Belinda Kirk
Belinda is an explorer, researcher and leading campaigner promoting the benefits of adventure on wellbeing, performance and mental health.
Over the past 30yrs she’s led thousands of people into the wilderness and has witnessed first hand the power of adventure to transform people’s lives. This sent her on a ten-year research mission to explore the psychology of why adventuring is so impactful to our mental health.
Since then she’s written the first book to explain the psychology of why adventure is essential to our wellbeing: Adventure Mind: Transform your wellbeing by choosing challenge. Drawing on lessons learnt from leading groups into the wilderness and the latest findings in neuroscience and psychology, she shows how adventure has the power to transform the timid into the confident, the addicted into the recovering, and the lost into the intentionally wandering. Available in Kindle, Audiobook and paperback worldwide.
In 2019 she launched the Adventure Mind alliance to further explore the positive impact that adventurous activity has on wellbeing. It is now a conference series, an international research collaborative and an alliance of practitioners to evolve, support and promote adventure for wellbeing and mental health.
Belinda has led dozens of international expeditions over the last thirty years. She’s walked through Nicaragua, sailed across the Atlantic, searched for camels in China’s Desert of Death, discovered ancient rock paintings in Lesotho and gained a Guinness World Record for rowing unsupported around Britain. She has led numerous youth development challenges, pioneered inclusive expeditions for people with disabilities and managed scientific research missions in the Amazon, Sinai and Alaska.
In 2009, She established Explorers Connect to spread the word about the life-changing impact of adventure and has encouraged 30,000 ordinary people to engage in transformational outdoor challenges.