseline levels. Here to stay are the days of constant pings, dings, and rings, notfications and alarms, all of which cause repeated spikes of adrenaline and cortisol throughout our day, keeping us in an anxious state of “fight or flight” for extended periods of time. Over time, this becomes the norm, and adrenal fatigue and anxiety disorders become more likely. By purposefully scheduling restorative, resourcing breaks throughout our workday, and being “off” on the weekends, we can center ourselves and better manage the pendulum swing of emotions and anxious thoughts.
  4. Improved Immunity. When minds and bodies are overworked, exhausted, and stressed, the immune system becomes vulnerable to illness. Work-life balance is a hedge against short and long-term sickness. A strong body and healthy mind means fewer sick days are taken. Everyone reaps the rewards of this consistency, including family members, friends, employers, colleagues, and clients.
  5. Healthy Digestion. Stress hormones dominate the endocrine landscape and disrupt healthy, healing processes, like reproduction, sleep, and metabolism. Establishing a work-life balance promotes healthy blood and oxygen levels in the stomach, which eases inflammation of the digestive tract. This reduction of inflammation allows the body to return to homeostasis, promoting regular bowel movements and optimal weight management.
  6. Better Relationships. When our work-life scale tips out of balance, we become consumed with work, thinking about it at all times and at all costs. We lose touch with ourselves, our friends, and our loved ones, offering up only our remnants of attention, focus, and presence. When balance is restored, our mindfulness and ability to be present increases and a virtuous cycle is created; giving to ourselves, our friends, and loved one fills our own emotional reserves, irritability and anxiety decrease, we are less distracted, and thereore better able to deepen relationships with family members, partners, friends, colleagues, managers, and even strangers passing by.
  7. Improved Focus & Attention Span. Work-life balance doesn’t just mean working less, it means working more efficiently so that you have more time to regenerate and restore yourself. Improving focus and reducing distractions are key to working more efficiently. These skills need to be intentionally developed, and carry over into non-work life, such as being immersed in a passion project, or completely present with a loved one when in coversation. Creating the ability to enter into focused “flow states” reduce stress and anxiety and increases our sense of joy and fulfillment—in all endeavors and interactions, big and small, alike.
  8. Increased Job Satisfaction. When work success comes in balance, and not at the sacrifice of our physical, mental, and emotional health, a sustaianable sense of accomplishment and passion become familiar, and remain top of mind. We become more resilient and less affected by trivial disruptions at work, increasing our overall happiness with our career.
  9. Growth Mindset & Authenticity. Work-life balance is a habit, and like all healthy habits, it doesn’t come just by reading this article or being inspired by a cat poster. It takes intention, motivation, and discipline to develop and nurture a sustainable work-life balance. This effort puts your midn into a growth state, rather than a state of decay (e.g. slipping into an anxious tailspin). Repeatedly putting yourself into a growth mindset will allow your authenticity to flourish, and the veil of striving to be something can drop, promoting a sense of serenity and calm—a sense of “OK”.
  10. Enhanced Creativity & Problem Solving. When life is lived beyond the desk in states of flow, mindfulness, exploration, and enjoyment, it is normal to rediscover childlike curiosity, playfulness, and ease. There are no “hard-stops” to these traits which lend themselves to fostering creativity and problem solving throughout one’s life.
health retreat guests relax outside of a mountain lodge in white robes
Making time for restoration and rejuvenation is an essential part of establishing a healthy work-life balance.

4 CORE NEEDS OF WORK-LIFE BALANCE

Before diving into the actions that will help establish work-life balance, it’s important to understand what’s going on beneath the surface. While humans are multi-faceted, diverse, and dynamic, we all share four core needs that can be categorized as: physical needs, mental needs, emotional needs, and relational needs.

It is natural for us to take care of and resource ourselves within one specific category that we enjoy the most or have success in, while neglecting the others. This provides fleeting moments of accomplishment and success, but at the end of the day, we still feel empty or unfulfilled. What’s missing is balance. Balance is the foundation of our health, and just like the houses we live in, each of the four walls need to be strong, or else there is risk of collapse. To establish overall balance in our life, we must work every single day to make active, deliberate decisions that move the needle in each of these four categories:

  1. Physical & Physiological Needs. Biological needs related to our bodies, their functioning, and our survival:
    • Clean nutrition that fuels our bodies and brains with ample macro and micronutrients.
    • 7-9 hours of deep, restful, undisturbed sleep.
    • Functional, oxygenating movement of our bodies.
    • Clean air & deep breathing.
    • Hydrating often with access to uncontaminated water.
    • Living in a safe and comfortable dwelling.
    • Naps when and if required.
  2. Mental Needs. Personal and professional development that keeps our mind sharp and expansive:
    • Curiosity-inducing activities that develop new neural pathways. These stimulate learning through self-development and growth while simultaneously countering dementia.
    • Creative pursuits that stimulate the often-neglected right hemisphere, leading to mental hemisphere balancing.
    • Mindfulness exercises to induce flow states and solace.
  3. Emotional & Relational Needs. Our innate need to emotionally connect and affiliate, whether through interpersonal relationships, or belonging to a group:
    • Having access to a confidant that can safely receive our fears and vulnerabilities, such as a licensed therapist.
    • Participating in reciprocal situations that balance giving and receiving.
    • Nurturing loving relationships, full of depth and connection.
    • Receiving physical touch.
  4. Spiritual Needs. Finding meaning, purpose and value in our lives. This can be associated with a belief in something bigger or a sense of hopefulness, peace, or gratitude:
    • Read texts and listen to podcasts that inspire a sense of beauty and mystery within life.
    • Self-reflect on one’s existential purpose, philosophizing one’s own narrative that provides context.
    • Find outlets through which one dedicates their unique gifts or skills so as to experience a sense of purpose.
yoga instructor and students in glass front studio overlooking mountains
Working on all four core needs (Physical/Physiological, Mental, Emotional/Relational, and Spiritual) will promote overall balance in our lives.

5 Critical Actions for Work-Life Balance

There are 5 critical actions we must take daily to establish a healthy work-life balance. We call these “The 5 P’s”. Easy to remember, the 5 P’s a foundational framework you can implement throughout the ebb and flow of daily life. Implementing the 5 P’s into your life will help you discover and maintain a healthy work-life balance:

