The art of forest bathing is the art of connecting with nature through our senses. All we have to do is accept the invitation… Mother Nature does the rest.
Forest bathing is like a bridge. By opening our senses, it bridges the gap between us and the natural world.
The origin
Shinrin in Japanese means « forest », and Yoku means « bath ». So Shinrin Yoku (forest bathing) means bathing in the forest atmosphere, or taking in the forest through our senses.
When people started to practise forest bathing, in the early 1980s, it was based only on common sense and the intuitive idea that being in the beautiful green forests would be good for us.
From a feeling to a science… there are now numerous studies and a huge mass of data on the impact of forest bathing on various aspects of human health.
It’s no surprise, given the country’s close bond with the natural world, in particular its forests and trees, that Japan is a leading player in research into nature therapies. Much of this work is backed by the Japanese government.
How does a forest bathing session take place ?
First, your guide will send you all the necessary information a few days before the session to allow you to prepare well and have the right equipment.
Then, on the day of the session, your guide will welcome you to explain how the morning or day will run through and the different activities that will be offered to you such as :
- Respect for the forest and natural environment – Leave No Trace – you will find more information on the website « The Seven Principles of Leave No Trace ».
- Invitations such as connection to our multiple senses, breathing, contemplation, slowness, creativity, silence and listening the natural world, etc…
- Share during talking circles.
- The tea ceremony – this is a lovely final ritual, a way of incorporating the forest, and the medicinal properties.
Our world, our planet Earth, is in continuous motion so forest bathing session will always be different because our feelings, the weather, the season, the group of participants and especially the forest and its natural environment are also constantly changing.
Let yourself be guided and let go, enjoy the session !
Trust your senses
We are better than we think we are. Our sensory faculties are in no way inferior to those of many animals, they are simply adapted to our own needs. We are endowed with extraordinary sense organs which allow us to fully understand and taste our own environment.
True detectors of our environment, our senses allow us to structure our personal identity. It is through them that we represent our living environment. Each of us feels emotions associated with our senses and these forge our uniqueness.
- Sight : the colors have a psycho-emotional resonance ; the shapes and movement that nature offers us, also act on our mind ; look closely at the details of the leaves and bark ; look up through the canopy to the sky…
- Hearing : listening to the sounds of Nature allows us to develop attention and concentration… the birds, the breeze through the trees, the rustle of leaves underfoot.
- Touch : the touch relationship provides a form of comfort and security ; touch the trees with all their textures, feel the cool water of a stream, and when your bare feet touch the ground, you are receiving a dose of the earth’s powerful healing electrons ; and when we are electrically grounded, we are in harmony with nature… so, take your shoes off ! Have you ever skimmed your cheek with a leaf or a drop of water ?
- Smell : it directly stimulates the limbic part of our brain also called « the brain of emotions » ; smell is a door to our unconscious and our emotions, leaving great freedom to our imagination.
- Taste : it gives us the possibility of relating to our memory and our emotions ; food eaten outdoors really does taste better, so take a picnic and a flash of tea ; taste the freshness of the air as you take deep breaths… perception is closely linked to smell.
But also, equilibrioception, proprioception, nociception, thermoception, intuition, instinct, etc…
Nature feeds our senses and brings us joy. Immersed in the natural world, we can experience the miracle of life and connect to something larger than ourselves.
Nature takes our breath away and breathes new life into us.
Find a spot in the forest, or a green park, then you can sit and notice all the sensual pleasures of the forest :
- What do you feel when you hear the breeze in the trees and the songs of the birds ?
- What do you feel when you look at the trees around you ?
- What do you feel when you smell the forest fragrance ?
- What do you feel when the sun warms your face, or you lie on the ground ?
- What do you feel when you taste the fresh air ?
- What do you feel now ?
Why a gentle walk ?
The practice of forest bathing is based on walking through the forest at a gentle pace for 3 hours or more.
Keeping your phone switched off allows time to soak up the environment around you and come into the here and now… Only the present is real. That is why it is called « present » – a gift.
