Have you ever hugged a tree? If not, this episode of Unpacked by AFAR might inspire you to. Aislyn Greene, associate director of podcasts, talks with forest-bathing guide Ben Page about our tall, leafy friends: Why trees are so good for us, where to forest bathe in the United States, and how to bring the forest-bathing mindset wherever you go.
Read the transcript here: https://rebrand.ly/iltrpf2
Discover more episodes of the podcast here: https://www.afar.com/podcasts/unpacked
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CREDITS
Claudia Cardia - Video Editor
Elizabeth See - Designer
Sarika Bansal - Editorial Director
Aislyn Greene - Head of Podcasts
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Topics discussed:
4:37: Meet Ben Page
8:23: Origins of forest bathing in Japan
12:48: How forest bathing works
32:07: Advice for skeptics and first-timers
39:29: One minute meditation
Read the transcript here: https://rebrand.ly/iltrpf2
Discover more episodes of the podcast here: https://www.afar.com/podcasts/unpacked
----
CONNECT WITH AFAR
Afar.com is a digital and print magazine that publishes travel tips, guides, news, and stories: https://www.afar.com
Get updates on the latest articles, travel news, and more from AFAR by signing up for the AFAR newsletter: https://afar.com/newsletters
Follow AFAR on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AfarMedia
Follow AFAR on Twitter: https://twitter.com/afarmedia
Follow AFAR on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afarmedia
Follow AFAR on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/afarmedia
----
CREDITS
Claudia Cardia - Video Editor
Elizabeth See - Designer
Sarika Bansal - Editorial Director
Aislyn Greene - Head of Podcasts
----
Topics discussed:
4:37: Meet Ben Page
8:23: Origins of forest bathing in Japan
12:48: How forest bathing works
32:07: Advice for skeptics and first-timers
39:29: One minute meditation
Category
🏖
TravelTranscript
00:00 Hey, you're a thoughtful traveler, and we're a thoughtful destination.
00:06 In Asheville, we treasure our natural and wild places here in the stunning Blue Ridge
00:10 Mountains, and we appreciate visitors who share our values of stewardship and sustainability.
00:16 We invite you to explore the cultural legacies shaped by these high mountain peaks.
00:21 Be our guest.
00:22 Together, we can share adventures and preserve the natural beauty of Asheville.
00:26 Learn more at exploreasheville.com.
00:29 So our last invitation today is called conversation with a tree.
00:39 Maybe you ask the tree for support or you ask the tree a question, and perhaps you might
00:44 even hug your tree.
00:54 What is the sound of a group of people about to go hug trees?
01:00 Yeah.
01:01 And whatever internal reaction you're having right now, whether you're thinking, "Ugh,"
01:07 or "Interesting," or "Yes," let me tell you that I have experienced all of them.
01:14 So maybe keep an open mind.
01:17 I'm Aislinn Green, Associate Director of Podcasts here at afar, and this is Unpacked, the podcast
01:23 that unpacks one tricky topic in travel every week.
01:26 This week, we're going to get up close and personal with our tall, green, leafy friends.
01:36 Before the experience you just heard, I'd tried forest bathing once and just felt wet
01:42 and cold.
01:44 I like to hike and I like to spend time in nature, but I hadn't really wrapped my head
01:48 around the meditation aspect of being with trees in this way.
01:52 And then in fall 2022, I visited Mountain Trek, a fitness retreat and health spa in
01:58 the Kootenai Mountains near Nelson, British Columbia.
02:01 The week-long experience was so refreshing, reinvigorating, and yes, very tree-filled.
02:07 I highly recommend it.
02:10 Towards the end of the week, though, they invited us to join a forest bathing journey.
02:14 In the interest of journalism, I decided to give it another shot.
02:19 Our guide was Natasha, who you just heard from at the top of the episode, and through
02:24 these things called "invitations," which we'll learn more about in a little bit, I
02:29 felt honestly cracked open to the nature around me.
02:33 Like, do you remember what summer felt like as a little kid?
02:37 Maybe you were lying on your back in the warm grass looking up at the sky and feeling totally
02:43 alive, at peace, and like time was limitless?
02:48 I got there.
02:50 This particular forest bathing journey was like getting a shot of that.
02:53 It was intoxicating and surprising and delightful.
02:57 And while I didn't actually hug a tree, I did have a rather profound connection with
03:02 one.
03:03 And when I came home, I craved more.