  1. Power Up.
    • Start each day with 5 minutes dedicated solely to yourself and feeding your soul. Do this before checking your phone. Suggested activities include: meditation, gentle stretching, slow breathwork, brewing yourself (and enjoying) a cup of tea or coffee, listening to a song you love, heading outdoors for a grounding walk, reading or journaling.
    • Eat a healthy breakfast within 30 minutes of rising (after intermittent fasting for at least 12-hours overnight). This will jump start your brain by increasing the glucose levels in your bloodstream, while an overnight fast will reduce inflammation. Browse our Healthy Breakfasts.
    • Move your body so as to promote circulation and oxygenate your brain. This could be through a HIIT class, walking, doing yoga or any other form of exercise.
  2. Prepare.
    • Shower and dress for work as if you were going to the office, even if you are working remotely.
      • During your shower, use hydrotherapy (start hot, go cold, end warm) to aid in natural detoxification, reduce inflammation, and support your cardiovascular system.
    • Once at your workspace, immediately review your high-level to-do list (aka “Top 10 Priority List”) and re-prioritize as needed. Check your emails as the second order of business, triaging for urgencies, and then re-prioritize your high-level to-do list once again if necessary.
    • Calendarize your day by creating finite blocks of time dedicated to each task, including time for “resourcing” breaks where you refuel and recharge. Visualize which parts of the day are for focused work versus meetings.
  3. Perform.
    • Respect and revere the time you dedicate to working on independent projects (aka “Focus Time”). Turn off notifications. Close your office door. Put away the snacks. These boundaries allow you to spend a pre-determined window of time distraction-free, highly efficient, and entering a flow state.
    • Once you have completed each interval of focus time, scan your emails and messages for high priority messages. Re-prioritize your Top 10 Priority List if required.
    • Equally respect and revere the time you have set aside between Focus Time to recharge and reset (aka “Resourcing Time”). Resourcing activities include; using the restroom, eating a healthy snack, stretching, going outside, walking some stairs, meditating, or slotting in any other short, state-shifting activity. Resourcing is an efficient use of time that lowers cortisol levels, invites balance, and invites enjoyment throughout your day.
    • Conduct and attend well-orchestrated meetings that follow a pre-determined agenda. Schedule a 60-minute meeting where 45-minutes is dedicated to the agenda, and 15 minutes is allocated to Resourcing Time.
    • Nurture your EQ by intentionally building human connection within your team. Add time to the beginning or end of virtual meetings to connect with colleagues and re-create “water cooler chats” even if working from a distance.
  4. Pivot.
    • Once your work day is complete, and prior to leaving your workspace, prepare your Top 10 Priority List for the following day. Download your work thoughts into this list and put non Top 10 items in their own secondary list. This will put your mind at ease by capturing what is important to carry over to the next day, allowing you to leave work at work.
    • Spend a short moment (3-5 minutes) to reflect and journal about your workday; acknowledge with radical honesty what is working or not working and how you feel. This will help you mindfully notice what is of benefit or what is preventing you from moving in your desired direction.
    • Spend 5-20 minutes state-shifting and rebalancing your hormones in alcohol-free, carb-free, fat-free, and sodium-free ways (aka the post-work happy hour glass of wine and salty snack). Alternatively, lower cortisol levels and raise the feel-good hormones of dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin naturally by:
      • 5 minutes: Pet an animal.
      • 20 minutes: Go into nature and paying attention with all your senses.
      • 20 minutes: Touch or be touched through a modality such as massage.
      • 20 minutes: Do something creative.
      • 20 minutes: Get into a flow state that unites your brain with your body.
      • 20 minutes: Nurture and tend to your garden.
    • Eat an early, healthy, and light dinner that is at most 30% of your day’s calories. This will limit your body’s storing of unused calories during sleep.
    • Move after dinner, even if it’s a 15 or 20-minute walk around the block. This keeps blood sugar levels from spiking and regulates metabolic hormones.
    • Attend to your chores and then decompress with light entertainment, such as watching TV, reading, or enjoying a hobby.
  5. Power Down.
    • Turn off or put away all electronics at least 1 hour before bed. Perform one last check for urgent emails prior to doing so, but do not engage or respond. Instead, re-prioritize your next day’s Top 10 list next if necessary.
    • Enjoy at-home self-care practices that optimize your evening for deep, restful sleep. Slow, easy, accessible ideas include:
      • Restorative yoga. Try this 45-minute wind down practice.
      • Soak in a bath filled with Epsom salts with drops of natural lavender or rose essential oils.
      • Spend quality, connective time with your partner. Give one another a massage, discuss the best parts of your day, share what you are most grateful about.
      • Engage in a pre-bed sleep hygiene routine. Try dimming the lights to low amber, lighting some candles, and mindfully enjoying soft, relaxing music.
    • Own the end of your day by spending 5 minutes with yourself, on yourself, for your authentic self. Read a poem, meditate, or journal.
Practicing the 5 P’s daily will result in work-life balance.

Reclaim Your Work-Life Balance

While the conversation surrounding work-life balance has evolved since the baby boomer era, it is more important today than ever. We need to monitor ourselves internally and be aware of how we spend our most precious asset: our time. Rebalancing is an ongoing process, as is reminding ourselves that we deserve inner peace, moments of self-care, and choreographed transitions through our day. Not only will this help you engage in positive, fulfilling activities, but it will boost your energy, mood, and resilience. We are, after all, human beings and not human doings.

Hopefully these tips and tricks help you discover a sustainable work-life balance. If you feel you are in need of more hands-on guidance, we invite you to explore our award-winning health reset retreat located in the lush forests of British Columbia, Canada, where you can spend a week unplugging, recharging, and forming sustainable, healthy habits.


What is Mountain Trek?

Rated one of the best wellness retreats in the world and located in the healing forest of British Columbia, Canada, Mountain Trek is a week-long immersive health reset program proven to dramatically transform your body, mind, and spirit. Whether you feel overworked, overweight, or just in need of time to unplug, slow down, and recharge, Mountain Trek is for you.

To learn how our award-winning health retreat can help you melt stress away, restore energy levels, burn fat, purge toxins, and return home revitalized, recharged, and years younger than when you arrived, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

How To Build Healthy Habits in 6 Steps

Healthy food selection with fruits, vegetables, seeds, superfood, cereals on gray background

Sustainable, balanced health doesn’t come by yo-yo-ing between the latest diets and health fads. It is found by integrating specific actions that over time habituate into a naturally healthy lifestyle.

Lifestyle Habits are like a heavy flywheel

Lifestyles take a lot of energy to get going, but once moving, they are hard to stop. This is what makes a balanced lifestyle the holy grail of health—once established, it only takes a small amount of energy to maintain. An unhealthy action then becomes like a random impediment to the flywheel—the unplanned event (say a happy hour, office dessert, or 3rd cup of coffee) may wobble the system and temporarily cause the wheel to slow, but it won’t derail the momentum and soon enough, your flywheel will be right back to its usual speed.

Once going, our lifestyles are our desired series of actions that require the least amount of thought and energy (stress) to perform. This presents a catch-22, however. Trying to change our lifestyle introduces stress to our daily life (in the form of the effort required to consciously make better, healthier decisions) and stress is something we have been hardwired to avoid (RUN from the stressful sabertooth tiger trying to eat you!). The exact benefit of what makes a lifestyle so sustainable also makes it incredibly hard to change. But in order to lead a happier, healthier life, we must be fierce and put in the work necessary to change our habits and nurture our lifestyles. Exactly how we do that can be the difference between success and failure.

How To Build Healthy Habits

There is a way to efficiently, and effectively, create new habits. Our method, which has been refined and proven successful time and time again by the thousands of guests who have come through our program, incorporates 6 easy steps. Follow these steps to start moving your flywheel in the right direction, and once you’ve accomplished your first goal, add a second to keep the momentum going!

Step 1: Identify your health and wellness goals

Hand, pen and writing in a notebook with a business woman sitting at a desk in her office for planning. Agenda, schedule and appointment with a female employee making a note in her journal or diary.The first step involved in building healthy habits is to identify what your larger wellness goal is. This could be as simple as “get healthy” or “get healthier”. That’s great, but the more specific the better. What does “getting healthy” actually mean for you? Does that mean you want to lose weight, improve sleep, reduce stress, increase physical fitness, etc.?

It’s highly likely you will have multiple wellness goals, and that’s great. Start by writing down a list of all of your goals and then prioritize them by order of importance. What do you want to focus on first? What’s most important to you?

Step 2: Redesign your goals to optimize for success

Female Factory worker wearing a safety helmet in the background of a production line.

To make your goal as likely as possible to succeed, follow these steps to refine your goal:

1) Identify a series of specific health actions that will help you achieve each wellness goal.

The means to the end. For the purposes of this exercise, let’s say you want to focus on weight loss. What are the specific healthy actions that will get you to lose weight? For example, for our guests at Mountain Trek interested in weight loss, we recommend the following, specific actions:

– Eat breakfast within 30 minutes of waking.

– Do your best to walk or move after eating to burn the consumed calories and keep blood sugar levels from spiking.

– Target sleeping 7-9 hours to lower appetite hormones.

Do you see how the above examples could lead to the end goal? Come up with a list of specific actions for each of the wellness goals you have identified.

2) Envision possible roadblocks to your healthy actions.

Items you just added to your list are likely to have roadblocks. Say you want to eat breakfast within 30 minutes of waking. What happens when you’re too tired to go to the grocery store after work so you wake up and have no food for breakfast? This is an all-too-real scenario that we must plan for ahead of time, or else we run the risk of being derailed by the slightest roadblock. To help, come up with three possible roadblocks for each action.

