Hug a Tree or the Health Benefits of Nature
In recent years there has been a growing body of literature demonstrating that nature has a host of beneficial effects on humans. Hiking, gardening, a walk in the park, even just looking at trees through a window can make us healthier, happier and promote physical and emotional healing.
I became interested in this subject after reading an essay entitled “Positive Effects on Mental Health of Visiting Botanic Gardens” by Sylvia Shaw and posted on the Chicago Botanic Garden website. Shaw, the former president and CEO of the Chicago Botanic Garden, writes about her first visit to a public garden, the Lincoln Park Conservatory. She was seven or eight at the time, and her family was going through a very difficult period. In the conservatory she experienced great comfort, reassurance, and relief from her sadness and uncertainty. At a botanic garden, she writes, the healing power of nature is evident every day, calming the spirit, and nurturing the body and mind. Shaw’s essay goes on to discuss Horticulture therapy and how the Chicago Botanic Garden has provided horticulture therapy outreach programs to hospitals, nursing homes, schools, and a veterans’ project for veterans with PTSD.
Horticulture’s therapeutic effects have been known since ancient times. Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence for New Jersey, was a pioneer in the humane treatment of the mentally ill and is considered the “Father of American Psychiatry.” After graduating from Princeton University’s Class of 1760 at age fourteen, he studied medicine in Philadelphia and Scotland. In 1783, he became a physician at Pennsylvania Hospital where he used recreational and horticultural therapy with mental patients. Observing mental patients in the hospital garden, he noted that “digging in the soil seemed to have a curative effect.” In more recent times, Dr. Oliver Sacks, the neurologist who wrote Awakenings, also believed in the healing power of nature for his patients.
Here are a few books about this subject that I found particularly compelling as well as informative.
Forest Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness by Dr. Qing Li
Why do we feel so much better when we are in nature? Why do trees make us feel so much healthier and happier? Why do we feel less stressed and have more energy just by walking in a forest? These are questions that Dr. Qing Li, an immunologist and professor of Forest Medicine at Nippon Medical School in Tokyo, has been trying to answer for years.
Forest bathing, or shinrin yoku (shinrin is “forest” and yoku is “bath” in Japanese) means breathing in the forest atmosphere, using all of the senses to bathe (clothing stays on) in the forest’s essence. Dr Li points out that since two-thirds of Japan is made up of forests, it’s not surprising that shinrin-yoku developed there. The term was invented in 1982 by then-Director General of Japan’s Agency of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Tomohide Akiyama, who believed that the Japanese people needed healing from nature. It was also a clever means of protecting the forests. By encouraging people to visit forests for their health, it would also encourage them to protect and preserve these forests.
This wasn’t a hard sell. The major religions of Japan, Shinto and Buddhism, believe that forests “are the realm of the divine.” They view nature and mankind as a harmonious whole rather than as separate entities. This harmony is reflected in Japanese architecture, gardens, temples, and shrines. In Shinto, gods and spirits are everywhere in nature, living in trees, rocks, air and water. Places where gods live can be places of worship, and some Japanese worship in forests. Cherry blossoms have special significance in Japan and people come to admire the blossoms and picnic under them.
Japan is a densely populated, with approximately 78% of the population living in cities. Eleven million people ride the subway in Tokyo is which is packed to the brim every morning and evening, where there is not even space to read. Known as tsukin jigoku or “commuter hell,” it’s where the average commuter can expect to spend three and a half years of their life. In addition to this, there is a phenomenon called karoshi, which roughly translates as “working oneself to death.” In 2014, because so many employees were working excessive amounts of overtime, the government took action to prevent this. Some companies now force workers to take days off every six months, and turn off lights at 10 pm to encourage workers to go home. Despite this, about two hundred people die each year of heart attacks, strokes and other karoshi events.
Dr. Li points out that the World Health Organization regards stress as the health epidemic of the 21st century. Stress can cause heart attacks, strokes, cancer, addictions, and depression. The more stress there is, the higher the cost of health care. Stress management is the most significant health challenge of the future, and forest bathing has been shown to be an effective method of reducing stress.