03:05 I had started to notice that this relationship with nature that had really grown during the
03:10 pandemic had started to wane.
03:14 Like many people during those dark years, my relationship with trees and with nature
03:20 expanded and became something that I really relied on.
03:24 We had time and the desire to escape the dreary drama unfolding inside our homes, and so we
03:30 went outdoors, whether to our backyard, a local park, a hiking trail, maybe just a tiny
03:36 little garden plot, and it really meant something.
03:40 Don't get me wrong, I am delighted to be spending less time with trees and more time
03:44 on planes and with people, but I don't want to lose that more frequent connection with
03:48 nature and I suspect that that may be true for many people.
03:54 So I reached out to Ben Page, a certified forest bathing guide, to learn about how and
03:59 where to forest bathe, why trees are so good for us, and how we can use forest bathing
04:04 to deepen our connections with the places we visit.
04:08 Ben is an author and owner of Integral Forest Bathing who lives in Los Angeles, where he
04:14 leads forest bathing walks inspired by the Japanese health and wellness practice Shinrin
04:19 Yoku.
04:20 He was one of the first Americans actually to be certified in forest bathing by the Association
04:24 of Nature and Forest Therapy, and he now trains other guides.
04:29 He's also the author of the new book, Healing Trees, Your Pocket Guide to Forest Bathing.
04:35 Welcome Ben.
04:36 Thank you so much for being with us today.
04:39 Thank you.
04:40 Are you in or near a forest right now by any chance?
04:44 Well, I live in a part of Los Angeles that still has land on it that is essentially ecologically
04:50 as it was hundreds of years ago, more or less.
04:53 But one of the things that I was up to during the pandemic was I downloaded this app that
04:57 you can point your camera at the different plants and it helps you identify them.
05:01 And I suddenly realized that I was living with plants from basically every continent
05:06 and the amount of diversity here is just kind of stunning.
05:09 So yeah, I'm near both old forest and new forest.
05:15 That's so cool.
05:16 It's such a different perspective on Los Angeles, you know.
05:20 Now for those who aren't familiar, what is forest bathing or, and am I pronouncing this
05:25 correctly, Shinrin Yoku?
05:27 I mean, that's probably how most Americans pronounce it.
05:31 My Japanese friends have tried to teach me how to say this and it sounds something like
05:35 Shinrin Yoku.
05:37 Shinrin means forest and Yoku means bath.
05:41 And I'll tell you a little more about where that term came from in its Japanese origins.
05:47 But basically, forest bathing is just about relaxing and slowing down and getting out
05:55 of our heads by getting into our bodies.
05:59 Part of our modern condition is that we think all the time, we're just constantly processing
06:06 such an unbelievable amount of information, maybe more information than we're really evolved
06:13 to cognitively handle.
06:15 And so we have this kind of modern mental health crisis about stress and anxiety and
06:22 hyper attention.
06:24 And a lot of folks, basically they say, I don't know how to stop thinking.
06:28 I don't know how to get out of my head.
06:31 And so we understand neurologically now that it's actually not possible to stop thinking.
06:38 So what forest bathing does is it helps us reorient our attention from our thoughts into
06:44 the sensations of our body.
06:47 It's really about a deep sensory attention coupled with a deep sense of relaxation.
06:54 And I think when you combine these two qualities, we can kind of leave ourselves behind for
07:01 a few hours.
07:03 When we're forest bathing, we're relating on a physical sensory level.
07:07 And you don't really need to think to experience, say, the texture of bark or the color of leaves
07:15 or the smell of flowers.
07:18 These are phenomenon that really don't require us to have a self and they don't require any
07:24 level of analysis.
07:27 We can just appreciate these phenomenon, these sensations without having to go any deeper
07:32 into what does it mean?
07:35 Why does it smell this way?
07:36 So one of the things I like to tell people is forest bathing is actually about experiencing
07:42 yourself as nature.
07:45 Just being nature.
07:48 And on some level, I think this is what makes it feel relaxing because there's no objective
07:54 point to it.
07:55 There's no destination psychologically or spiritually or physically that we're trying
08:02 to get to.
08:03 We're just being here.
08:06 We're just being alive and in our bodies.
08:08 I think there's something just incredibly joyous about that.
08:12 This feels like a good opportunity to rewind a bit.
08:15 Could you speak to the origin of forest bathing?
08:18 I know it was born in Japan in the 1980s as a more organized activity.
08:24 I like to preface telling this story by saying that as I speak to more colleagues in Japan,
08:31 there isn't necessarily just one story about the origin of this work.