3) Come up with solutions to those roadblocks.

Thinking ahead and having a contingency plan will counter procrastination. Think of possible solutions for each roadblock. For instance, go to the grocery store during your lunch break instead of waiting until after work.

4) Finally, list three benefits to accomplishing your goal.

What is the benefit of eating breakfast within 30 minutes of waking? This will show you the “why” behind your goal, and increase your emotional connection to the goal, giving it more reason, and permission, to get accomplished.

Step 3: Simplify

Rustic Exposed Brick Wall with Worn Farmhouse Table Minimalist Product Backdrop Background Neutral Minimalist Simple Minimal Color, Beige, Tan, White, Vase

Now, pick a maximum of TWO actions (from either the same or separate goals). Yes, you may be thinking, “what did I do all that work for on the other goals, then?” Do not worry, that was not a futile effort. Without having fully analyzed all of your goals, you would not have selected the two best goals to begin forming specific actions into habits.

Why two? With a full life of commitments and responsibilities, we only have a little time, energy, and unspent willpower to keep deciding to do an action until it habituates. Choosing only two actions at a time dramatically maximizes your energy management and increases chances of success. If you have more, you just incessantly bounce between them, not making progress on any. They become a distraction for each other.

The most successful people on the planet know that it’s best to pick a very small number of tasks to do and then do them well, ensuring they get completed. Only then do they move on.

Step 4: Set a weekly target

push pin with arrows indicating a target

You’ve now decided on which of your health actions to focus on, and let’s say it is eating breakfast within 30 minutes of waking. The next step is to decide how many times per week you are going to do this.

At Mountain Trek, we recommend setting a target goal for yourself of no more than 5 days per week for each habit. Doing anything every single day without fail is impossible. Life has too many curveballs. Allowing for the unknown, a little bit, makes it far more likely you will succeed in transforming action into a habit. You are giving yourself permission to not be 100% perfect. Perfection is unattainable and the self-inflicted shame that comes when we, surprise, don’t attain the unattainable, can freeze us from moving forward toward our goal.

Start small. Aim for doing your action two, maybe three times each week, then grow from there. If you end up repeating your action more than 5 days a week, that’s just extra credit and it likely means you are “want-ing” to do it rather than “should-ing”.

If you end up not meeting your weekly target, don’t sweat it. Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint, and missing your target every once in a while won’t impact your long-term results. What’s important is to get back on track and not to beat yourself up when life derails you.

Bonus: put the specific days you hope to accomplish your action in your calendar. And schedule yourself first! before meetings, events, and outings. Prioritize your health.

Step 5: Monitor your progress and adjust if needed

Young woman farmer inspects tomato quality in a greenhouse using a magnifying glass. Her expertise focus and dedication to farming research demonstrate intelligence and scientific discovery.

You know what health action you are working on and how many days a week you are going to do it. The next step is to keep track of it.

Write it down in your journal. Keep a pad of paper handy to tally. Track it using your online calendar.

Whatever tool you decide to use, it’s important to monitor your activity, notice what derails you, and congratulate yourself when you are meeting your frequency targets! If you notice, for example, that you are having trouble eating breakfast within 30 minutes of waking 5 days per week, then consider adjusting to 3 days per week. If that still doesn’t work and you find it impossibly hard to have breakfast – consider, why and determine if now is not the right time and choose a new action to focus on!

Step 6: Reward your intention

woman enjoying spa bath with foam and body massage brush

Here’s one of the best parts about habit formation – whether you are successful or not, you still get to reward yourself for your intention to do your best!

Rewards can be small or big, simple or complex. Some examples:

  • Treat yourself to a manicure or pedicure.
  • Indulge in a hot stone massage.
  • Go to the local Humane Society and spend the day playing and petting mankind’s favorite four-legged friends. Or simply borrow your neighbor’s dog for an hour!
  • Make the time to indulge in a hot bath with some therapeutic rock salts or candles.
  • Attend a local art exhibition or classical music concert.

The list goes on! You get the idea. Every week you should “reward” yourself for your intention to do your best with some kind of treat that is not associated with food or drink.

Now that you have your habit set up for success, be fierce. Fight for your habit. It can take from 21 days to up to six months to turn an action into a habit, so be patient and consistent. But when you do put the time and energy in, you will successfully ingrain your habit and positively alter your lifestyle. Your flywheel will have positive momentum in the right direction and you will start to reap the rewards of a healthy lifestyle.

What’s next….?

Once you’ve engrained your new habit, or two, it’s time to pat yourself on your back and go back to your original list of wellness goals and health actions and pick another action or two and repeat the whole process. Good luck.


What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

The 747 Formula

This article is an excerpt from our full article on How To Offset The Carbon Footprint Of Your Flights, and shares only the equation to do so.

The 747 Formula

We’ve created the “7-4-7” formula (yes, a pun on the Boeing 747) to help you offset the carbon footprint of your travel. The formula, which breaks your carbon offset into three categories, is effective and approachable, increasing the likelihood of adoption, which might be the essential action needed today. The first two categories are based on the “durability” of the solution as defined by Microsoft’s Corporate Sustainability Group, which, simply put, is how long we can expect the solution to remain a solution. A great example is the durability of tree planting; what happens when planted trees burn in a forest fire or naturally die and begin to decompose (both of which will emit carbon back into the atmosphere)? The final category focuses on awareness and education, vital components in solving this little conundrum we’ve gotten ourselves into.

Step 1) Calculate Your Travel’s CO2 Emissions

Use an online calculator, like this one from carbonfootprint.com, to see how much CO2 is emitted from your flights and car travel. Jot this number down.

Step 2) Calculate Your Total Travel Time

Add up all of the time you are in the car or on the plane and moving. Exclude layovers. Jot this number down as well.

Step 3) Immediately remove 7% of your emissions with Direct Air Capture

Visit Climeworks, click “customize”, change the frequency to “One-time”, and pay a “Custom amount” that removes 7% of the CO2 you calculated in Step 1.

Direct Air Capture can sequester carbon for thousands of years, literally sucking carbon dioxide out of the air and putting it deep in the ground where it originally came from. This “engineered” technology is as close to a permanent solution as possible, making it extremely resilient and earning the label of “high durability”. Pulling air via massive industrial fans through filters to capture and process carbon dioxide and then placing it thousands of feet underground is an expensive operation, but it’s the most effective solution available to immediately reverse the emissions we cause and needs to be a part of any offset strategy. This component kickstarts your offset nicely and immediately removes 7% of your emissions out of the air.

Example: One economy seat going from LAX to JFK and back is responsible for 1300 kg of emissions. 7% of this is 91kg, meaning ~$130 USD needs to be paid to immediately pull those 91 kgs of carbon out of the atmosphere.

Step 4) Plant 4 trees for every hour you travel

Visit the website of a tree planting non-profit, such as One Tree Planted or The Nature Conservancy, and donate enough to plant 4 trees for every hour you calculated in Step 2.

Tree planting is defined as a “low durability” solution—an initiative that sequesters carbon for less than 100 years and has inherent reversal risks (such as trees burning prematurely). The math of offsetting carbon emissions with tree planting is extremely difficult to nail down. One mature tree will absorb roughly 50 lbs or 22 kg of carbon dioxide each year, but how long that tree lives before it burns or begins to decay and emit sequestered carbon right back into the atmosphere is a complete unknown. It also takes 20-30 years for a tree to mature, so this solution kicks the can down the road quite a bit. Fortunately, planting trees is the cheapest carbon offset option available, so we feel it’s best to vastly overshoot this component of your contribution, and calculate based on how many mature trees it would take to sequester emissions in one year. This is roughly 4 trees per hour you travel.

Example: One economy seat going from LAX to JFK and back would take 12 hours of air travel. 48 trees should be planted.

Step 5) Donate $7 for every hour you travel to awareness & education initiatives

Visit the website of a climate change educator, such as Project Drawdown or Kiss The Ground, and donate $7 for every hour you calculated in Step 2.

