Living is hazardous to your health
If you're living a stressful life it is quite hazardous to your health. And who doesn’t have stress? Like lots of stress at this moment. What are the consequences of a stressful life? These are a few possibilities:
Weakened Immune System
Increased Blood Pressure
Decreased Cardiovascular Health
Low Energy
Depressed Mood
Less Creativity
Trouble Concentrating
Less Happiness
Weight Gain
Shorter Life
The good news is that these consequences are preventable with a simple prescription of time in nature. Nature Rx. More specifically the scientifically based and research supported practice of forest bathing.
“Walking in the forest clears our minds, and helps us to think.”
What is Forest Bathing?
Nature has the ability to engage all of our senses simultaneously. Consider the range of sensory experience we might have during time spent out in nature. We can see intricate patterns in leaves, shells and stars; we may hear birdsong, wind, and rain; we smell flowers, herbs, and cedar; we touch bark, leaves and stones; we taste fresh-off-the-vine fruit and tea made from herbs. This sensory immersion can feel like being “bathed” in nature, and it’s the foundation of the medical practice of “forest bathing”. Originating in Japan, forest bathing, or shinrin-yoku, is a prescription from a doctor of taking in the forest atmosphere through one’s senses and connecting with nature on an elemental level.
You may be glad to know that unlike bathing in water there is never the need to remove any clothing or be naked in any way. If anyone suggests that that is the case just walk away, they are trying to take advantage of you.
The forest is like our mother, a sacred place, a gift to us humans from the divine. It is a paradise of healing. Mother nature fills us with wonder and curiosity and invites us in. She works in harmony with us and with our innate capacity for healing. This is the foundation for forest bathing as a form of medicine as practiced in Japan.
“Illnesses do not come upon us out of the blue. They are developed from small daily sins against nature. When enough sins have accumulated, illnesses will suddenly appear.”
What does the research show?
Forest bathing can help you sleep better and it can put you in a better mood, making you less aggressive and hostile and generally less grumpy all round. It lowers your heart rate and your blood pressure and improves your cardiovascular and metabolic health. And, most importantly, it can boost your immune system.
One of the ways to test the health of the immune system is by measuring the activity of the natural killer (NK) cells. Natural killer cells are so called because they can attack and kill unwanted cells, for example, those infected with a virus, or tumor cells. People with higher NK activity show a lower incidence of diseases such as cancer. In the first forest bathing study done the NK cell activity increased by 53% while the number of NK cells showed a 50% increase. In a follow up study to determine the duration of the positive effects the results showed that NK activity and the number of NK cells were significantly increased after forest bathing and that this effect lasted not just for seven days but for as long as thirty days. Trees are the solution and a forest bathing trip once a month is enough to maintain a high level of natural killer cell activity.
“Spending time in nature can boost problem-solving ability and creativity by 50%.”
The power of trees.
What is it about trees that has this healing effect? How exactly do trees do this? All five senses are engaged in forest bathing but the sense of smell is most primal. Could it be that breathing in the forest’s natural aromatherapy- the plant chemicals known as phytoncides- is what is providing the huge boost to the immune system?
Phytoncides are the natural oils within a plant and are part of a tree’s defense system. Trees release phytoncides to protect them from bacteria, insects and fungi. They are also part of the communication pathway between trees: the way trees talk to each other. (You may want to read the Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Overstory by Richard Powers, for more of what we now know about trees.) The main components of phytoncides are terpenes, and these are what you can smell when you do forest bathing.
Exposure to essential oils is known to lift depression and help with anxiety, so it is clear that the phytoncides in the air must be part of what makes people feel so much better and more relaxed after forest bathing. Later studies designed to show the healing effects of breathing phytoncides on the immune system revealed the increase in NK cell activity and more:
Significantly increased the number of NK cells and NK activity as well as enhancing the activity of the anti-cancer proteins
Significantly decreased the levels of stress hormones
Increased the hours of sleep
Decreased the scores for tension/anxiety, anger/hostility, and fatigue/confusion
Stimulated a pleasant mood
Significantly lower blood pressure and heart rate
Increased heart-rate variability
Suppressed sympathetic nervous activity and increased parasympathetic nervous activity, bringing your nervous system into balance and making you feel comfortable and relaxed.