08:36 There are many stories.
08:39 And I'll tell you one that was told to me originally and I think still makes a lot of
08:45 sense.
08:46 So in the 1980s, the Japanese were going through kind of twin crises.
08:55 The first was an economic shift that essentially in the 80s, the Japanese were going through
09:01 a massive tech boom and people were working a lot more.
09:08 And one of the impacts of that shift in the economy was a mass migration of people from
09:16 the rural prefectures into the city centers.
09:20 So a mass urbanization of people.
09:23 So when you take the health impact of living in a city coupled with the stress culture
09:31 of working in very poor conditions for 16, 18 hours a day, all of a sudden there was
09:40 this massive health crisis.
09:43 And the Japanese noticed this huge spike in cancer and autoimmune disease and they said,
09:49 "Okay, the first problem we have to solve is this public health crisis."
09:53 So they set out their kind of top level agencies, find solutions to this problem.
09:59 And what they called Shinrin-yoku was a project by the Japanese Department of Agriculture,
10:05 Forestry and Fisheries.
10:07 And essentially their research question was, "What is the impact of exposing human beings
10:12 to forest environments?"
10:14 And they took a very kind of research oriented approach to this.
10:19 And one of the things they found is that being around trees boosts our immune system.
10:26 Essentially the way this works is that trees release these chemicals called phytoncides.
10:33 Phyton meaning plant, side meaning killer.
10:36 Phytoncides are antimicrobial, antibacterial and antifungal chemicals.
10:42 So if a tree feels a fungus, for instance, attacking it, it can diffuse these phytoncides
10:47 into the air around it and they find the fungus and they kill it, thus preserving the health
10:52 of the tree.
10:54 So I like to tell people you can think of phytoncides like the tree's immune system.
10:59 Now what's really fascinating is that because humans spent thousands and thousands of years
11:05 evolving under trees, we've co-evolved this connection where when humans absorb phytoncides
11:12 either through respiration or simply through the skin, it triggers the production of a
11:17 special white blood cell called a natural killer or NK cell.
11:23 NK cells are part of your innate immune system, which means they're not looking for specific
11:28 diseases, they're looking for stressed cells in your body that could turn into cancer cells
11:36 and they terminate those cells preventatively.
11:39 So the Japanese said, "Wow, this is incredible.
11:42 It's not necessarily a cure for cancer, but a powerful adjunctive and preventative treatment."
11:48 Now I alluded earlier to there being two crises.
11:51 So the first one was this public health crisis and the second one was an economic crisis
11:56 because as all the young people went to the cities to work, it left the economy of the
12:02 rural prefectures with almost nothing.
12:05 And so part of the project with the government and Shinjinjuku was establishing what they
12:11 called forest therapy roads or forest therapy bases, which were essentially like little
12:17 micro economies in the rural prefectures where they had lots of forest and building basically
12:23 rail connections from the city to those places.
12:27 And so now people from the city can essentially take a day trip or even just a weekend they
12:32 can go out and that creates a little micro economy in the rural prefecture that's also
12:39 ameliorating the health crisis.
12:42 I mean, it sounds like a brilliant solution.
12:45 So what exactly would a forest bathing experience look like?
12:50 I guess the first thing to say is that forest bathing is kind of an umbrella term at this
12:55 point.
12:57 There's great diversity of practices that are under that umbrella just in Japan alone.
13:04 And then as the practice spread around the world, many other people started saying, "How
13:09 do we adapt this to a cultural context outside of Japan?"
13:14 And my training was with the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy.
13:19 So I can tell you a little bit about the practice that we teach through that organization.
13:25 So when I do a guided walk, at the beginning, it's just a practice of hospitality, welcoming
13:33 people, giving them just a little bit of information about where they are and what the history
13:39 of the land is, who the indigenous people of the land were, and that sets us up for
13:45 a series of what we call invitations.
13:48 As part of the introduction, I like to make it really clear that my favorite thing about
13:52 forest bathing is you can't do it wrong and you actually can't be good at it or bad at
13:57 it.
13:58 You can just do it.
13:59 An invitation is just to say, "Here's a pathway to connect with nature, but you don't have
14:05 to do it the way that I'm inviting you to do it.
14:08 You can do it however you want to do it, and I'm going to hold this space for you to explore
14:12 that in a self-directed way."