Focus on your feet as they come into contact with the ground. How do you feel as you walk ? See how quietly you can walk, so that you can notice as many of the details around you as possible.
Allow your awareness to move up through every part of your body, noticing the sensations as you walk… « Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet » – Thich Nhat Hanh
Go too fast and you might miss the way !
Enjoy the opportunity to slow down and just be with nature for a while.
Why walk in silence ?
It is difficult to find peace and quiet in today’s world. Can you remember the last time you heard… nothing ?
Natural silence has been called one of the most endangered resources on the planet.
Of course, silence in nature does not always mean total quiet. When you are free from human noise you have an opportunity to listen to the sounds that only nature provides. Being still and quiet, we can hear the sound of silence and begin to relax.
Findings presented at the Acoustical Society of America in 2015 showed that listening to the sounds of nature not only helps us to be more productive but also makes us feel more positive about our environment.
The « one-square-inch » project has made a recording of the natural silence in the Hoh Rain Forest of Olympic National Park, which is one of the most pristine, untouched, and ecologically diverse environments in the United States.
Silence is a part of our human nature, which can no longer be heard by most people.
Chromatherapy
Color therapy has been known for a long time. Our cells, made up of atoms, enter into vibrational resonance with these light frequencies and find real harmony. Our body conveys the beneficial properties of each color by their simple irradiation.
In Nature, we can expose ourselves to :
- Brown, the color of the earth par excellence, is a soft, reassuring and almost maternal color.
- Green, the color of nature, of plants, is a general rebalancing.
- Red which is stimulating.
- Yellow, like the sun, is an exciting and motivating color, almost an antidepressant !
- Blue is often people’s favorite color, and for good reason, it is the most relaxing and calming.
- Orange which represents movement, pleasure, play, celebration, desire and passion.
- Beige, like sand, is the color of purity and simplicity, but also fullfilment or tranquillity.
- And many others…
The traditional Japanese tea ceremony
Forest bathing walks often end with a drink of tea brewed from roots, leaves, flowers or bark of the trees and plants in the forest… this is a lovely final ritual, a way of incorporating the forest, and the medicinal properties, too.
The four principles of tea ceremony are harmony, respect, purity and tranquility. These are also profound rules for life, reminding us to live fully with our hearts and minds, to enjoy the simplicity and elegance of the natural world, and to be prepared, thoughtful and kind.
The tea ceremony closes a forest bathing session by thanking the forest for its welcome and kindness.
What if you don’t live near a forest ?
The importance of trees in the city for public health has been recognized at least since Cyrus the Great planted his famous royal garden in the crowded capital of the Persian empire two and a half thousand years ago.
Many of our great cities have a wonderful parks and gardens, and some even have wild areas and woods. Trees in the city are just as important for our health as trees in the countryside. Trees, of course, play a vital part in keeping our cities clean.
Leave your cup of coffee and your phone behind and just walk slowly or find a spot to sit, forget about the time… notice what you can hear, see, feel… come into the present moment.
Why is Forest Bathing necessary ?
Six million years passed before humans evolved into what we are today. Therefore, more than 99% of our evolutionary history was spent in natural environments. All human physiological functions have evolved in and adapted to nature… that is one of the reasons why human beings can relax in a forest environment… our origins !
Scientific research shows, since the 80s but particularly since 10/15 years, that forest environments and the practice of forest bathing produce various beneficial effects for human health and well-being through the psycho-neuro-immuno-endocrine network :
- decrease in the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight), and increase in the parasympathetic nervous system (rest & recover).
- reduce blood pressure leading to a reduction in cardiovascular risks.
- boost the immune system function, with an increase in the activity of Natural Killer cells, the number of NK cells and the level of intracellular anticancer proteins.
- act on the endocrine system and lower the levels of stress hormones (adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol), highlighting the relaxing effects.
- enhance sleep and increase energy and concentration levels.
