Operation Arctic Cure

I couldn't help but feel this was an overly optimistic one-sided portrayal of the power of awe for helping mental health issues. Is it better than nothing, absolutely. Is it a cure, hardly.

It all felt a bit too disengenuious and pat, lots of smiling and all but ignoring the actual complexities of mental health challenges.

I would have liked to have seen what challenges the participants still had in their life after coming home from the Arctic. Or make mention of other therapies available besides nature immersion. And not just portray awe as being this for certain cure, where at best it seems to improve conditions by 25%, using the shows own statistics. That's hardly a cure and if it was it would still require reimmersion every couple weeks or so.

As "Operation Arctic Cure" (2024 release; 44 min.) opens, we are on "Boffin Island, Canada" near the Arctic Circle, as ABS News reporter Bob Woodruff, who was himself hurt in Iraq in 2006 by a roadside bomb, is leading a small group of US Veterans who all are dealing with PTSD. It turns out that research has shown that immersion in nature helps dealing with PTSD. The veterans tell their personal stories along the way...

Couple of comments: this one-off standalone episode of the National Geographic deals with a very important cause: how to help veterans dealing with PTSD. It is something that is far too often overlooked, and it's simply not right. Tens of thousands of veterans returning from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are left to their own devices in dealing with it. For shame. From scientific research we now know that immersion in awe-inspiring nature surroundings help dealing with PTSD. Whitewater rafting is one example. Exploring nature near and at the Arctic circle is another one. In this episode, 5 veterans get the opportunity to do so, and do, and very happy for them. All that aside, does this make for compelling viewing? I'm afraid not. There are far better "extreme nature" documentaries out there as compared to this one. That of course does not take away from the important cause that this documentary represents.

"Operation Arctic Cure" premiered on the National Geographic Channel some weeks ago and is now streaming on Hulu, where I caught it. If you have any interest in how veterans deal with PTSD, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.