Post #59857

How Forest Bathing Helps Our Health When life gets stressful, one of the best things you can do is go outside into nature. In Japan, a lot of people like to take part in shinrin-yoku or forest-bathing. Forest bathing means spending time in a natural environment to relax, giving yourself a moment of calm and quiet among the trees. Some people may meditate or do breathing exercises, and others just enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of the forest. Shinrin-yoku was named by Forestry Agency boss Tomohide Akiyama back in 1982, and has since become a part of Japanese culture. And while most people can already agree that spending time in nature is good for you, there is increasing scientific evidence for this. Qing Li from the Nippon Medical School in Tokyo explained to The Japan Times that while most people already know that spending time in a beautiful forest can reduce stress, there wasn't evidence for the health benefits. So in a study published in 2007, he took a group of 12 male "healthy but tired" office workers from Tokyo aged 37 to 55 on a three-day forest bathing trip to Nagano. Blood tests when they got back showed that their "natural killer cells" — white blood cells that protect the body from disease — were higher than before. And in a different study, forest bathing was introduced to people living in cities — who generally are more likely to be affected by stress — and the results showed that they had lower levels of stress and lower blood pressure. If you live far from a forest, don't worry — research has also found that even spending time in a park in a city can provide the same benefits. #Reading