Forest bathing: a cure from the past to fix the present

You spend long office hours sitting in a tiny cubicle, working away on a computer. While you focus on daily targets that must be met, colleagues that must be dealt-with, and meetings that must be attended—stress creeps-up into your spine. You push it back down with shots of a double-espresso, and try to focus on what’s important.

Once the day wraps up, you step into crowded streets to take a cab to the nearest subway station. Traffic eats into your time and the honking of cars gets to you. You put on noise-cancelling headsets and stare into your phone checking the social-media sites you’re on. Two-hours later, you reach home and binge Netflix with yesterday’s dinner. Next day is a repeat-show.

This is modern living and somewhere deep down we all know it’s not living at all. To stop feeling like you’re a hamster on a wheel—throw away the wheel and step into a forest. Really—leave all your devices behind, take your shoes off, and walk quietly into the woods immersing your ‘self’ into a world where you came from. What you are about to do is Shinrin-yoku—Japanese for forest bathing.

1. What is forest bathing?

Even though the name may mislead, forest bathing does not involve taking off your clothes. And even though it’s a walk through a forest—it’s a crawl not a hike. Forget about your calorie count, instead focus on a leisurely stroll. Take in the sights and smells. Observe the green of the leaves, feel the texture of the barks, and even though it sounds clinched—stop and smell the flowers.

Sounds are important too—like the chirping of birds, the crunching of leaves beneath your feet, and even the hum of the wind whistling past. The forest is an ecosystem where you’ll encounter animals and plants—big and small. Observe how they live together under the forest canopy, some in a happy symbiosis while others like predator-prey.

2. God is in the details

Every time your mind runs away toward worries elsewhere—draw it back toward the details of the forest floor. Look at the moss growing under a tiny rock, look at how a rabbit leaps in quiet steps away from you, and look at how a spider weaves its web, slowly in intricate patterns.

In some of these details you may discover colors that you never get to see on a digital screen. If you are in a forest with peaks and valleys, you may stumble upon creaks and waterfalls. What you will encounter in these moments is awe. In others, you’ll gradually learn to breathe-in the pace of jungle life—slow but ever graceful.

The practice of ‘forest bathing’ originated in ancient Japan to help people lead a healthy life. Shinrin-yoku was institutionalized in 1982 when the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture coined the name. “Shinrin” means woods and “yoku” bathing. The phrase literally translates as drenching oneself into the atmosphere of the forest.

3. It’s all about slowing life down

Forest bathing, like you may have guessed by now, is about connecting with all your senses. Just like meditation, it takes your mind away from the clutter of everyday, allowing you to have more headspace.

While in meditation you sit in one place observing the movement of your body as you breathe in and breathe out—in forest bathing you do quite the same, but while moving around a forest. Your goal is to try and connect to the reservoir of energy within you by becoming a part of the energy that surrounds all of us.

In walks through the forest, taking off your shoes and connecting directly with the ground underneath is often recommended. Walking barefoot on natural surfaces such as the soil, grass, and mud is called ‘grounding’ or ‘earthing.’

4. What happens when you feel grounded?

The earth has a natural charge, which transfers over to the feet when we touch it with our naked skin. The Journal of Environmental and Public Health has studied how this charge can help relieve the suffering of chronic pain patients.

Another study found that grounding increases the surface charge of red blood cells, thus reducing the clumping of cells or their viscosity. As a result, chances of heart disease diminish—simply by walking barefoot.

Some forest-bathing instructors may ask you to come to a halt during the walk and pick up a pebble. They’ll urge you to think of all that worries you in your current state in life and try and visualize those problems in the pebble.

Finally, attempt to throw the pebble away with the intention of throwing away any thought of that problem during the walk. This will allow the forest bather to psychologically overcome that obstacle in his/her mind—even if it is for a short duration of time.

5. After all, we are all monkeys

If we really think about it, human beings are really monkeys who spent a big portion of their evolutionary cycle as hunters and gatherers dwelling in a forest. It’s only recently that they turned to civilized living—a life which started with learning to grow their own crop.

For a long time, spending time in the fields, planting seeds with bare hands, watching the cycles of rain and snow was how humans learnt to survive. Forest bathing is simply an attempt to re-establish our lost connection with the natural habitat.

6. Forest bathing is not hippy gibberish

However, many amongst us do not have the luxury of time to run away into the woods and try and connect with nature. For those who work stressful jobs, such as doctors, investment-bankers, and media professionals—finding a forest to re-connect with our inner primate can seem like an outlandish idea.

Forest bathing is, however, not hippy gibberish. When we begin to understand the long-term benefits of Shinrin-yoku, investing in this practice makes sense. Forest bathing like yoga is preventive healthcare that can keep people disease-free and their health-insurances low.

Forest bathing is not an abstract idea—but has evidence in science. The Japanese have spent 4 million dollars from 2004 to 2012, studying the benefits of Shinrin-yoku on the body and mind.

7. The science behind Shinrin-yoku

Trees emit essential oils called phytoncide to protect from germs and insects. When human beings inhale phytoncide their immunity gets a natural boost—increasing the quantity of NK (natural killer) cells in the body that help fight off cancers and tumors.

In a 2009 study of forest-bathers by Quing Li, a professor at the Nippon Medical School in Tokyo, participants registered an instant peek in NK levels within a week of Shinrin-yoku. The positive effects lasted up to a month after the walk.

After time spent walking or even sitting under trees, the body’s salivary cortisol, which is usually emitted in stress, registers a decline. The blood pressure and stress levels also go down. The parasympathetic nerve activity goes up and the sympathetic nerve activity goes down. Which simply put mean that the person feels more rested, relaxed, and focused—and his/her tendency to be aggressive die down.

8. How can forest bathing begin to change our life?

After routine forest bathing excursions, old people may heal better from diseases they are ailing from, the young may feel the urge to get more intimate with their partners, and even kids with ADHD can begin to focus better.

In Japan, only 48 therapy trails that emit phytoncide in plenty are marked as beneficial for forest bathing. The Japanese are mighty serious about their ancestral connection with nature. No wonder picnicking under cherry-blossoms are essential family-time activities.

However, no matter where you live, you can start exploring meet-ups conducted by certified forest-bathers. Cities like New York have forest-bathing activities mushrooming just 90-minutes away from the metropolis.

San Francisco’s Forest Bathing Club Meetup took off in 2014 and is now 200-strong. Julia Plevin, a product designer, started the group with the intention to help herself and others get a digital detox. Now they meet every month without fail to walk amongst the trees.

For those of us who have the inclination but not the time to invest into Shinrin-yoku, a simple walk in the park, reading a book under a tree, or walking barefoot on grass can be a healthy start.