The amount of information and misinformation flying around us at all times is dizzying and causes serious climate change confusion. Knowledge is the ultimate power, so it must be a part of the solution. While awareness and education don’t pull carbon out of the air directly, they certainly help reduce how much is emitted moving forward, which is actually the quickest solution to our problem. This element is extremely hard to quantify, but we recommend donating $7 per every hour you travel.

Example: One economy seat going from LAX to JFK and back would take 12 hours of air travel. $84 should be donated to climate change awareness and education to aid in offsetting future emissions.

Total Example: In total, one roundtrip LAX-JFK economy ticket takes ~$260 USD to offset (as of 2023), and a business class ticket takes $500 USD.


What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is an award-winning health retreat located in the lush forests of British Columbia, Canada. Founded in 1991, our health reset program helps 16 guests at a time unplug, recharge, reconnect with nature, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about Mountain Trek, and how we can help reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

How Long Does It Take To Recover From Burnout

Are you burned out? Or perhaps exhausted, fatigued, or just tired? What’s the difference and does it even matter? It can be tough to tell these conditions apart, as the symptoms overlap greatly, and even easier to brush off burnout as just feeling tired or in need of a vacation, but it’s important to stop and listen to what your body is trying to tell you, because burnout is serious and requires significantly more effort to recover from than fatigue and exhaustion.
It takes more than just a good night of sleep or a week on a beach in paradise to bounce back from burnout, especially if you’ve ignored your burnout symptoms for a long time, like most of us are doing currently. Whether you’re burned out, or heading that direction, this article will help you fully understand what burnout is, how to prevent it, and how to recover from it.

Fatigue vs. Exhaustion vs. Burnout

Many people use the term “burnout” interchangeably with “fatigue” and “exhaustion” so it can be confusing to discern what exactly is burnout. In short, burnout is caused by chronic stress, whereas the other conditions are situational, like a bad night’s sleep after a holiday party, a work project that has you pulling longer hours than usual at the office, or a long travel day depleting your energy reserves. Burnout is when the physical, mental, and psychological reaction to chronic stress changes our physiology, causing persistent fatigue and states of disconnection.
The most common place this occurs is in the workplace. According to the Mayo Clinic, “job burnout is work-related stress that creates a physical, emotional, or mental exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity”. This leads to reduced productivity and increased risk of illness—the Canadian Worker’s Compensation Board claims that workplace stress is now the leading cause of lost workdays. In addition to the above-mentioned symptoms, burnout can also leave one feeling increasingly helpless, hopeless, resentful, and at a greater risk of experiencing anxiety and depression.
So how can you tell if you are experiencing burnout or are just really tired? A good place to start is by looking at the different types of tiredness: fatigue, exhaustion, and burnout, and their associated definitions:
  • Fatigue: feeling overtired, with low energy and a strong desire to sleep that interferes with normal daily activities.
  • Exhaustion: a state of extreme physical or mental fatigue
  • Burnout: a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress

Fatigue

Fatigue is the mildest of the three. Overall you feel good in your day-to-day life but after a particularly challenging day or week, you just have nothing left to give. That’s fatigue, easily cured by resting and recuperating. No life changes necessary—you just need a break and some time to focus on self-care in order to regain balance.

Exhaustion

Exhaustion is a progression from fatigue. If fatigue symptoms aren’t addressed at the onset and are allowed to continue for days or weeks on end they turn into exhaustion. While the symptoms are similar, exhaustion is more serious as it’s likely caused by your lifestyle, not unique external events. Lifestyle habits that cause exhaustion are dangerous because if unmanaged, their persistent nature has the risk of evolving into burnout.

Burnout

And then there is burnout. Feeling overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to keep up with the demands of your day-to-day life. Apathy sets in and you no longer care about things that were once important to you. Burnout changes us chemically. Hormone balance gets disrupted and you struggle to get out of bed in the morning or take care of yourself. Your performance at work starts to slip and you’re mentally checked out.
You start neglecting your personal relationships and indulge in unhealthy habits that bring you temporary comfort. Even simple things like taking a shower or making dinner feel like too much work and the only thing you have the energy for is watching TV. If these feelings sound familiar, then you know you’ve reached burnout.

THE THREE TYPES OF BURNOUT

There are many ways burnout can happen, but the three most common types are; overload,under-challenged, and neglect.

Overload Burnout

Overload burnout is caused by constantly working harder and harder in pursuit of success. Saying yes to tasks you don’t have time for and over-extending yourself, sacrificing “you time” in favor of more commitments. This is the most recognizable form of burnout today.

Under-challenged Burnout

Under-challenged burnout is caused by feeling under-appreciated and bored in your job or personal life. Your work tasks are mundane and repetitive, never exercising any form of brain power or creativity.

Very little is expected of you and so you feel no desire to push yourself. This can also extend to your personal life as well; maybe life feels stagnant, like you haven’t done anything new in far too long and have stopped growing as a person.

Neglect Burnout

And then last of all is neglect burnout, caused by feeling helpless or incompetent. You feel like you can’t do anything right and like no matter what you do, things will just fall apart. You have no support system, either at work or at home, and even your best accomplishments go unnoticed. According to

What Causes Burnout

Kirkland Shave, the creator and director of the award-winning Mountain Trek Health Reset program, says common reasons all three types of burnout can occur are:

  • Lack of control and the inability to influence decisions that affect your job, including workload and lack of resources.
  • Unclear job expectations and personal authority.
  • Dysfunctional workplace dynamics.
  • Lack of social support either through isolation or lack of trust-building interrelationships.
  • Work-life imbalance due to working too many hours.

The causes of burnout aren’t as extreme as you might think. They are simple, small things most of us would just consider “normal” for the workplace. But when left unaddressed these small things continuously add up and eventually compound into burnout.

If you’re still unsure if you’re experiencing burnout, consider thinking about burnout as the illness it is—and for any illness, you first need a diagnosis. Shave says some symptoms to watch out for are:

  • Every day starts to become a bad day (or like a real-life version of the Bill Murray movie, Groundhog Day, in which the days feel like they are just repeating themselves over and over with no end in sight)
  • Caring about work or even home life seems like a waste of energy
  • The workday can start to seem full of tasks that are mind-numbingly dull or overwhelming
  • One feels like they aren’t making a positive difference or that they are unappreciated
  • Fatigue that is chronic, no matter how much rest you get
  • Headaches, muscle pain
  • Insomnia or changes to eating patterns
  • Sadness, anger, or irritability
  • Alcohol or substance abuse
  • Vulnerability to illness or the onset of chronic cortisol-affected inflammatory diseases (such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and autoimmune disease)
  • Sense of failure, self-doubt, aloneness, loss of motivation, increasingly cynical outlook, decreased satisfaction or sense of accomplishment
  • Withdrawal from responsibilities, isolating from team members, procrastination, taking the frustration out on others, missing workdays

Knowing what symptoms to look for is just half of the battle though; the next step is to have an honest conversation with yourself, a trusted ally, or a professional (such as a therapist or primary care doctor). Take an honest look at your life and decide if the symptoms above sound like they are describing you. Remember there is no shame or judgment in admitting you are experiencing burnout—much like with many other illnesses, the first step towards recovery is acknowledging there is a problem.

Set yourself up for success before tackling a big conversation like this: come with an open/curious mind, find a comforting/non-stress-inducing environment (e.g. someplace that’s the opposite of your office or home, whatever place is bringing you stress and causing your burnout), fuel your brain with a healthy meal, have a good night’s sleep, and consider having this conversation immersed in nature. You want to free your mind of distractions and be completely present and authentic in the conversation for the best results.

How to Recover from Burnout

1) Experience a Hard Reset

If you’ve concluded you are in fact suffering from burnout, the most important first step in recovery is to experience a hard reset. As soon as reasonable, remove yourself far from the causes of your burnout, and insert yourself into an environment that affords the opportunity to slow down, unplug, and begin the healing process.