14:15 So the first invitation, we don't call it a sensory meditation, because as soon as you
14:21 say the word "meditation," a lot of Westerners have a lot of projection about what that means
14:27 and what that's supposed to be like, what that's supposed to look like.
14:31 We just call it the pleasures of presence.
14:33 And essentially that's a guided series of prompts just inviting you to deepen into your
14:40 awareness of your senses and your body.
14:44 And this is an interesting process because our bodies are very sensitive.
14:48 Sensitive, the original meaning of the word meant that your body was highly tuned to stimulus
14:54 coming from nature, that you could hear really well, that you could see really well, that
14:58 you could taste and smell, and you could feel interoceptively your bones and your muscles
15:04 and your spatial relationship.
15:07 Our bodies are equipped with all this unbelievable technology that essentially we've outsourced
15:12 to machines at this point.
15:14 We don't really need our bodies to be so sensitive anymore.
15:17 When you're thinking all the time, your attention is on your mind.
15:22 And so you don't feel as much, you don't see as much or smell as much or taste as much.
15:28 All of your senses are numbed because you're not putting your attention on them.
15:33 So when we place our attention very intentionally on the body and on the senses, it awakens
15:40 people's realization that, "Oh wow, I'm in this very powerful body that can really sense
15:45 some unbelievably subtle things that maybe I haven't noticed in years."
15:50 So that first step is really critical about just getting people into their bodies.
15:54 The second invitation is essentially a slow walk where we just observe what is moving
16:01 around us.
16:02 We call this "what's in motion."
16:05 And what's in motion has two functions.
16:07 One is to physically slow people down because in addition to constantly thinking, we tend
16:14 to also be constantly rushing from one thing to another.
16:17 Our relationship with time is very distorted because we're trying to maximize every moment
16:23 of our day.
16:24 So the first part of what's in motion is just getting people to slow down.
16:28 And the second part of it is getting people to pay attention to the world around them,
16:34 to see that there is an animate living world all around them.
16:38 And it's interesting because people will sometimes say at the beginning, they'll say, "Well,
16:43 it doesn't look like anything's moving at all."
16:45 And I'll just say, "Look closer."
16:49 And when you start really slowing down enough to look closely, you notice that almost everything
16:55 is moving.
16:56 We tend to think that the world is static around us because we're moving too quickly
17:00 to actually notice it.
17:03 So then we have a series of invitations after that that are kind of dealer's choice.
17:08 The guide picks these invitations working in relationship with the space that they find
17:13 themselves in.
17:14 So if let's say there's a whole bunch of oak trees, there might be an invitation to connect
17:20 with these oak trees through our senses.
17:21 Or if there's water, maybe an invitation with the water.
17:25 And then finally, we conclude with serving tea from the forest.
17:30 So part of the training is the ability to identify safely and forage safely some plant
17:36 material that can be made into tea.
17:39 And then we share the tea and we drink it.
17:41 And this is in some ways my favorite part of the walk because there's something really
17:47 almost dreamlike or surreal about a group of relaxed human beings just sitting in the
17:54 forest and drinking tea together.
17:56 And just nowhere to go, nothing to do.
17:59 Just that perfect state of relaxation.
18:03 And the end is this moment for reflecting what can you harvest from this experience?
18:10 What can you take back and incorporate into your life?
18:13 And that's the thing I think is really important from a practice perspective.
18:20 It's one thing to have an experience, but to have the experience actually change you
18:25 in some way, that's the really powerful thing.
18:29 And to take that home with you.
18:31 I think there's this thing about the pandemic where a lot of people glimpsed this new relationship
18:37 with nature and a new relationship with time, but they failed to really incorporate that.
18:43 Yeah, that makes so much sense.
18:45 I mean, I've even noticed that in my own life.
18:48 What was it like for you in those early days of the pandemic, exploring nature and being
18:53 with people as they were also exploring nature?
18:56 One thing that was interesting was that I guide public walks at the Los Angeles Arboretum.
19:02 And when the pandemic happened, basically forest bathing was the only class that didn't
19:07 get completely canceled indefinitely.
19:10 It was wildly popular during the pandemic.
19:14 People were really grateful for it.
19:15 It was fantastic.
19:16 And I mean, it's still very popular, even now that we're gradually exiting this pandemic
19:23 phase of our existence.
19:25 But on a more personal level, I think a lot of people started noticing where they live.
19:34 I know I did.
19:35 I spent a ton of time in my garden.