It might seem obvious that nature can help us to think more positively and clearly, but did you know that nature can also make you more trusting, helpful and caring? Several studies have shown that, when we connect with nature, we are reminded that we are part of something larger than ourselves and we can feel flooded with gratitude. We become less selfish and start to think about others. Furthermore, research has demonstrated that positive emotions of the kind we experience when we look at nature can increase our levels of anti-inflammatory cytokines. These are the proteins that tell the immune system to work harder. And anything that makes our immune system work harder is a boost to our health.
“We enter solitude, in which also we lose loneliness…
True solitude is found in the wild places, where one is without human obligation.
One’s inner voices become audible. One feels the attraction of one’s most intimate sources.
In consequence, one responds more clearly to other lives. The more coherent one becomes within oneself as a creature, the more fully one enters into the communion of all creatures.”
Wilderness Dance
Wilderness Dance is something we created in 2012 as a sacred dance once we let go of the survival dance. For the past 8 years my wife Jill and I have been leading people, 43 and counting, in spending extended periods of time, three or more days, in wild nature on vision quests. In 2019 Jill and I ended long careers in healthcare otherwise known as our survival dance. Now we are offering to lead people in one day experiences of forest bathing.
Our intention was to start offering forest bathing in 2020 once temperatures started to warm but the coronavirus pandemic prevented that from happening. But wouldn’t it be great to boost your immune system right about now. We think the time is right. In July we safely led 6 people on a vision quest in the Colorado Rockies using all the recommended precautions. Forest bathing is definitely an outdoor activity and there is never any occasion to breach physical distancing guidelines so we feel it is extremely safe. However we do acknowledge that nothing is perfectly safe considering the amount of infection currently in our city, state and country so we honor anyone’s desire to wait on their forest bathing experience until cases have slowed. Nevertheless if you are ready to experience the beneficial effects of one day of forest bathing then please let us know so we can set something up in a forest near you. We have suitable forests near Austin, Tx and we love to travel if you’re not too far away.
The solution is in the trees but it is also in the process. A forest bathing experience with Wilderness Dance is a guided excursion into a forest with plenty of cedar and live oak trees to give you the needed phytoncides to breathe. We use simple practices with ritual/ceremony to connect your body, mind and soul with essential nature. Forest bathing is not just the breathing but a full sensory immersion into solitude with all of nature. We ensure that you are safe and protected while getting all of the possible benefits from your experience. It is not physically demanding as the distances walked are quite slow, more of a stroll, and mostly on level ground and all done to your own personal tolerance. Forest bathing is available for almost any level of physical fitness.
Novelist, poet and environmental activist Wendell Berry, in his essay collection wonderfully titled What Are People For?, extols the ennobling effects of solitude, the kind gained only by surrendering to nature’s gentle gift for quieting the mind:
If you would like to manage the consequences of stressful living we can help. You don’t need a prescription from your doctor, you just need a desire for Nature Rx. Forest bathing has become standard practice in Japan, a way in which people can manage their stress, look after their health and commune deeply with nature. Doctors in Japan take coursework on forest bathing in their medical training so they can prescribe it for their patients and between 2.5 and 5 million Japanese people do forest bathing every year. I don’t think it’s part of the course work for a doctor’s training in our country yet.
There is no set fee for this Wilderness Dance Forest Bathing experience. We really don’t know how to set a value for this service and remember this is our sacred dance not our survival dance. So we ask to pay what you think it’s worth or what you can afford. We will accept whatever amount you give with great gratitude and a sincere appreciation for having the chance to introduce you to some trees, to stroll through a forest, and share a life enhancing, immune boosting experience. We are committed to seeing you achieve optimal health even while living a stressful life. We can work with you on what it will take to remain healthy, relaxed, continue to have a high functioning immune system and discover oneself as a creature who more fully enters into the communion of all creatures. Contact us to schedule.
Everything Belongs