Attending an expert-guided health retreat, like Mountain Trek, takes the guesswork out of the process and allows you to immerse in a proven methodology. With the help of retreat staff, you can step back from your life and stressors and clearly and confidently “see the forest through the trees”.

2) Uncover The Why

Once you’ve afforded yourself the opportunity to step back, the next step in recovering from burnout is gaining a deeper understanding of the “why” behind the burnout. This is best done in tandem with a professional, as it likely means diving deep into previous trauma, familial relationships, and childhood expectations.

This is especially necessary for overload burnout, where an inner force pushes someone to keep putting more and more on their plate, sacrificing balance to create more work hours. Typically, a deep-seated feeling of inadequacy is what drives this unsustainable ambition, but only deep introspection will uncover the true reason(s) for pushing to the point of burnout.

3) Decide to Proceed or Pivot

The next step in recovering from burnout is to make a decision whether to return to the same life that caused your burnout, with modifications, or change your trajectory all together. This decision to pause, pivot, or proceed with change is massive and needs to be taken seriously. Calming your nervous system before making a life-altering decision is critical. Otherwise, you will be making your decision based on anxiety, stress, or even worse, fear—all inauthentic mind-states.

This decision may not happen instantaneously or overnight. It may be a lengthier process, and that’s OK—this decision likely has a massive impact on your life. It’s worth investing in an environment that will foster a good decision, where connection with the outside world is removed and a staff of professionals is on-hand to guide you through the process.

It’s important to note, this does not necessarily mean quitting your job! While that seems to be the go-to answer these days—quit your job/life, travel the world, find yourself, etc.—working (creating, producing value) with the proper work environment/boss and being appropriately appreciated/recognized can be incredibly fulfilling and rewarding.

However, the issue today is that work and life tend to blend together and as a result, we don’t do either of them well. Learning to separate the two, remove distractions to enhance focus, and subsequently, perform each more efficiently is a key factor in preventing burnout.

4) Establish a Sustainable Work-Life Balance

Regardless of whether you decide to return to life with modifications or make a massive change, establishing a sustainable lifestyle is critical. For most burnout cases, that means establishing a better work-life balance.

Here are 5 ways to create a more sustainable work-life balance:

Separate Work and Life

Commit fully to both work and life, separately, and put energy into preventing them from bleeding together. If you’re working, work deeply and with focus. If you’re at home, give yourself the permission to “clock out”, silence work emails and calls, and be present with your family, friends, and passions.

Invest in a routine at the end of your work day that helps you “pivot” to home life. Consider a work journal that you write in immediately before leaving the office to download all of your work thoughts, concerns, ruminations, and to-dos.

Pick it back up first thing when getting into the office the next day. Then, spend as few as 5 minutes practicing a flow-state activity–something that takes 100% of your concentration, and is not work—to lower stress and increase feel-good hormones. This may be exercise, meditation, continued journaling, or breathwork. Anything that forces you to be present and savor the experience.

Schedule Focused Work Time

Well in advance, and reoccurring, schedule yourself (literally block your own calendar) for uninterrupted, focused work sessions throughout the work week. Then, resource yourself in between these sessions; fuel your brain with nutritious food; oxygenate your blood with some movement and fresh air; and give your analytical left-hemisphere brain a break by practicing state-shifting activities that engage the right hemisphere creative brain. Meditate, do art, stretch, and engage an animal.

Resource yourself at home

Showing up to work exhausted is a surefire way to keep yourself on the hedonistic burnout treadmill. You will not work as efficiently, requiring more hours, which then takes time from your life outside the office, subsequently deepening your resentment for work and likelihood of burnout.

Resource yourself at home for work-life balance by immersing in nature, physical exercise, sanctifying sleep, connecting with loved ones, maintaining a creative outlet, and investing in a spiritual context

Employ a support network

Connect with a therapist or life coach for support in learning about and rewiring patterns of perfectionism, over-achievement, imbalanced competition/comparison, boundary setting and expressing, and control issues

Discover a new Job

If all of the above is failing to help, it’s time to find a new job where the work-life culture aligns with your need for balanced health


As you navigate your burnout recovery and establish a sustainable work-life balance, continue to monitor your progress and check in with yourself— have those honest conversations with yourself or your ally daily, weekly, monthly, or annually…whatever cadence works best for you.

How Long Does It Take To Recover From Burnout?

So how long does it take to recover from burnout? A precise scientifically-founded answer is difficult to provide as there are so many factors at play: how long you’ve been feeling this way, how many areas of your life are affected by your burnout, and how quickly you are able to remove the cause(s) of your burnout, just to name a few. But the average timeline varies from a few months on the short end, and up to five years on the long side.

Unfortunately, there is no quick fix for burnout—it’s a long process that required evolving your lifestyle, so allow yourself grace and just focus on the day-to-day progress (much like recovering from any illness…take it one day at a time).

Experiencing burnout might seem common these days, but it doesn’t have to be. Your burnout recovery starts now.


What is Mountain Trek?

Rated one of the best health retreats in the world, Mountain Trek is a week-long, challenging but highly-rewarding, health reset program proven to dramatically transform your body, mind, and spirit. Whether you feel overworked, overweight, or just in need of time to unplug, slow down, and recharge, Mountain Trek is for you. To learn more about Mountain Trek, and how we can help reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

Creative Ways to Mother Yourself

This Mother’s Day, we invite you to think of the word mother as a verb (“to mother”), versus a noun. Why? Mothering transcends the female–you’re mothered by anyone (or thing) who offers you acceptance, nourishment, instruction, and empowerment.

By detaching motherhood from any particular person, you’ll begin to notice where you could personally use more mothering. Be curious when you’re feeling unlovable, empty, anxious, helpless, scared, or incapable. Clear answers hint at your need to patch yourself together a new kind of mother that nurtures your unmet needs. To help you understand which areas you may be neglecting, try our Balanced Wellness Questionnaire, a self-assessment tool designed to help you step back and survey, at a high-level, how your health is balanced across your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs.

Mothering Can Come from Nourishing Experiences

After a week in our award-winning program, many of our guests learn nature is the mother and that hiking is the mothering they need at this time; exploring trails enriches their being in a way they’ve never before felt. The trees wake up their mind. The rivers refresh their soul.

Kirkland Shave, Mountain Trek’s Program Director, says, “When we’re on the treadmill of life, we lose track of the wounded child in each of us, and we need to take a break to not only acknowledge our unmet needs, but to reflect on how we can self-care.” He continues, “The need to be mothered doesn’t disappear with age, and the real work is done when we learn how to parent ourselves.”  

Top two ways to mother yourself in adulthood

  1. Play and wonder. Open your senses through new tastes and activities. Experience what it’s like to try something for the first time again. Take a ballroom dancing class, or try that funky-colored fruit you always bypass.
  2. Free your emotions. Deeply connect with yourself by letting go of the notion that adults should always be strong and unaffected. The Stiff Upper Lip syndrome only leads to disconnection, and disconnection only leads to feeling lost and neglected. Laugh, cry, go in for energy-releasing bodywork treatments: do whatever you need to do to tap into your raw feelings.  

As the grandfather of many toddlers, Kirkland feels mothered when he’s playing with his grandchildren. Making forts out of pillows and towers out of blocks, he’s able to nurture his creativity and connect with his desire to live boundlessly.

Other ways to mother yourself this Mother’s Day

  • Create a comforting bedtime routine
  • Take a break from social media (because the unfair comparisons are driving your anxiety)
  • Get fresh air
  • Eat nourishing foods
  • Meditate
  • Say nice, encouraging things to yourself in the mirror
  • Do puzzles, and other mind-challenging activities
  • Keep cozy comforts easily accessible, like a basket of fuzzy socks by the door for when you take your shoes off upon returning home
  • Journal, in a free-flowing stream-of-consciousness style
  • Listen to uplifting music
  • Make yourself a nice drink (like our Lemon Ginger Tea) and sip it slowly
  • Plan a special one-on-one date with yourself
  • Build a cozy fort to relax in, equipped with a book, movie, snacks, you name it   

You mother, we mother, he mothers, she mothers, they mother. The ocean mothers, and the mountains mother. Pets mother, and travel mothers. Look beyond the female who raised you to acknowledge all the different ways you are mothered and can be mothered. Open yourself up to new perspectives and opportunities, and embrace the ability to meet your needs in a myriad of ways. Seek comfort in the potential. You are not alone. You are not stuck.