19:38 Funny, being a forest therapy guide and to say this, but I was one of those people that
19:44 if I wanted to go to nature, I would go to the National Forest or the Arboretum.
19:49 I'd go somewhere else.
19:51 And the plants that live with me were just kind of here.
19:55 I didn't really pay attention to them.
19:57 And so during the pandemic, I really became deeply acquainted with the beings who live
20:02 where I live without the pressure of rushing around.
20:07 All of a sudden, it just became very easy to actually notice the world around you.
20:14 This is maybe a little more philosophical, but did you ever read that story about Sinbad
20:22 the sailor and there's Sinbad and the whale?
20:24 Most people have probably heard at least the simplified version of the story, which is
20:28 that Sinbad is on the boat with his crew and they find this beautiful island and they get
20:34 off the boat to have some lunch and enjoy themselves.
20:38 And they build a fire on the island and it wakes up the island.
20:41 And all of a sudden, everyone realizes that this is not an island, that this is actually
20:46 a sleeping whale.
20:48 And they've woken the whale up and the whale descends into the ocean and basically everyone
20:53 dies except for Sinbad.
20:54 He escapes to have more adventures.
20:56 But I think metaphorically, the pandemic kind of woke us up to realizing that the earth
21:03 is not a setting for our human stories.
21:07 I don't know if that perception really lasted, but I think it humbled us a little bit, kind
21:13 of helped us say, "Oh, we're not necessarily the center of this story."
21:20 I remember that time and I think you're right.
21:23 I don't know how much we've actually held on to that.
21:27 And maybe it's just a subtle undercurrent that runs through people's lives now, but
21:31 it feels like an important moment to be talking about how we try to hold on to the lessons
21:36 of the pandemic or at least those connections with nature now as the world is getting busier
21:41 and busier again.
21:43 Right.
21:44 I mean, one thing about nature that people sometimes overlook, nature is not just physical.
21:51 It also has a temporal quality.
21:54 And so what time is for nature is cyclical.
21:58 It's not progressive or linear.
22:00 It moves in these circles.
22:03 And one of the easiest ones for us to understand is the cycle of night and day and the cycle
22:08 of the seasons.
22:10 And in both of these, we have a period of rest that punctuates a period of productivity.
22:17 And so the rest and the productivity are held in balance with each other.
22:22 But we, and I guess I say we, I don't know if I mean global culture or particularly Western
22:30 United States culture, we have this infinite growth mindset.
22:34 And it's like, all the time can't be work.
22:40 It relies on this circular rhythm.
22:43 And in some ways, I think the pandemic kind of helped us reset.
22:47 But as the world speeds up again, it's very easy for people to get sucked back into that
22:53 rhythm, which is then why people come on a forest bathing walk, because they say, wow,
22:59 it's really hard to rest.
23:01 It's really hard to slow down and make time to not be doing things and to just have time
23:07 for the quality phenomenon of being.
23:23 Are you inspired to travel in a more responsible way?
23:26 In Asheville, North Carolina, we believe in the power of ethical travel.
23:31 We care about the protection of our distinctive natural and cultural treasures in these Blue
23:35 Ridge Mountains.
23:37 And we appreciate visitors who share our values of stewardship and sustainability.
23:43 We know travel is transformational, and we invite you to be inspired by the creative
23:47 spirit and local flavors of our mountain home.
23:51 Be our guest.
23:52 Together, we can share adventures and preserve the natural beauty of Asheville so future
23:57 generations can enjoy these mountains for years to come.
24:01 Learn more at exploreasheville.com.
24:03 And we're back with Ben Page.
24:23 Ben relatively recently wrote a book called Healing Trees, a Pocket Guide to Forest Bathing.
24:30 In the book, you spoke to this kind of realization that you are nature, that as long as "I could
24:36 learn to be right here, right now, connected to my body and connected to my senses, I could
24:41 be forest bathing anywhere, anytime."
24:44 And I thought that was quite profound because, you know, I associate forest bathing with,
24:49 of course, lots of trees and green.
24:51 And so the idea that you could be forest bathing or embody it anywhere could be, I think, quite
24:56 transformational.
24:57 Yeah, part of that was a pandemic commentary because I couldn't go necessarily to the places
25:06 that I used to go to do forest bathing.
25:09 And, you know, they say necessity is the mother of invention.
25:14 So I needed to forest bathe somehow, and then it just came to me.
25:18 But on a deeper level, I suppose this is really about deconstructing an idea of separateness
25:26 between what we call nature and what we call human civilization.
