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Rock Climbing wallace769/ Pixabay

The Brooklyn Boulders climbing gyms of Chicago and New York have long been established hubs for the community, and it’s not difficult to see why. Rock-climbing is fun, it requires teamwork, and it removes social imbalances in a space where politics are irrelevant, altogether providing an ideal environment for socialization.

For the Brooklyn Boulders CEO, Martin Adler, building this sense of community is not a happy offshoot for his climbing company - it is the primary mission and one that is grounded in science.

It is no secret that the global pandemic has severely increased the prevalence of mental health issues throughout the population. Covid transported us to a world lived mostly through our screens, with real, face-to-face social contact being replaced by pixelated video calls. A 2020 Harvard survey found that 36% of Americans feel “serious loneliness”, and Adler’s background in digital health means he has first-hand experience of just how damaging this loneliness can be.

When working as Head of Product for a company providing AI health coaches, he witnessed the same pattern over and over again. Whatever the initial cause of an increased feeling of loneliness was, this would consistently develop directly into habits of over-consumption and reduced physical exercise, which then led to significant health problems such as hypertension and diabetes.

Adler speaks of feeling a duty to provide these people with an outlet for socialization, fun and exercise, all of which coalesce in his beloved activity of rock-climbing. It presents a low-anxiety setting for connecting with others, because the primary focus is on the climbing and this lifts the pressure off of socializing.

There is also something about the fact that rock-climbing is not one of the more traditional team sports, such as American football, soccer and basketball, which can often have an associated ‘jock-culture’ and can be seen as intimidating for any who don’t consider themselves to be hugely ‘sporty’.

Few other settings will find a 45-year-old collaborating with a 16-year-old as they try to solve a particularly hard wall together, and this ageless quality helps to flatten the social order as bonds are formed with people that might otherwise disagree on politics, religion, and other ideological battle-grounds.

Adler notes that this has proven to be especially helpful for younger members of the community. The earlier Harvard survey found that 61% of young adults and 51% of mothers with young children reported a feeling of severe loneliness; Adler notes that the Brooklyn Boulder Foundation supports numerous programs that are helping to combat this.

The goal of the charity, originally founded and funded by Brooklyn Boulders and now a stand-alone 501c3 non-profit, is to empower young people ‘regardless of ability’, with both non-competitive and competitive programs being offered. Inclusivity is a theme that runs throughout both the Foundation and the core Brooklyn Boulders climbing centers; initiatives such as the Adaptive Climbing Group for disabled climbers and Sliding Scale membership pricing ensure the activities are as accessible as possible.

Through the Brooklyn Boulders community, Martin Adler is demonstrating that he has built a proven formula for reducing loneliness while improving our physical health at the same time. Adler believes that this formula could be scaled up and expanded beyond climbing in order to counter the mental health crisis that grips America.