To realize a new kind of mothering, consider a week or two-week-long stay with Mountain Trek. The Mountain Trek program provides a space for you to not only feel deeply mothered but to seek out the mothering you may be lacking. We provide a safe and healthful environment, teach the important rules and roles of life through our lectures on stress, detox, sleep, nutrition, and fitness, and we meet your emotional needs with our empathy. Our program will uncover a new ability within you to grow, heal, and show up for your life as fully as you can.


What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is an award-winning health retreat located in the lush forests of British Columbia, Canada. Founded in 1991, our health reset program helps 16 guests at a time unplug, recharge, reconnect with nature, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

 

How To Offset The Carbon Footprint Of Your Flights

passenger jet flying overhead through a hole in the trees

Humans have an insatiable curiosity — that’s one of many things that makes our species so special. However, the advent of highly-accessible air travel, where it often takes less than a day and $1,000 to place your body on the literal opposite side of the world, has quickly become the largest—by a vast margin—contribution individuals have on climate change. If you’re interested in offsetting the carbon from your flights, you’ve come to the right place.

It’s been calculated that in order to curtail global warming, each human can emit up to 3 metric tonnes of carbon each year—an annual “allowance” of sorts. That’s 3,000 kilograms or 6,600 pounds—of a gas that’s not much heavier than air…to put that into perspective, and assuming an endless gas tank, you could turn your combustion engine car on right now, walk away, and return 68 days later and just be using up the last drop of your allowance. Seems like a lot, right? Unfortunately, when it comes to air travel, it’s not. One roundtrip ticket from LAX to JFK, sitting in coach class, eats up a whopping 43% of this annual allowance. And if you decided to treat yourself and fly business class, your annual allowance is entirely spent (2.5 coach seats can be put in the same space as one business class seat,  multiplying the impact of flying business).

Even if flying coach, you likely drive to and from work, your kid’s school, grocery store, hardware store, out for dinner, etc., and presumably, like any reasonable human, you like to take hot showers, heat your house in the winter, cool it in the summer, and store food in your refrigerator and freezer. These essential activities consume every last molecule of your annual allowance. Even if you’re already driving an EV, there’s a carbon footprint attached to your electricity, which is still predominantly generated by burning coal and natural gas. So unless you’re living off your own solar panels and wind turbine, you’ll have to wait another 365 days to fly again. How likely is that? It’s not. So what do you do?

Before moving on, let’s address the elephant in the room. Ceasing air travel altogether. Would this help? absolutely. Is it realistic? Not really. Remember how humans have an insatiable curiosity? When any desire is stifled, a slew of mental health issues can arise, like irritability, melancholy, and lethargy. Basically, you are grumpy, which brings up a greater question about living life in the first place. It’s clear air travel isn’t going anywhere, so we’re best off finding ways to do it sustainably, which will allow us to feed our desire to see and experience the world and all of its majesty, without destroying it in the process.

Reduce What Needs to Be Offset in the First Place

Reducing the average annual miles flown per person will significantly move the needle, but this doesn’t mean we need to reduce our vacation days. One great option is to take fewer, longer trips, as the travel to and from the destination is typically 90+% of the entire footprint for a trip. Said differently, taking two (2) week-long trips is almost twice as impactful as taking one (1) two-week trip. So with just one adjustment, we can still take the same amount of vacation, but have half the impact. This type of travel, now being labeled as “slow travel”, is a large-dial change. Yes, you need to plan to be away from work for longer, but having additional motivation to wrap up loose ends and better prepare those around you to step up in your absence is often a good exercise to practice anyway.

What’s wonderful about longer trips is that they afford a much greater opportunity to experience your location deeply, fully savoring the culture, food, and people. Lately, we have been calling this type of travel “mindful travel”, and have been designing more experiences like this for our community. Slowing down, being present, and immersing in the region or experience you’ve made such an effort to get to will satiate your need for travel more deeply than quickly bouncing from place to place mindlessly ticking off checkboxes. This “travel satiety” will quench your inner desires and needs such that upon returning home, you won’t immediately feel the urge to start planning the next adventure. Therefore, even if your next big air-travel-based vacation isn’t slated until next year, it won’t seem so painfully far away.

Taking more local weekend getaways and fewer air-travel trips is another big step in the right direction, and can keep your lust for bigger flight-based travel at bay. For the ultimate low-footprint excursion, consider renting an EV and exploring within the 300-mile radius it affords (again, note that not all electricity is created equally. For instance, Colorado still generates more than half of its electricity from coal, with another quarter coming from natural gas). Or, hop on a train, ideally electric, which has one of the lowest emission footprints per traveler. You will likely be surprised by how much there is to explore right in your own backyard!

Calculate Your Emissions

Once you know your itinerary, it’s actually quite easy to calculate your emissions. Lots of online calculators, like this one from carbonfootprint.com, have sprung up that can help you understand your share of emissions for the flights, car trips, buses, and even trains you take throughout your vacation. Simply input your travel details and it will spit out an estimated amount of metric tons of CO2 for your trip, aka your “footprint”.

Often, time is our most precious, and limited resource, so calculating the carbon of your travel each and every time could be the hurdle that prevents you from doing so. If doing this each and every trip seems overwhelming, do one year-end review where you sum up all of your miles flown, and if possible, miles driven. If you travel a lot, just these two numbers will be 90+% of your individual footprint, which if offset, will make a massive difference.

Offset The Carbon Emissions of Your Flights

Once you’ve decided to travel, especially by air, and have calculated your footprint, consider offsetting your share of the emissions. If you’re reading this article, you’ve likely explored this in the past, and have equally as likely found that there are wildly varying and confusing methods for doing so. A lot of airlines are now offering the ability to add offsets to the purchase of your ticket, but don’t be fooled by the seemingly reasonable dollar amounts (i.e. $27 for that roundtrip LAX -> JFK ticket). In the nascent world of offsetting carbon, airlines are taking one extreme end of the spectrum, often simply purchasing carbon credits, which is fuzzy math at best, or passing funds onto what are called “low durability” solutions such as tree planting. Don’t get us wrong, planting trees is wonderful, and we absolutely need to regenerate our forests to curtail climate change. Unfortunately, however, natural solutions like tree planting are low “durability” because as soon as a planted or protected tree is ignited in a forest fire (which the likelihood of happening is increasing every year with global warming), all of the carbon that tree sucked up, or “sequestered”, (i.e. the emissions from your flight) is immediately released back to the atmosphere… And at the end of a tree’s life, during the decomposition process, most of the carbon stored will be released back into the atmosphere anyway (1/3 of all global carbon emissions come from the “deadwood” in forests!). Again, trees are 100% a part of the solution, they just can’t be 100% the solution.

On the other end of the spectrum, you could pay for “high durability” offsets, such as Direct Air Capture, which literally sucks carbon dioxide directly out of the air and places it deep underground where it once came from, and will stay for thousands of years. However, at today’s rates, you would need to spend at least $1,500 to offset your roundtrip LAX->JFK ticket, which is likely much more than the ticket cost itself. That’s unfeasible to most, meaning it’s not a sustainable solution either.

With as much air travel as our retreat requires to get to, and with our mission to heal both people and planet, we think about striking a sustainable balance quite often. We also think about what might actually get adopted. After months of research, we’ve landed on a formula that we feel is both impactful, approachable, and reasonable for most individuals, giving it a chance of actually doing some good. Note: we fully expect this formula to evolve as new technologies emerge and offset costs decrease (so stay tuned!).