His research has led to the discovery that regular forest bathing is highly beneficial. It can lower blood sugar and blood pressure, improve cardiovascular and metabolic activity, decrease insomnia and depression, and most importantly, strengthen the immune system by increasing the number of natural killer blood cells. These benefits are the result of phytoncides, natural oils within a tree or plant produced to protect it from bacteria, insects and fungi, and released into the air. Exposure to phytoncides cause forest bathers to feel much better and more relaxed, in addition to the benefits mentioned above.
The book is beautifully illustrated with color photographs of trees and forests and the simply written text provides clear explanations of the science behind forest bathing.
Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv
“Dad, how come it was more fun when you were a kid?” Richard Louv’s son once asked him. When Louv asked what he meant, the boy replied, “Well, you’re always talking about your woods and tree houses, and how you used to ride that horse down near the swamp.”
Louv had been telling him how he used to catch crawdads in a creek, and thought his son was irritated with him. But the boy was serious, feeling that he had missed out on something. Louv relates this conversation in his introduction, commenting that his son was right. Baby boomers like Louv, or older, once enjoyed a kind of free natural play that today “seems like a quaint artifact.”
In his book, Richard Louv, author and child advocacy expert, addresses the disconnect and alienation from nature in American children, as well as adults. Unlike children in the past, the majority of children today spend their leisure time indoors watching television and playing with their electronic devices instead of outside and interacting with nature. The result is what Louv calls Nature Deficit Disorder or NDD, a term he coined to describe “the increasing divide between the young and the natural world, and the environmental, social, psychological and spiritual implications of that change.”
As a child, Louv spent countless hours exploring the woods and farmland near his home, climbing trees and engaged in imaginary play. This led to an appreciation of nature and how it nourished and enriched his overall development. The post war urbanization and suburbanization of America came at the cost of the destruction of large numbers of trees and open space. Even in suburban developments, there are restrictions on where children can play freely. In the chapter “The Criminalization of Natural Play,” he discusses how condominiums, home owner associations, co-ops, etc. impose rules on members’ use of their property, e.g., not permitting treehouses, or even tree climbing. In school, children learn about the Amazon rainforest and its destruction, but not about threats to the survival of the flora and fauna in their own community. Standardized testing and other curriculum requirements have forced many schools to cut back on recess or eliminate it altogether, depriving children of active outdoor play.
Today, some parents feel the need to control their children’s leisure time much more than in the past. Parents are afraid to let their children play outside on their own lest they be abducted. Statistics reveal the irrationality of such fear, but still parents drive their kids from one adult supervised activity to another, rather than leave them to invent their own activities and games. Paradoxically, as we become more removed from nature, there is a growing body of research revealing that contact with nature is not just good for, but actually necessary to, our health and wellbeing. Because they are less physically active, children now have increased risks of obesity, high blood pressure, ADHD and depression. Louv asserts that in many cases, these risks can be lowered, if not eliminated by outdoor contact nature. Last Child in the Woods became a best seller in 2005, and actually started a movement - Children & Nature - for connecting children with nature.
Other books by Richard Louv on this subject:
Vitamin N: 500 Ways to Enrich the Health & Happiness of Your Family & Community*
*and Combat Nature-Deficit Disorder
The Nature Principle: Reconnecting With Life in a Virtual Age: Human Restoration and the End of Nature Deficit-Disorder
There’s No Such Thing as Bad Weather by Linda Acheson McGurk
Born and raised in Sweden, Linda Acheson McGurk was an exchange student in Australia when she met her American husband and relocated to his hometown in rural Indiana. A freelance writer and blogger on environmental issues, McGurk wrote a regular column for a Swedish newspaper about her daily life in America, such as the fact that she was one of the only people in town who walked everywhere she could, every day. Her walks - even in freezing and snowy weather with her two Labradors - quickly got her noticed by the townspeople.
After the birth of her older daughter, she became aware of differences in child rearing between Sweden and the U.S. When her daughter was six months old, and McGurk needed more time for her work, she found a babysitter who took care of preschoolers in her home. The sitter’s house had a fenced-in yard, and she imagined her daughter playing there. Instead she was dismayed to find that her daughter was inside watching television most of the day. When winter came, whatever outdoor play there was seemed to come to a halt.
