Dean Cerrati, AMC Photo Contest
When you smell fresh air and hear rustling leaves, it can feel like your whole body is calming down. That’s because it is. It’s your central nervous system taking cues from the environment around you. Study after study has shown that spending time in nature reduces the stress hormone cortisol, among many other benefits.
One way to experience this is through forest bathing.
Forest bathing is the practice of relaxation and sensory immersion in a natural environment, often through a series of exercises, like deep breathing. Forest bathers stay put in one place, unlike if you’re on a walk or hike.
While cultures throughout history have prioritized time in nature, the term “forest bathing” comes from a 1980s public health initiative in Japan. Since then, it’s become a bit of a trendy buzzword—especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, when many looked outdoors to connect with others safely.
“[It] gives me restored faith in humanity thinking about people all around the world slowing down and caring about the land and coming into relationship with the trees in their neighborhood,” says certified forest guide Tam Willey.
While Willey had long been an enthusiastic hiker and paddler, their first experience with forest immersion offered a new perspective on what it meant to be outside.
“I felt like I actually had never really seen the forest before, because I was always trying to get from point A to point B… Practicing just laying under a tree for hours, I felt like I hadn’t really done that since I was a child.”
Inspired by the experience, they began working with the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy and founded their own forest therapy practice, Toadstool Walks. They offer guided sessions and educational programming throughout the Boston area, including with AMC.
We chatted with Willey about forest bathing: What it is, why it matters, and what the benefits are—even for folks who already enjoy getting outdoors.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
To start, what does forest bathing mean to you?
So for me, I train forest therapy guides through the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy. And this practice of forest therapy is inspired by forest bathing. Forest bathing is a literal translation of this term “Shinrin-Yoku” from Japan.
In Japan in the early 1980s, in response to a national health crisis due to a spike in stress-related illness, there was this push to understand what’s happening physiologically when people don’t spend time outside. Particularly with the tech boom—as people moved to more screens, working more sedentary hours, and more being more indoors, there was a very visible spike in stress-related illness.
This idea of forest bathing or forest therapy is getting people outside to relax and, you know, soak up the forest atmosphere. It’s a direct response to tending ourselves through this really stressful, fast-evolving place that we’ve gotten to. In Japan there’s these certified nature therapy centers where you go and they’re taking people’s blood pressure before and after going on some kind of nature-immersive experience.
Wayne Thornbrough, AMC Photo Contest.
People might say, well, why do I need a guide to go in the woods, especially speaking to the AMC audience here. I can just go for a walk in the woods. And my response is, ‘Absolutely.’ You don’t need a guide to go immerse yourself in nature and reap the benefits of doing so. What I offer is a specific practice of being with people doing that and not just like, you know, going on a group hike. It’s not a hike at all. In fact, we don’t really go anywhere.
What does a typical guided program look like?
It’s usually around a three-hour experience. You don’t need any special clothing or gear. You don’t need to go out to some wilder remote area. It’s actually intended to be accessible. I guide in the city, in the urban parks in Boston. We’ll introduce ourselves. I’ll talk a little bit about what we’re doing.
I’m guiding people through a sensory-immersive, slowing-down experience that’s a mix of spending time alone and together. There are times where people are kind of off doing their own thing. And then we come back together. We’re sharing things. And the sharing, it’s not group therapy. We like to say, ‘The forest is the therapist. The guide opens the door.’
All I’m doing is guiding people into their bodies. Part of what happens when we spend all day looking at a screen is it’s literally dulling our senses. And so you might think of this as like sensory therapy. Remembering that we are nature, because a lot of us forget. It’s sort of just an invitation to come back into that relationship.
A lot of people are like, ‘What are you doing for three hours? But it actually flies by and people are often shocked when it’s over. A lot of people are really nervous about three hours. Especially if they’re doing some tech detox and putting their phones away, it’s very anxiety-producing to think about three hours without looking at your phone for most people in modern times.
And then at the end we have a little tea, a little snack. We wrap up and talk. Kind of a last round of sharing. And then we part ways.
You emphasized the idea of accessibility. Can you talk about that a little more?
Like I mentioned, you do not need special gear. You don’t need to drive far. In fact, the practice is intended to happen close to where we live. The idea is that you can do this practice with a dandelion growing between the sidewalk cracks. That’s part of the sensory experience, and it’s still different than if we’re not paying attention and we’re just going about our everyday life.
The accessibility piece is important because a lot of people would love to go be immersed in nature, but they don’t know how or that’s scary or they don’t have access to that for a number of reasons. The idea of this practice is to invite people into an immersive experience without the special gear, without needing to travel, without needing to take days off from work.
It feels like forest bathing has become a bit more of a trendier buzzword in recent years. How has that felt for you?
I think it’s a positive. People who are stressed are seeking ways to feel less stressed. People who feel disconnected and want to feel more connected. People who feel a general sense of unbelonging and want to feel a sense of belonging—which is everyone. You know the surgeon general’s warning that we’re in an epidemic of isolation and loneliness. This is a way to attend to that.
People want to slow down. They want to be held in a community together. And the rather cool thing about forest bathing that I’ve noticed in running my programs is I have a group of people who I don’t know anything about. I don’t know who they voted for. I don’t know their political leanings. I don’t know their faith backgrounds. We might not necessarily be having a conversation outside of this experience; we might be from such different worlds. But in this moment, we are intersecting at the crossroads of being an earthling. We all are in relationship with the trees, and the soil, and the plants, and the birds. We’re breathing the same air. I find that forest therapy is a really radical community space that I don’t see represented very often.