The 747 Formula

We’ve created the “7-4-7” formula (yes, a pun on the Boeing 747), which breaks your carbon offset into three categories, all of which have their pros and cons, but combined, strike a balance that is effective and approachable, increasing the likelihood of adoption. The first two categories are based on the “durability” of the solution as defined by Microsoft’s Corporate Sustainability Group, whose effort to not only fundamentally understand and report on their impact on climate change, but take a strong stance in reversing it, has been a cornucopia of knowledge, while the final category focuses on awareness and education, vital components in solving this little conundrum we’ve gotten ourselves into.

Immediately remove 7% of your emissions with Direct Air Capture

Direct Air Capture can sequester carbon for thousands of years, literally sucking carbon dioxide out of the air and putting it deep in the ground where it originally came from. This “engineered” technology is as close to a permanent solution as possible, making it extremely resilient and earning the label of “high durability”. Pulling air via massive industrial fans through filters to capture and process carbon dioxide and then placing it thousands of feet underground is expensive to operate, but it’s the most effective solution available to immediately reverse the emissions we cause and needs to be a part of any offset strategy. This component kickstarts your offset nicely and immediately removes 7% of your emissions.

Offset Option:

Climeworks—$1.30 per kg of CO2 removed. Founded in 2009 in Switzerland, Climeworks has developed state-of-the-art technology for directly removing carbon from the atmosphere at scale. Climeworks provide a calculator on their website, making the calculation of this contribution straightforward.

Example: Our economy seat going from LAX to JFK and back is responsible for 1300 kg of emissions. 7% of this is 91kg, meaning $120 USD needs to be paid to immediately pull those 91 kgs of carbon out of the atmosphere.

Plant 4 trees for every hour you travel

Tree planting is defined as a “low durability” solution—an initiative that sequesters carbon for less than 100 years and has inherent reversal risks (such as trees burning prematurely). The math of offsetting carbon emissions with tree planting is extremely difficult to nail down. One mature tree will absorb roughly 50 lbs or 22 kg of carbon dioxide each year, but how long that tree lives before it burns or begins to decay and emit sequestered carbon right back into the atmosphere is a complete unknown. It also takes 20-30 years for a tree to mature, so this solution kicks the can down the road quite a bit. Fortunately, planting trees is the cheapest carbon offset option available, so we feel it’s best to just vastly overshoot this component of your contribution, and calculate based on how many mature trees it would take to sequester your emissions in one year, aiming to offset 63% of your travel’s emissions over time.

Offset Options:

One Tree Planted—$1 USD per tree.

The Nature Conservancy—$1.50-$3 USD per tree.

Example: Our economy seat going from LAX to JFK and back would take 12 hours of air travel and is responsible for 1300 kg of emissions. 63% of this is 819kg, which would take 48 mature trees to sequester over the course of one year, or 4 trees for each of the 12 hours flown. This would cost $48 through One Tree Planted.

Donate $7 for every hour you travel to awareness & education initiatives

The amount of information and misinformation flying around us at all times is dizzying and causes serious climate change confusion. Knowledge is the ultimate power, so it must be a part of the solution. While awareness and education don’t pull carbon out of the air directly, they certainly help reduce how much is emitted in the first place, which is actually the quickest solution to our problem. This element is extremely hard to quantify, but this donation needs to eventually offset 30% of your emissions. We have interpolated between the other two solutions to arrive at our recommended donation amount of $7 per every hour you travel.

Offset Options:

Project Drawdown

Kiss The Ground

Example: Our economy seat going from LAX to JFK and back would take 12 hours of air travel. We should donate $84 to climate change awareness and education to aid in offsetting future emissions.

Should we pay now or make our children pay later?

In total, our roundtrip LAX-JFK economy ticket costs $252 USD to offset (as of 2023), and $492 USD for a business class ticket, over 10x what the airlines suggest. This may seem like a hefty sum to add on top of the ticket cost, but that’s kind of the point. Flying is costly to the environment, so either we pay now, or our kids and grandchildren pay dearly in the future. It’s our choice. Remember, if you choose to travel above and beyond your allowance, offset your emissions with the 747 formula, immediately pulling 7% of your emissions back out of the air via direct air capture, planting 4 trees for each hour traveled, and donating $7 for each hour you travel to awareness and education non-profits.


What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is an award-winning health retreat located in the lush forests of British Columbia, Canada. Founded in 1991, our health reset program helps 16 guests at a time unplug, recharge, reconnect with nature, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about Mountain Trek, and how we can help reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

BEST KOOTENAY HIKES | MOUNTAIN TREK’S STAFF PICKS

spring-hiking

One of the key features of the Mountain Trek experience is hiking in nature. Our beautiful lodge in Ainsworth, British Columbia, is surrounded by the majestic, snow-capped peaks of the Purcell and Selkirk Mountain ranges. The area is replete with ghost towns, mossy trails, and clear-flowing streams that feed the stunning, 100-kilometer long Kootenay Lake.

So as homage to the abundant nature that surrounds us, we share our favorite Kootenay hikes. These hikes are meant to challenge and motivate you, get your heart rate up, and set your spirit soaring.

MONICA MEADOWS

fall-monica-meadows-hike

There are fewer trails in the world that offer such relatively easy access for such a great pay off. Monica Meadows, located in the Purcell Mountain Range, is one of the most stunning locations in southern British Columbia. With vast meadows, shallow lakes, vibrant larches, gorgeous alpine flowers, and views of the surrounding peaks and ridges. Monica Meadows is a haven of calm beauty encircled by rocky mountains. An 8-kilometer hike from the trailhead, through cool forests, and along boulder-strewn pathways will get you there in no time so we can rest, enjoy the views and even go swimming before our return.

IDAHO PEAK

Looking-out-from-Idaho-Peak

This is a moderate hike that takes you to some of the best views and most abundant wildflowers in southern British Columbia. We begin our hike at the ghost town of Sandon, then wind our way up along old mining trails and logging paths before reaching the viewpoint. Once there you’ll enjoy gazing down at the town of New Denver on Slocan Lake below, as well as breathtaking views of New Denver Glacier, the Valhalla Mountain range, Kokanee Glacier, and Mt. Cooper.

EVANS CREEK

From the trailhead at Slocan City, you’ll hike on the undulating, moss-lined trail along the shoreline of Slocan Lake. On the way, you can expect spectacular rocky vantage points, special pockets of flora, and prime swimming spots. Round trip, the Evans hike is approximately 15 km (18 km if we make it to Evans Lake) and includes a lot of Ponderosa pine, juniper, white cedar, and fir trees befitting the drier climate zone. There are some fun rock ledges to clamber out onto to take in the beautiful views up and down the lake. Knowing that the surrounding Valhalla majestic peaks were named after Norse Gods makes the Evans Creek hike that much more mythic.

GALENA TRAIL

This is one of the most popular hikes in the Slocan Valley. The Galena Trail follows the route of a railway line that dates back to the glory days of Silvery Slocan. It once connected the silver mines of Sandon via sternwheeler service from Nakusp to the Canadian Pacific Railway mainline at Revelstoke. The rail beds were abandoned over 100 years ago and Mother Nature has reclaimed much of the existing corridors. This historic trail follows the old railway line, passed the ruins of abandoned mines and ghost towns like Alamo. Occasionally, we’ll even take the two-person cable car crossing over Carpenter Creek along the way.

KOKANEE GLACIER PARK

Kokanee Lake in Kokanee Glacier Park

Located just west of the Mountain Trek Lodge, the beautiful Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park offers an incredible alpine experience with very little effort. The park is one of the oldest in the province and boasts no less than three glaciers, including Kokanee, Caribou, and Woodbury. These glaciers feed over 30 lakes and are the headwaters of many creeks. On a typical hike, we’ll visit two of those lakes, Gibson and Kaslo, with water so clear you’ll be able to watch rainbow and cutthroat trout swimming by. The trail is about 14 kilometers round trip and guests will enjoy views of the surrounding peaks, glaciers, and sub-alpine flower meadows. Depending on the season, we’ll also see eagles, ptarmigan, pikas, marmots, mountain goats, and feast on wild huckleberries.