In Sweden, children play outside whatever the weather. A common Swedish expression that her mother often used is “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.” Swedish children are sent outside everyday by parents who themselves do a lot of outdoor activities. School closings due to weather are virtually unheard of. McGurk’s observations are primarily about Sweden, but she makes it clear that, for the most part, they are true for Norway, Denmark, and Finland as well.
Scandinavia’s nature-centric culture is embodied in the term friluftsliv, roughly translated as “open-air life.” The belief that fresh air is good for you applies to all ages, infants included. Babies sleep outside for several hours a day in very sturdy prams, even in freezing weather. This practice is recommended by Scandinavian doctors to increase immunity against bacteria.
She relates an incident in May 1997 when a Danish tourist left her fourteen-month-old daughter sleeping in a stroller outside a restaurant in New York’s East Village. She and her partner were inside, keeping an eye on the child through the window. NYPD officers showed up and arrested both parents, charging them with child endangerment. The mother’s attempts to explain that this was common practice in Denmark and considered healthy were ignored. The parents were held in custody for two days, the child was examined for signs of neglect and abuse and kept four days in temporary foster care. The charges were dropped, but this culture clash created controversy among Americans, not to mention outrage in Denmark.
In 2016, McGurk’s father became seriously ill and she returned to Sweden for six months with her daughters. This gave her the opportunity to do a more in-depth investigation of how children are raised in Sweden.
There are “forest preschools” where the children spend most of the day outside playing in the woods, supervised by a teacher, but given a considerable amount of freedom in what they choose to do. Her daughters thrived in their respective elementary and preschool, enjoying a lot of time outdoors, which she compares to schools in America, where children spend much more time indoors and have less direct contact with nature. As a result of bonding with nature in childhood, Scandinavians love the outdoors and are strong supporters of environmental protection.
McGurk relates an incident that happened on a state nature preserve where she took her daughters and let them wade in a creek. When they were about to go home, she was confronted by a nature reserve officer and told that swimming wasn’t allowed. “The only thing you are allowed to do here is walk on the trail. That’s it,” he said, and gave her a ticket for $123.50. First enraged, she later felt deeply sad, as the incident symbolizes a larger, national narrative, first depicted by Richard Louv in Last Child in the Wild, where meaningful interactions with nature in many public parks and preserves are now forbidden. Like Louv, she questions whether future Americans will feel the same strong commitment they do to preserving our environment.
I became interested in this subject after reading an essay entitled “Positive Effects on Mental Health of Visiting Botanic Gardens” by Sylvia Shaw and posted on the Chicago Botanic Garden website. Shaw, the former president and CEO of the Chicago Botanic Garden, writes about her first visit to a public garden, the Lincoln Park Conservatory. She was seven or eight at the time, and her family was going through a very difficult period. In the conservatory she experienced great comfort, reassurance, and relief from her sadness and uncertainty. At a botanic garden, she writes, the healing power of nature is evident every day, calming the spirit, and nurturing the body and mind. Shaw’s essay goes on to discuss Horticulture therapy and how the Chicago Botanic Garden has provided horticulture therapy outreach programs to hospitals, nursing homes, schools, and a veterans’ project for veterans with PTSD.
Horticulture’s therapeutic effects have been known since ancient times. Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence for New Jersey, was a pioneer in the humane treatment of the mentally ill and is considered the “Father of American Psychiatry.” After graduating from Princeton University’s Class of 1760 at age fourteen, he studied medicine in Philadelphia and Scotland. In 1783, he became a physician at Pennsylvania Hospital where he used recreational and horticultural therapy with mental patients. Observing mental patients in the hospital garden, he noted that “digging in the soil seemed to have a curative effect.” In more recent times, Dr. Oliver Sacks, the neurologist who wrote Awakenings, also believed in the healing power of nature for his patients.
Here are a few books about this subject that I found particularly compelling as well as informative.
Forest Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness by Dr. Qing LiWhy do we feel so much better when we are in nature? Why do trees make us feel so much healthier and happier? Why do we feel less stressed and have more energy just by walking in a forest? These are questions that Dr. Qing Li, an immunologist and professor of Forest Medicine at Nippon Medical School in Tokyo, has been trying to answer for years.
