Why
Mindfulness and Forest Bathing?
Stress
Kaplan and Kaplan associated exposure (through the 5 senses) to naturally occurring stimuli as having a direct effect on increasing the parasympathetic nervous system that leads to a state of relaxation
Anxiety
Findings following a forest therapy program on middle age adult women revealed that levels of tension and anxiety were significantly lower while the “vigor” was significantly higher following forest therapy.
Depression
Forest Bathing: Following a 2 day forest therapy program in Korea, participants reported significant decreases in pain, depression and increased feelings of quality of life. .
Sleep
Citing the impact of chronic stress on growing populations with insomnia and poor sleep patterns in Japan, Morita et al. studied forest-walking to induce relaxation and improve general sleep-wake cycle. Participants reported a statistically significant correlation between increased sleep time and a 2 hour forest bath.
Anger
Participants in a study in Japan who viewed actual live plants had significantly increased oxy-hemoglobin concentrations in the prefrontal cortex (the area of the brain that keeps our emotions in proportion)..
Over-thinking
People report that walking forest brings about an inner calmness of both body and mind.