PILOT PENINSULA

Pilot Peninsula Provincial Park is the safest harbor on Kootenay Lake and is perfect for swimming and hiking. The trail we typically take skirts the shoreline of Kootenay Lake and offers multiple pebble beaches. In fact, Pilot Peninsula is a great start to our week as it’s very flat, with hardly any elevation gain or loss. We won’t bag any peaks on this trail but it’s still an incredible foray into some stunning BC wilderness that includes tall stands of aspen, colorful wildflowers, calm coves, and around every corner, views of the surrounding peaks.

When it comes to healthy living, our philosophies are rooted in nature as well – from our locally sourced, organic meals that nourish your body to the core content of our inspiring lectures, to the many stunning, butt-toning hikes we go on every day. We hope you can join us on some of the best Kootenay hikes.


What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning health retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you detox, unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

EXTRA SERVICES MENU

In addition to the three 50-minute therapeutic massages already included in your program, we offer additional treatments and sessions to enhance your stay.

Please note: Scheduling is based on specialist availability and therefore cannot be guaranteed. We will do our best to accommodate all extra service requests. Prices do not include tax.

2022 SEASON SERVICES & PRICING

DEEP TISSUE THERAPEUTIC MASSAGE
Support your individual healing needs with a therapeutic massage. Engage your mind and body, while focusing your session on chronic areas of contraction or pain, while releasing muscle knots and fascia, liberating joints and mobility.
$150 CAD

THAI MASSAGE
Traditional Thai Massage performed fully clothed on a floor mat and incorporating a combination of deep tissue acupressure and yoga-like stretching. Encouraging lymphatic function, this therapeutic offering will also detoxify the body, strengthen the immune system, and prevent injury.
$150 CAD

ACUPUNCTURE
An alternative medicine modality in which extremely fine needles are used to help relieve pain and inflammation in the body by stimulating the release of chemicals and the body’s natural healing process.
$165 CAD

NUTRITION CONSULTATION
A 50-minute, private session with our Registered Nutritionist, Jenn. Health questions and concerns are reviewed, physical, emotional, and lifestyle factors discussed, and recommendations are given. Please bring a 7-day food diary.
$150 CAD

PRIVATE YOGA SESSION
Enjoy a personalized session focusing on creating your own take-home routine, or deepening your current practice.
$150 CAD

ORGANIC FACIAL
An anti-aging and mineral-rich nourishing facial treatment.
$185 CAD

PERSONAL COUNSELLING SESSION
Enjoy a private 50-minute session with our Registered Clinical Counsellor, Michelle. Whether you’re working through a life transition, relationship issues, depression, anxiety, stress, trauma, grief, addiction, or issues relating to self-image and self-confidence, these client-centered counseling sessions are an opportunity to slow down, become clear, and find ways to resolve current concerns or issues from the past that interfere with living fully in the present.
$200 CAD

NATUROPATHIC HEALTH CONSULTATION
During a 50-minute consultation, Dr. Kimberley will review your health history to help you identify the underlying cause of your symptoms and health concerns. You will leave with a personalized strategy to maximize your health.
$255 CAD

OPTIONAL NATUROPATHIC HEALTH CONSULTATION ADD-ONS:

The above Naturopathic Health Consultation is required to request any of the following add-ons.

FOOD SENSITIVITY TESTING
Common symptoms of food sensitivities include fatigue, bloating, irritable bowel syndrome, sinus congestion, headaches, eczema, and joint pain. Immune reactivity to 96 foods can be assessed through an advanced laboratory test that is easily collected via a simple finger-prick blood test.
+$550 CAD
Includes a 30-minute follow up phone consultation 

DUTCH COMPLETE HORMONE AND NEUROTRANSMITTER TESTING
This detailed test assesses your sex and stress hormone levels; including estrogen and its metabolites, progesterone, testosterone, DHEA, cortisol, dopamine, adrenaline, melatonin, and more! This test is suitable for both men and women, and it’s especially helpful to pinpoint the cause of anxiety, insomnia, fatigue, anxiety, weight gain, and PMS or menopausal symptoms
+$650 CAD
Includes a 30-minute follow up phone consultation 

CARDIO-METABOLIC & THYROID TESTING
This test provides a comprehensive assessment of thyroid function. It measures thyroid hormones (TSH, T4, T3) as well as screening for autoimmune reactivity. It also screens for insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome, which may be making it difficult for you to lose weight.
+ $600 CAD
Includes a 20-minute follow up phone consultation 

COMPREHENSIVE DIGESTIVE STOOL ANALYSIS
This comprehensive test is paramount to help us pinpoint the cause of digestive symptoms, bloating, skin concerns, autoimmune conditions, and more by providing us with a detailed assessment of your gastrointestinal health. Through advanced laboratory assessment, we are able to evaluate your key markers of digestion, absorption, and inflammation, in addition to assessing for bacterial imbalances, yeast overgrowth, and parasites.
+ $675 CAD
Includes a 20-minute follow up phone consultation

COMPREHENSIVE FULL PACKAGE PRICE
Includes all tests and 2.5 total hours of consultation time with Dr. Kimberley (50-minutes in person at Mountain Trek and the remainder via phone or video-based consultations once you return home).
+ $2,475 CAD


What is Mountain Trek?

Mountain Trek is the health reset you’ve been looking for. Our award-winning health retreat, immersed in the lush nature of British Columbia, will help you detox, unplug, recharge, and roll back years of stress and unhealthy habits. To learn more about the retreat, and how we can help you reset your health, please email us at info@mountaintrek.com or reach out below:

A Saturday in Nelson, British Columbia

Nelson BC

While you’ve traveled to beautiful British Columbia to experience our award-winning program and otherworldly hiking trails, Nelson, a little bohemian town located just 45 minutes away from the Mountain Trek lodge, is well worth a visit before, or after, your stay with us.

Also known as “The Queen City,” Nelson boasts an impressive collection of restored heritage buildings from its glory days in a regional silver rush. The downtown area is packed with good restaurants, coffee houses, one-of-a-kind shops, and small art galleries.

Should you take the opportunity to explore our lumber-town-turned-thriving-arts-and-mountain-sports-hotbed, here are some suggestions:

  • Walk up one side of Baker Street and down the other, popping into the unique boutiques and eateries
  • Head uphill from Baker Street into neighborhoods showcasing a mixture of classic Craftsman houses to quaint Victorians
  • Keep heading uphill to The Great Northern Rail Trail for wonderful views of the city and BOB, our Big Orange Bridge that crosses the lake

To fuel your adventure, may we suggest:

  • Oso Negro for locally-roasted coffee, enjoyed in their perennial garden
  • Pitchfork, a farmer-owned restaurant that forages its ingredients from the surrounding wild Kootenay mountains
  • Cantina del Centro for seasonal tacos, tortas, soups, market fresh salads and desserts made in-house and from scratch
  • Red Light Ramen, for, you guessed it, ramen, and house-made kombucha
  • Full Circle Café for a hearty brunch, featuring gluten-free and vegan options
  • Kootenay Co-op for their salad bar and snack selection
  • Sprout for flavorful plant-based foods, including burgers and grain bowls
  • Rel-ish for locally-sourced, organic dishes prepared in their open kitchen

To boot, Saturday hosts Nelson’s Farmers’ Market at Cottonwood Falls Park. From 9:30 to 3:00PM, browse the 40+ vendors selling produce, eggs, honey, local natural meats, home-brewed root beer, a great selection of prepared savory and sweet foods, jewelry, artwork,  body wear products, hats, scarves, and so much more. There, treat yourself to some fresh juice while listening to live music–the perfect way to start or end your Mountain Trek trip.

Visit Nelson’s Tourism page for even more ideas and discoveries. The list of things to do and see in Nelson is endless.