Forest bathing, or shinrin yoku (shinrin is “forest” and yoku is “bath” in Japanese) means breathing in the forest atmosphere, using all of the senses to bathe (clothing stays on) in the forest’s essence. Dr Li points out that since two-thirds of Japan is made up of forests, it’s not surprising that shinrin-yoku developed there. The term was invented in 1982 by then-Director General of Japan’s Agency of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Tomohide Akiyama, who believed that the Japanese people needed healing from nature. It was also a clever means of protecting the forests. By encouraging people to visit forests for their health, it would also encourage them to protect and preserve these forests.
This wasn’t a hard sell. The major religions of Japan, Shinto and Buddhism, believe that forests “are the realm of the divine.” They view nature and mankind as a harmonious whole rather than as separate entities. This harmony is reflected in Japanese architecture, gardens, temples, and shrines. In Shinto, gods and spirits are everywhere in nature, living in trees, rocks, air and water. Places where gods live can be places of worship, and some Japanese worship in forests. Cherry blossoms have special significance in Japan and people come to admire the blossoms and picnic under them.
Japan is a densely populated, with approximately 78% of the population living in cities. Eleven million people ride the subway in Tokyo is which is packed to the brim every morning and evening, where there is not even space to read. Known as tsukin jigoku or “commuter hell,” it’s where the average commuter can expect to spend three and a half years of their life. In addition to this, there is a phenomenon called karoshi, which roughly translates as “working oneself to death.” In 2014, because so many employees were working excessive amounts of overtime, the government took action to prevent this. Some companies now force workers to take days off every six months, and turn off lights at 10 pm to encourage workers to go home. Despite this, about two hundred people die each year of heart attacks, strokes and other karoshi events.
Dr. Li points out that the World Health Organization regards stress as the health epidemic of the 21st century. Stress can cause heart attacks, strokes, cancer, addictions, and depression. The more stress there is, the higher the cost of health care. Stress management is the most significant health challenge of the future, and forest bathing has been shown to be an effective method of reducing stress.
His research has led to the discovery that regular forest bathing is highly beneficial. It can lower blood sugar and blood pressure, improve cardiovascular and metabolic activity, decrease insomnia and depression, and most importantly, strengthen the immune system by increasing the number of natural killer blood cells. These benefits are the result of phytoncides, natural oils within a tree or plant produced to protect it from bacteria, insects and fungi, and released into the air. Exposure to phytoncides cause forest bathers to feel much better and more relaxed, in addition to the benefits mentioned above.
The book is beautifully illustrated with color photographs of trees and forests and the simply written text provides clear explanations of the science behind forest bathing.
Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv“Dad, how come it was more fun when you were a kid?” Richard Louv’s son once asked him. When Louv asked what he meant, the boy replied, “Well, you’re always talking about your woods and tree houses, and how you used to ride that horse down near the swamp.”
Louv had been telling him how he used to catch crawdads in a creek, and thought his son was irritated with him. But the boy was serious, feeling that he had missed out on something. Louv relates this conversation in his introduction, commenting that his son was right. Baby boomers like Louv, or older, once enjoyed a kind of free natural play that today “seems like a quaint artifact.”
In his book, Richard Louv, author and child advocacy expert, addresses the disconnect and alienation from nature in American children, as well as adults. Unlike children in the past, the majority of children today spend their leisure time indoors watching television and playing with their electronic devices instead of outside and interacting with nature. The result is what Louv calls Nature Deficit Disorder or NDD, a term he coined to describe “the increasing divide between the young and the natural world, and the environmental, social, psychological and spiritual implications of that change.”
As a child, Louv spent countless hours exploring the woods and farmland near his home, climbing trees and engaged in imaginary play. This led to an appreciation of nature and how it nourished and enriched his overall development. The post war urbanization and suburbanization of America came at the cost of the destruction of large numbers of trees and open space. Even in suburban developments, there are restrictions on where children can play freely. In the chapter “The Criminalization of Natural Play,” he discusses how condominiums, home owner associations, co-ops, etc. impose rules on members’ use of their property, e.g., not permitting treehouses, or even tree climbing. In school, children learn about the Amazon rainforest and its destruction, but not about threats to the survival of the flora and fauna in their own community. Standardized testing and other curriculum requirements have forced many schools to cut back on recess or eliminate it altogether, depriving children of active outdoor play.