- reduction in the level of glucose in the blood (type II diabetes, reduced effects of insulin).
- psychological effects with an increase in positive emotions (awe, good mood, freshness and vigor), and decrease in negative emotions (anxiety, confusion, depression, anger and fatigue).
In 2003, Prof. Yoshifumi Miyazaki proposed the term « Forest Therapy » to describe forest bathing supported by scientific evidence. What started as an intuitive-based therapy has become an evidence-based therapy, and can now be considered to be a preventive medicine. The basic concept behind nature therapy is to increase physiological relaxation and act as a preventive medicine by improving the body’s natural resistance to disease, which is suppressed under conditions of stress. Although the simple act of walking in a forest might not seem extraordinary, the benefits that people experience during and after a session of forest bathing really are.
Research has shown that there is a correlation between the activities you enjoy and the physiological relaxation effects they provide. In other words, the more you are enjoying an activity, the greater its benefits will be.
According to the World Health Organization,stress has become a growing global problem and constitutes a risk factor for developing illnesses such as coronary heart disease, type II diabetes, and depression.
By 2050, 75% of the world’s projected 9 billion population will live in cities, and since the year 2000, we have officially become an urban species. We now spend more than 90% of the time indoors, and a study shows that people in Britain spend an average of eight hours and forty-one minutes a day on their devices, which is more time than the average person spends asleep !
Nature Therapy as a health-promotion method and potential universal health model is implicated for the reduction of reported modern-day « stress-state » and « technostress ».
Moreover, various contemporary hypotheses, such as, Kaplan’s Attention Restorative Hypothesis, Ulrich’s Stress Reduction Hypothesis, Kellert & Wilson’s Biophilia Hypothesis*, and also James Lovelock’s Gaia Theory*, provide support and a lens for the practice of forest bathing and other forms of nature engagement.
Several studies have shown that, when we connect with nature, we are reminded that we are part of something larger than ourselves. Faced with the awesome vastness of the universe, we can feel flooded with gratitude.
People who feel more connected to nature are more likely to engage in ecofriendly acts (Mayer & Frantz, 2004). The knowledge about nature is vital, but passion is the long-distance fuel for the struggle to save what is left of our natural heritage, and also to reconstitute lost land and water. Passion does not arrive on devices, passion is personal. If we are going to save environmentalism and the environment, we must also save an endangered indicator species : the child nature.
In « Last Child in the Woods », Richard Louv came up with a term to describe the gap between children and nature. He called it a « nature deficit disorder », and he has linked the lack of nature in young people’s lives to the rise in behavioural disorders, depression and obesity, in addition to the lack of vitamin D. Nature is good for children’s mental and physical development. If we let our young people engage with the beauty of the natural world they will learn to love and understand its spirit. In the end, they will become adults who will protect it.
Gary Paul Nabhan said, « science is the human endeavor in which we are frequently reminded how wrong we can be ». If scientists rely only on reason, then « our work has no meaning. It needs to be placed in some spiritual context ».
Healthcare professionals and educators may turn to forest bathing and Nature Therapy literature for simple, affordable and enjoyable complementary interventions to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression symptons and enhance joy, relaxation, overall sense of well-being and balance in life. Furthermore, forest bathing as a healing and restorative modality may support the clinician’s and patient’s whole-being, while promoting a sense of peace, dignity and comfort.
There is no medicine you can take that has such a direct influence on your health as a walk in a beautiful forest. The practice of forest bathing is ontological realism and offer humans an authentic way of healing and health prevention for the mind, body and spirit.
*Biophilia hypothesis : the concept that humans have a biological need to connect with nature. It can be defined as « love of live and the living world ».
*Gaia Theory : James Lovelock & Lynn Margulis defined Gaia as a complex entity involving the Earth’s biosphere, atmosphere, oceans, and soil ; the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic environment for life on this planet.
Duration : to be defined together (morning, full moon night or full day).
Price : $650 pesos for half a day and $1.200 pesos for a full day… Free for children under 12.