Melanie Choukas-Bradley - The Joy of Forest Bathing: Reconnect with Wild Places & Rejuvenate Your Life

Reconnect with Wild Places & Rejuvenate Your Life

Melanie Choukas-Bradley
Illustrations by Lieke van der Vorst

C an you recall a time during childhood when you were fully enthralled by the wonder of nature?

My own memory takes me back to the first time I saw a perfect snowflake. I was walking home from school on a path through the woods when a single snow crystal landed on a flat, dark rock in front of me. Intricately laced and patterned, it was a miniature version of the snowflakes I cut out from folded white paper in school. I knelt down and watched more snowflakes fall from the sky and land on the rock, each one perfect, each one unique, but perhaps none as perfect as the first. Was I in kindergarten, first grade, or second grade? The snowflake memory holds a special place in my mind, connected only to the sky from which the crystals fell and the rock on which they landed.

The dream like quality of the snowflake memory is much like my other childhood memories of nature enchantment: finding the first woodland wildflowers just after snow melt in the spring; lying on a bed of moss and looking up into the leafy branches of a white birch tree; diving into a cold ocean wave and then burying myself in the warm sand; picking up a fallen maple leaf, deep red in autumn, and bringing it home to iron between two pieces of wax paper. The circumstances of my life at the time dont seem to touch those enchanted memories, although the memories themselves are rich with colors and vivid recollections of place. Childhood nature memories can easily be called up by a specific fragrance, a sound, a sight, or a general feeling of well-being.

Several years ago one of my natural history field-studies students brought me an article about something called shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, which, the story said, had originated in Japan. I instantly recognized what the phrase meant and my whole being relaxed into what felt like a full body smile. Forest bathing was defined as full sensory immersion in the beauty and wonder of nature.

I felt grateful to find a name for those moments in nature that had captivated me in childhood and throughout my life, and to learn that people on the other side of the world were engaging in forest bathing as a practice, much like yoga, tai chi, or meditation. I wanted to know all about forest bathing, and I soon found myself on a plane to California to join a North American version of a forest bathing walk. A few months later I began training to become a nature and forest therapy guide so that I could learn how to lead the walks myself.

As a naturalist and author of natural history books, I had been leading nature walks and tree tours in and around Washington, D.C., for many years. Somewhere along the line I recognized that the times that meant the most to me on those walks were not the ones focused on plant identification. They were the times of collective reverence, when everyone grew quiet, surrendering to the beauty and wonder of the moment. On a traditional nature walk, such moments may occur occasionally. On a forest bathing walk, however, quiet surrender to beauty and wonder is the essence of the experience.

I have now been leading forest bathing walks for several years, and I have visited Japan with a small group of North American forest therapy guides to participate in walks led by Japanese shinrin-yoku guides. The forest bathing experiences I have shared with hundreds of people have convinced me that this practice can bring joy, health, and happiness into anyones life no matter your age, fitness level, or place of residence.

Our ancestors had no shopping malls, skyscrapers, factories, cars, planes, or electronics. In the scope of human evolution, these innovations have been around for the blink of an eye. Todays buildings are taller than trees, our planes fly higher than birds, our machines are louder than wind and waterfalls, and our electronics are more enticing than twigs, buds, flowers, and leaves. If we were not so engaged with the innovations of the past two centuries, where would our attention go?

Our agrarian ancestors were engaged with the weather and attuned to the seasons in both pragmatic and celebratory ways. Their medicines, as well as their foods, were gleaned from plants and other natural sources. Many cultures wove elements of natures beauty into their cooking vessels, homes, and places of worship.

The German language has a wonderful untranslatable term for the feeling of solitude one experiences when alone in the forest: waldeinsamkeit. If waldeinsamkeit were translatable, would it prove to be universal and applicable to something that many of our ancestors experienced? Maybe so. After recently learning the word, I discovered that the nineteenth-century American nature philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a poem entitled Waldeinsamkeit, in which he exalted time spent quietly surrendering to the magnificent beauty of nature.

Many people around the world today remain in close harmony with nature and perhaps you are lucky enough to be among them. The Norwegian term friluftsliv, translated as open-air living, describes the Scandinavian passion for time spent in nature. For those of us who have more or less lost our feelings of closeness with nature, we have only to observe our young siblings, children, or grandchildren and remember our own childhoods to know that engagement with nature is a deeply rewarding pastime and state of mind. In our busy lives, if we can take time out to commune with nature as often as possible, will we not be calmer, healthier, and happier?

BEING IN NATURE IS GOOD FOR US

In 1982, the Forest Agency of Japan began promoting a practice they called shinrin-yoku. Stressed and overworked citizens of Tokyo and other cities were encouraged to leave bustling urban areas periodically and spend quiet time in forests as a way to relax and restore mental equilibrium and physical health.

Rooted in the ancient Japanese reverence for nature, shinrin-yoku involves full sensory immersion in the beauty and wonder of nature and trees. Today there are many designated shinrin-yoku forests and trails throughout Japan, and hundreds of thousands of people walk them each year, stopping to enjoy the flowers, commune with the trees, and listen to flowing water.

If youre ever lucky enough to spend time with a shinrin-yoku guide on a designated forest therapy trail, youre unlikely to harbor any doubt that the experience was beneficial to your health. Colorful trailside charts depict many years worth of cumulative health research on the benefits of forest bathing. Your own blood pressure, heart rate, and other vital signs may be checked before and after the walk.