Today, some parents feel the need to control their children’s leisure time much more than in the past. Parents are afraid to let their children play outside on their own lest they be abducted. Statistics reveal the irrationality of such fear, but still parents drive their kids from one adult supervised activity to another, rather than leave them to invent their own activities and games. Paradoxically, as we become more removed from nature, there is a growing body of research revealing that contact with nature is not just good for, but actually necessary to, our health and wellbeing. Because they are less physically active, children now have increased risks of obesity, high blood pressure, ADHD and depression. Louv asserts that in many cases, these risks can be lowered, if not eliminated by outdoor contact nature. Last Child in the Woods became a best seller in 2005, and actually started a movement - Children & Nature - for connecting children with nature.
Other books by Richard Louv on this subject:
Vitamin N: 500 Ways to Enrich the Health & Happiness of Your Family & Community*
*and Combat Nature-Deficit Disorder
The Nature Principle: Reconnecting With Life in a Virtual Age: Human Restoration and the End of Nature Deficit-Disorder
There’s No Such Thing as Bad Weather by Linda Acheson McGurkBorn and raised in Sweden, Linda Acheson McGurk was an exchange student in Australia when she met her American husband and relocated to his hometown in rural Indiana. A freelance writer and blogger on environmental issues, McGurk wrote a regular column for a Swedish newspaper about her daily life in America, such as the fact that she was one of the only people in town who walked everywhere she could, every day. Her walks - even in freezing and snowy weather with her two Labradors - quickly got her noticed by the townspeople.
After the birth of her older daughter, she became aware of differences in child rearing between Sweden and the U.S. When her daughter was six months old, and McGurk needed more time for her work, she found a babysitter who took care of preschoolers in her home. The sitter’s house had a fenced-in yard, and she imagined her daughter playing there. Instead she was dismayed to find that her daughter was inside watching television most of the day. When winter came, whatever outdoor play there was seemed to come to a halt.
In Sweden, children play outside whatever the weather. A common Swedish expression that her mother often used is “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.” Swedish children are sent outside everyday by parents who themselves do a lot of outdoor activities. School closings due to weather are virtually unheard of. McGurk’s observations are primarily about Sweden, but she makes it clear that, for the most part, they are true for Norway, Denmark, and Finland as well.
Scandinavia’s nature-centric culture is embodied in the term friluftsliv, roughly translated as “open-air life.” The belief that fresh air is good for you applies to all ages, infants included. Babies sleep outside for several hours a day in very sturdy prams, even in freezing weather. This practice is recommended by Scandinavian doctors to increase immunity against bacteria.
She relates an incident in May 1997 when a Danish tourist left her fourteen-month-old daughter sleeping in a stroller outside a restaurant in New York’s East Village. She and her partner were inside, keeping an eye on the child through the window. NYPD officers showed up and arrested both parents, charging them with child endangerment. The mother’s attempts to explain that this was common practice in Denmark and considered healthy were ignored. The parents were held in custody for two days, the child was examined for signs of neglect and abuse and kept four days in temporary foster care. The charges were dropped, but this culture clash created controversy among Americans, not to mention outrage in Denmark.
In 2016, McGurk’s father became seriously ill and she returned to Sweden for six months with her daughters. This gave her the opportunity to do a more in-depth investigation of how children are raised in Sweden.
There are “forest preschools” where the children spend most of the day outside playing in the woods, supervised by a teacher, but given a considerable amount of freedom in what they choose to do. Her daughters thrived in their respective elementary and preschool, enjoying a lot of time outdoors, which she compares to schools in America, where children spend much more time indoors and have less direct contact with nature. As a result of bonding with nature in childhood, Scandinavians love the outdoors and are strong supporters of environmental protection.
McGurk relates an incident that happened on a state nature preserve where she took her daughters and let them wade in a creek. When they were about to go home, she was confronted by a nature reserve officer and told that swimming wasn’t allowed. “The only thing you are allowed to do here is walk on the trail. That’s it,” he said, and gave her a ticket for $123.50. First enraged, she later felt deeply sad, as the incident symbolizes a larger, national narrative, first depicted by Richard Louv in Last Child in the Wild, where meaningful interactions with nature in many public parks and preserves are now forbidden. Like Louv, she questions whether future Americans will feel the same strong commitment they do to preserving our environment.
- Elka R. Frankel, West Windsor Branch
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