25:31 I started kind of looking around and saying, "Well, when you take everything apart, it's
25:37 all the earth."
25:38 You look at skyscrapers and jet planes and cell phones and you say, "Well, what is this?"
25:45 "Oh, it's all rocks, all minerals.
25:49 It's all the compounds of the earth.
25:51 The earth has yielded everything in our civilization, including our bodies."
25:57 I think that's also kind of a trippy realization when you start confronting this idea of human
26:04 exceptionalism.
26:06 We're all sharing this web of interbeing or...
26:11 The word I like to use is enmeshment.
26:14 We're actually enmeshed in this world.
26:17 An easy example is breath.
26:21 You're sitting under the tree.
26:23 You're absorbing the oxygen and exhaling the carbon dioxide, and the tree is cycling that
26:29 right back.
26:31 And in this one action, somehow you're sharing existence.
26:36 And so the world ceases to be a setting anymore.
26:40 You can hold an awareness of this enmeshment anywhere you want.
26:45 I've led forest bathing walks in downtown LA, downtown Houston.
26:51 I've done this in Boston.
26:53 I've done this in very urban areas.
26:58 It's funny because it's like we just forget that the world is alive all around us.
27:05 It's not separated neatly into natural spaces and human spaces.
27:10 It's fully enmeshed.
27:12 Yeah, that's a great point.
27:14 So how do those more urban walks differ from your deeper forest walks?
27:19 They don't really differ that much except for the attitude with which people arrive.
27:26 I did a walk once in Houston.
27:30 It was like a urban farm.
27:32 I arrived there and I had a little bit of trepidation because there's helicopters, there's
27:37 ambulance, there's people walking around on the street, there's music coming out of car
27:44 stereos, there's all this what we might consider human distraction.
27:50 But the people that showed up to that walk came with this incredible attitude about this
27:56 is my home.
27:58 I want to connect with the reality of this place, not an abstract wish of what it could
28:04 be.
28:05 We tend to have a very conditional love for nature.
28:08 We love it when it looks like the south coast of Maui or the Mediterranean coast of Italy.
28:17 People have this projection about what it should be.
28:21 And part of my journey with forest bathing is really asking this very critical question
28:27 of myself of how can I cultivate an unconditional love for all places.
28:34 There's a Zen capping phrase that talks about every place is a place of honor.
28:40 There aren't some special places and some not special places.
28:46 The world is here right now, right in the middle of downtown LA.
28:52 So if you can wake up your senses, wake up your ability to just be here, we can connect
28:58 with the world anywhere.
29:00 >> Yeah, it's so much about what you as an individual bring to this experience or bring
29:05 to this place.
29:07 Not to put you on the spot after just saying there are no special places and not special
29:12 places, but because this is a travel podcast, I'm curious, you have traveled quite extensively.
29:18 What are some of the places that have really stood out to you, especially within the United
29:22 States, either because of the experience that you had there or because of the place itself?
29:27 >> That's a hard question.
29:30 Every moment has its beauty, but that's a horrible answer to your question.
29:35 So let me see if I can actually pull some out.
29:38 I really love the desert, personally.
29:41 Love going out to Joshua Tree and just experiencing the silence.
29:46 The sound of silence in the desert is so incredible.
29:51 And then it just gets punctuated by the sound of the wind.
29:56 Visualizes of the sky and the desert also just fabulous.
30:00 I grew up in New England, so I also have a deep affinity for the forests and the mountains.
30:08 I did my undergrad in Minnesota, so the Great Lakes and the plains.
30:13 I don't know, I just love it all.
30:15 Hawaii, Europe, New Zealand, Asia.
30:19 I've done this work all over the place and every place is a place of honor.
30:24 >> How familiar with a place do you think you have to be?
30:27 Or is it beneficial to have a bit of an outsider's mind in terms of observation?
30:32 >> Yeah, that's a very interesting question.
30:36 I wouldn't say it's one or the other.
30:39 It's that they're different.
30:41 There are some trails here in the Angeles National Forest that I've walked in every season many,
30:47 many times.
30:49 And so I have a certain intimacy with those places.
30:53 I know them and they know me.
30:56 We have that kind of relationship.
30:59 And I know there are certain flowers that only come out in certain places.
31:04 And I know when the fruit is going to come.
31:07 And I know when the animals are going to come and when they're going to go.
31:10 And that's amazing.
31:12 I hope everyone can find something like that.
