Wide Awake in This Present Moment
Forest Bathing – Wide Awake In This Present Moment
October 9, 2019
It’s always made good sense. If you feel down, go outside for some fresh air. If you need to clear your head, go out and take a walk. But now, there is a growing body of scientific evidence that confirms we really are healthier and happier when we are outside. That’s something to pay attention to when average Americans spend 93% of their time indoors or in automobiles, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Forest Bathing is a wellness practice that reconnects us with nature and its healing properties. Think of how it feels to immerse yourself in a bath, just soaking in warm water. Now, think instead of immersing yourself in a forest. Instead of soaking in water, you are literally soaking in all of your senses – your sense of sight, sound, smell, touch, taste. That is forest bathing. It is not hiking or exercise. It is simply being wide awake in the present moment. How refreshing to allow our busy minds a break from all the planning, the remembering, the anticipating and the doing. Directing our attention to our senses allows us to find inner stillness in the beauty of the present moment.
The term “Forest Bathing” is the English translation of the Japanese “Shinrin-yoku”. Forest Bathing was introduced in the 1980’s in Japan as a preventive health care practice to counter the daily stresses of everyday life. But by no means is this a new practice. The healing properties of nature have been recognized by most cultures, although to varying degrees. Henry David Thoreau in the mid-1800’s reflected:
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach…
Scientific data now backs this intuitive knowledge. Even after small periods of time in the forest, nature exposure reduces levels of the stress hormone cortisol and lowers blood pressure and heart rate. Trees release phytoncides into the air which boost our immune system. In natural settings, our “rest and digest” or relaxation response of the parasympathetic nervous system is activated, allowing us to recover from the chronic low-intensity “fight or flight” environment many of us operate in on a daily basis. We are in overdrive filtering endless information streams, reacting to near constant alerts or posts from our phones and tablets, navigating through a twenty-four-hour news cycle. Forest Bathing helps reconnect humans with the outdoor world to which we are naturally adapted, where we have spent more than 99% of our time as a species. More and more, physicians are prescribing forest time or nature time rather than pills, and Forest Bathing is now officially recognized in Japan, South Korea and Finland as a relaxation and stress management technique. Forest Bathing can help us find balance and slow down.
