Ecotherapy, Forest Bathing and Just Being in Nature

Recently, I wrote about how I realised that I needed some more happy moments, time in nature and quite simply, time to relax and just be. While I referenced and quoted several articles, there's a lot more information worth sharing and quoting. 

For those actually following my posts as I write them (hmmm... maybe one day...), I can confirm that YES, I did it. I spent time in nature. And YES! - It was amazing. It was exactly what I needed. It's almost midsummer here in the northern hemisphere and the days are long. In winter, I sometimes feel lucky to catch even a ray of sunshine as like most people, I'm indoors working during the daytime and barely get (or make) time to go outside. Even then, the skies are grey and the days without snow, rain or hail are often dreary still. Yet now, this close to midsummer, it's light until about 10 pm and heading out into nature after work is actually possible. I'm no therapist or psychologist but honestly, I do very much recommend doing something similar. Get out there. Go, get out of the city, or go to a park or for a walk somewhere with some grass, trees or water, and enjoy the amazing beauty of this world we live in. Feel at one with nature. Reconnect with your primal self. Reconnect with nature for a bit. After all, it's not just me saying it'll be good for you. This whole post is all about the research backing up the claim that forest bathing and nature therapy is good for you!

Quartz's article The Japanese practice of ‘forest bathing’ is scientifically proven to improve your health explains it as follows:

"Forest bathing — basically just being in the presence of trees — became part of a national public health program in Japan in 1982 when the forestry ministry coined the phrase shinrin-yoku and promoted topiary as therapy." 

According to the article, the Japanese government spent quite a lot of time and money on actual scientific studies to see whether nature therapy truly helped. And well, as the article explains in detail, it did. Helped with what, you ask? 

Psychology Today's article Nature Therapy has a lot to say about the benefits of exposure to nature and natural environments:

"We are far removed from the natural world of our ancestors: more than 50% of people now live in urban areas (increasing to >70% by 2050). Increased urbanization is associated with increased levels of mental illness, particularly anxiety and depression. Growing up in a rural setting correlates with a less acute stress response, and exposure to green space significantly correlates to a positive effect on well-being in a large two-decade study."

Now, as any Psychology 101 book will tell you: Correlation isn't causation. Causation has to do with cause and effect. Correlation however, is different. It looks at two things that both happen or increase (or don't happen) and links them together. It's not a definite cause-and-effect, and often correlational studies are done when experiments aren't possible. My Intro to Psychology book cites a study of parenting styles and how those correlate with the way children behave. While of course you could ask one group of parents to be nice to their children and another to treat them badly to test if the behaviour of the children changes as a result, such a study wouldn't be ethical and thus isn't allowed. It's cases like these where researchers turn to correlation. Basically, they're saying that it's very likely that two things - like growing up in rural settings and a less acute stress response - are linked because, well, the data tells the scientists that the increase of one thing and the increase of another thing go together and increase together beyond mere chance. In this case, the researchers would see a positive correlation, meaning the data tells them that the likelihood of growing up in rural settings being linked to a less acute stress response is higher than mere chance. The same goes for exposure to green spaces and a positive effect on well-being -- As people are exposed to green space more, they indicate that their sense of well-being also goes up. This happens enough for the data to indicate that it's not just chance but real.  

As this article and others (such as the Good Therapy article linked to below) explains, even viewing nature through a window or as seen on a photograph helps decrease stress in us humans. But, what exactly actually happens in our brains? Sure, as a layperson I understand that being out in nature is more restful than walking along a busy street. After all, if it's true for me, then it's probably true for many other people as well. But, I also can't help but wonder, how much of that happy feeling is due to a change in environment, a (possibly unexpected) trip away from the normal hustle and bustle of a city or a university campus, doing something new and such? Well, for one, researchers often take this into account when doing the actual experiment. They might for instance use a control group and send them out to new places but not nature so the difference between just new places, and nature + new places becomes clear. Two, as my studies have taught me, replicability matters. Replicability, simply put, means that the results of a study can be replicated, meaning that the results of an experiment or a study aren't just incidental but real as the same results happen for different researchers or at different locations or with different subjects. The Psychology Today article cites research from Wisconsin in the USA, research done at Stanford University and research done in Japan. While the research studies are different, the results are consistently similar. Being out in nature is good for people.

According to a Good Therapy article, forest bathing falls under ecotherapy, also known as nature therapy or green therapy. What, you ask? Well, as the article Ecotherapy / Nature Therapy explains: 

"Ecotherapy is based on the idea that people are connected to and impacted by the natural environment. A growing body of research highlights the positive benefits of connecting with nature."

"Personal well-being and planetary well-being, as proposed in many tenets of ecotherapy, are not separate from each other. People’s lives are therefore seen as part of a greater system of interaction."

So, instead of coaching or counseling being 'just' sitting in an office to talk to a counselor, coach, psychologist or psychiatrist, going out and experiencing nature is part of the therapy or the sessions to work on one's own improvement. The article names practices such as nature meditation, horticultural therapy, animal-assisted therapy, physical exercise in a natural environment and involvement in conservation activities as all being beneficial. I do urge you to read the article for its explanation of what each term entails and how each benefits healing.

I'd like to close this post with a quote from a Grow Wild UK article entitled 5 simple steps to practising shinrin-yoku (forest bathing):

"Every study conducted so far has demonstrated reductions in stress, anger, anxiety, depression and sleeplessness amongst the participants. In fact after just 15 minutes of forest bathing blood pressure drops, stress levels are reduced and concentration and mental clarity improve."

Now, if that's not a good reason to head out into nature, to visit a forest or even a park (yes, the article also explains ways in which you can practice forest-bathing in a park setting), then I don't know what is!