31:14 If you just go walk the same trail every day for a year, you'll start to develop that kind
31:19 of relationship.
31:21 And then I agree with you completely that having no relationship at all opens up a sense
31:28 of wonder.
31:30 Yeah, when I go to Costa Rica or New Zealand or Norway, it's like being on another planet
31:40 almost.
31:41 When you know how to pay attention, you see everything and you say, "What is this?
31:47 Who are you?"
31:49 So that's harder and harder the more familiar you are with a place.
31:54 Absolutely.
31:55 I was also curious about advice that you would offer to either first timers or skeptics,
32:03 people who feel like maybe this is outside of their comfort zone.
32:07 What advice would you give to them?
32:09 Well, to first timers, I just like to say there's no way to be good or bad at this.
32:16 There's no gold stars, there's no A pluses.
32:19 It's honestly one of my favorite things about the work.
32:22 Forest bathing is one of those things that you can't not succeed.
32:28 You're doing it in every moment, no matter what you're doing.
32:31 I always tell people on my walks before we start, I say, "For the next two hours, for
32:34 the next three hours, whatever you're doing, that's going to be forest bathing."
32:40 Because that's the gateway to this sense of relaxation, is that you can't be relaxed if
32:45 you're striving to be good at it or trying to do it right.
32:50 You don't need to try.
32:52 You just need to come, just need to be here.
32:54 So first timers, I just tell them, "Just relax."
32:59 And skeptics, I mean, I get that this isn't for everyone.
33:02 I don't want people to come if they are like, "Oh, I don't think I'm going to like this."
33:08 But if you are skeptical and you do want to come, then really, I guess it's just to open
33:14 your heart.
33:15 One of the phrases I like to train people with is, "You can't open a rose with a crowbar."
33:22 So I can't force you to have an experience that opens your heart, but I can create the
33:27 space for it to happen and you might be surprised.
33:33 There was one guy I took on a walk, this was very early in my career, and he was very type
33:40 A. He was like a corporate executive type of guy.
33:44 And in between invitations, we paused to check in with each other and I just asked people,
33:49 "What are you noticing right now?"
33:52 And in between every invitation, he would say something like, "This is really stupid.
33:55 I don't know why I came.
33:56 I'm bored."
33:57 Whatever.
33:58 Part of my training is just to hold space for people to have whatever emotional, intellectual,
34:05 phenomenological experience they're having without judgment.
34:09 And so I would just say, "Okay, thank you for sharing."
34:12 On the very last invitation, he came back and he shared with the group, he said, "You
34:17 know, I was sitting there thinking about how stupid this was and then I noticed there was
34:23 this river of ants climbing the tree.
34:26 And so I looked at the ants and I thought to myself, 'These ants are incredibly disorganized.
34:31 If I was in charge of these ants, I would make it more efficient.'"
34:36 And then he said, "And then I heard myself saying that to myself and said, 'That is crazy.
34:46 Why am I like that?
34:47 Why do I need to make everything more efficient?
34:50 Why do I think I know better than the ants?'"
34:52 And it was really fascinating because it wasn't that I pushed him.
34:56 It just took three hours for him to get to a place where he could be open to that experience.
35:02 Wow.
35:03 Yeah.
35:04 It's pretty remarkable that he became so open by the end.
35:08 I think people open up when they don't feel like you're judging them.
35:15 All of a sudden, you relax into just being in the experience when there's no risk of
35:21 like, "Are people going to think I'm dumb?
35:24 Are people going to think I'm not getting this?"
35:26 Eventually, people just soften up into the experience.
35:29 And we always talk about this in training that the motto of the association is "The
35:34 Forest is the Therapist.
35:35 The Guide opens the doors."
35:37 So the forest has its ways of "speaking" to people.
35:42 If you just watch leaves fall for 20 minutes and you're really intentional about focusing
35:48 on watching them, there's no room for the thinking anymore.
35:53 Your brain's still having thoughts.
35:55 Like I said, you can't make it turn off.
35:57 But when you turn your attention towards the world and really focus on the aesthetics,
36:03 the thoughts kind of start melting away.
36:06 And then all of a sudden, you find yourself in what the ancients called "presence."
36:10 Yeah, that sounds powerful.
36:15 What are the mental health benefits of these sorts of experiences?
36:18 Part of it is stress reduction.
36:21 This overlaps a lot with kind of the contemporary Western research on mindfulness practice.
36:28 Then there's this thing about the attention.
36:31 This is really the thing that speaks to me on a personal level.
36:35 But I also think at a wider cultural level, this is what we're talking about, which is
36:39 attention restoration.
36:41 That essentially, your brain is not designed to be paying attention all the time.
36:50 We're not evolved for a high-tech society.
36:54 And we have these things in our pockets that are so sophisticated and well-designed to
37:00 capture our attention.
37:02 And it's incredibly addictive.
37:04 Your ability to pay attention starts to decline and you need to rest your mind.
37:11 Your mind can't keep going at this sharp level of attention all the time without you having
37:17 some mental health problems.
37:20 So there's some research by a pair of researchers who are called the Kaplans.
37:26 They write on attention restoration theory.
37:29 And one of their hypotheses about why nature is so good at attention restoration is that
37:35 it's filled with what they like to call soft fascinations.
37:40 Soft fascinations are a phenomenon that require no analysis to experience.
37:47 We touched on this earlier, that basically to notice the color green doesn't require
37:55 a hard attention.
37:57 It requires a very soft attention because basically your body is doing the attention.
38:04 Your brain isn't processing any analysis of the information.
38:09 We tend to be analyzing everything constantly, including ourselves.
38:15 We're very rarely giving ourselves permission to just relax our minds.
38:22 And I think we can get stuck in this rut of like, I don't know how to stop analyzing.
38:29 This is where anxiety, stress, rumination all kind of come from, this inability to stop.
38:38 The big mental health benefit is that the process of forest bathing encourages us very
38:44 gently to arrive at a place where we're not analyzing anymore.
38:50 We're simply experiencing.
38:52 You don't need to think so hard about feeling the wind on your skin.
38:57 You just feel it.
38:58 You don't need to think so much about seeing the blue sky.
39:01 You just see it.
39:04 And if you give yourself that space to focus your attention softly on the world around
39:09 you, then it builds up your capacity to be attentive.
39:14 Okay, so if we were to invite anyone who's listening to just stop and in this moment
39:20 take say one minute to observe where they are and what they're seeing and feeling, how
39:26 would you invite them to practice this right now in this moment?
39:31 Let's see.
39:32 One minute, one quick thing.
39:34 You could just close your eyes and just listen.
39:48 It's funny how much you tune out.
39:51 Right?
39:53 Yeah.
39:54 The brain has evolved to be incredibly energy efficient.
40:01 And so if the brain doesn't determine that the details of the world around you are important
40:10 enough for your survival, it's like our bodies absorb all the information, but then what
40:17 actually makes it to our perception is gate kept by the brain.
40:24 You can try this at home.
40:26 Go for a walk in the woods with a friend and talk to each other for five minutes as you're
40:33 walking.
40:34 Now your brain's going to notice if there are roots you have to step over or there's
40:39 poison ivy you should avoid or whatever.
40:41 You know, it's going to see some of that stuff.
40:44 But then it's not showing you the whole picture.
40:48 This is just visually right now.
40:52 If you and your friend walk by yourselves for five minutes and just focus on your eyes,
40:58 focus on what you can see, all of a sudden you're going to see a lot more.
41:03 And it's because when you're talking to each other, your brain is filtering out most of
41:07 the sensory information that your body is absorbing.
41:11 But when you place your attention on the sensory body, you have full access to the depth of
41:18 your ability.
41:20 It's incredible.
41:21 >> Ben, thank you so much.
41:24 Is there anything else that you would like to add either about your work or your book?
41:27 >> I mean, of course, I'd love it if people buy my book.
41:32 If you aren't going to read the book, that's okay.
41:36 And the TLDR of my book is go outside, slow down, don't forget to smell things.
41:45 >> That's great.
41:46 And also buy the book.
41:48 >> And also buy the book.
41:50 And just pay attention.
41:51 That's really all it is.
41:53 >> Well, thank you so much for sharing your time and your thoughts with us today.
41:57 >> Of course, my pleasure.
41:58 Thank you for having me.
42:01 >> If you want to learn more about Ben and his work, visit integralforestbathing.com.
42:06 We'll link to his book and website in the show notes.
42:09 And if you'd like to learn more about Mountain Trek, the fitness retreat where I had my forest
42:13 bathing experience, you can visit mountaintrek.com.
42:16 We'll also link to that in the show notes.
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43:02 The podcast is produced by Aisling Green and Nikki Galteland.
43:05 Music composition by Chris Collin.
43:08 And remember, the world is complicated.
43:11 We're here to help you unpack it.
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