Kirsten Dirksen
Practicing forest-bathing: fewer maladies, more well-being?
A belief that nature is good for you may sound like common sense, but in Japan, researchers have taken the idea to the laboratory and produced evidence that a walk in the woods could help prevent cancer, fight obesity and reduce stress and depression.
The Japanese have coined the term “shinrin-yoku”, or forest bathing, to codify the practice of exposing yourself to nature (particularly trees). The government has invested millions in both research and “forest therapy trails” – there are now 60 of them in Japan- where the forests have sufficient density and trails are of sufficient length to provide the benefits of foresting bathing.
The concept is to take a “bath” in the forest by letting nature enter all five senses. Qing Li, associate professor at the Nippon Medical School in Tokyo and president of the Japanese Society of Forest Medicine, argues that the sense of smell is most important.
“The effect of forest bathing is the total effect, but the biggest effect is from the olfactory, smell, we call them phytoncides. Also, people call them essential oil, aroma.” Li’s research has shown that trees’ aromas, known as phytoncides, boost our body’s NK (natural killer) cells which help fight tumors and virus-infected cells. Phytoncides are the medical equivalent of essential oils; the most effective aroma is Japanese Cypress.
Forest Medicine (Qing Li): http://college.nms.ac.jp/en/research/topics/fm
Original story: http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/science-forest-bathing-less-maladies-more-well-being/
for years I've been exploring a movement known as shinrin Yoku or Forest bathing part physical activity we can find another Cave Part nature therapy the idea is to stimulate all five senses while in the woods so you can see green color this visual sense the visual sense yeah analysis is a all Factor so maybe you can feel some good smell another you can hear some just singing of the birds so you also can touch for example you touch the touch the tree so the five s so you also you are in the forest this whole body can touch the nature so we we we we call the uh sh yok this a sh yok so Do's take shower for shower this yok Forest is sh is Forest yok is shower so you go to the forest you take all the atmosphere of the forest this means sh sh for Ping not take off your cloth but you just put put your whole body in the forest yeah in the atmosphere of for this the total sh in Japan we have a very L history for the Shu I will show you my office okay but for the scientific aspect we started about 40 years ago 1982 is the first we used the forest Bing this term this room is my private office and this room is for SAR room do teach sh your yeah yeah your work for Forest medicine Forest medicine we call Forest medicine okay very nice view I take for Bing our sh every day so I show you first is my book published in America Forest medicine new book another Booker I also have I have two kind of research why is the for be made medicine another is the effect of the pesticides my major is inir medicine enviral medicine yeah so we'll have two effects on our health lots of people do research on the bad effect but nobody do research on the good effect this the first this the first time I this a new aspect so you know this journal evidence builds that time spent in the natural World benefits human health another Journal Take 2 hours of Pine Forest and call me in the morning yeah scientific journal this this one this journal this is my article here is a title a forest bathing trip increases human natural killer activity and expression of anti-cancer proteins in female subjects yeah immune system it's the immune system immune system immun function and another Journal visiting a forest not a city increases human natural killer activity expression of anti-cancer proteins so I took eight years to make this conclusion some people will research the Immunology some people will research the forest but no people research the relationship between the forest and the Immunology between the forest and medicine so so I kind publish this book because I have new data new findings I will show you the my data this is a picture for busing trip there there is and this is a subject we're walking in Forest so you took you or you often take your subjects into a forest common this is your your research involved resch and this is a 2 Night 3D trip so we walk around the the lake mhm so so we do something rning some breathing measure yeah so it's so the breathing is important as well important you you have to take the deep breath during the first breathing and walking slowly so people like this so so next I will show you the this a yeah take sample we will take the blood samples to measure the UN activity so un cells are immun cells Natural Care cells like prce the an cells are like our body police yeah people with higher ink activity show lower inance of pressure so this is the result so you can find for to visit significantly inhance home in activity in this is anactive before the for Bing day one after the for Bing day two after for B and this effect lasted for more than seven days day one day two after the forest this a day 7 this effect can last for about 30 days so this means if you take a for be once a m so you will keep your uh en activity in higher level this is very important in the you know preventive medicine preventative medicine after you take a walk in a forest for a single day once a month the hypothesis is that certain molecules um release that you smell in the forest will decrease your risk of cancer because what it causes is the extra activity of these natural killer cells and these natural killer cells unlike the other cells that normally fight things in your body these natural killer cells don't require any other molecule to activate and to fight off your tumor cells because that's what they normally do as their job a trip to a place without fart a city trip doesn't enhance home activity in male subject so they take a trip in the city so you're trying to separate out just walking walking but the same walking same physical activity before the trip day one day two all no Chang so it's not the physical AC another stress hormone uh adrenaline this first building trip this city tour this trip so you can find before the trip day one day two decreased but almost no change a little decreased but next day almost recover so if you want to reduce your stress you have to go first isn't that amazing he actually prove where you walk matters normally if you take a walk right you think that oh I'm going to reduce my stress but you do it in the city it actually doesn't nearly do anything so next I will show the psychological yeah reduce the score anxiety depression anger fatigue and confusion whereas increased score of wigor anxiety depression anger all go down okay fatigue goes down and confusion it's very good for the depress it's an anti-depressive as well yeah another hormone not Str hormone but it's a good hormone it's increasing atap connection it's a hormone that's produced by adapost tissue adapost tissue is fat so a low amount of adap connection is associated with a bunch of um different Health disorders like obesity and diabetes so it in it increases this so this could possibly also have an effect on decreasing your risk of heart disease and obesity okay so all the big pillar right now right yeah and like it increases like your natural body metabolism wow so it's a it's a like a fat fighter in a way being in the forest could could have an effect on it's an increase in a thing that is a fat F next I will show you that mm this one for therapy reduces blood pressure this is a before the for Bing this after the for Bing this is a big different this is about seven or eight if you take a medicine if the medicine can reduce the blood pressure about seven or eight it's very good medicine but you don't you don't take medicine just visit for it you can get the almost the same result yeah as blood pressure medication same effect the forest is giving you the same effect as blood pressure it's free it's free it's free yeah so yeah I do experiment in the hotel room this measuring the concentration of the fighting side you put the oil on this small dissue so in the same way that people would put essential oil around their rooms yeah this is a yeah this essential oil okay here and this is a fighting side this a essential oil from the Japanese saies we call H we also me concentration of the finding s in the hotel room the motive for doing that is because so afterward he saw the fact that oh you have benefits right and he want to see the actual scientific mechanism the molecular mechanism for why it happened he hypothesized that it's because of these Pyon sides yeah that this effect happened and so he tried to test it in a place that wasn't the forest we measured the before the stay after stay it's an activity almost increased so just a hotel room with with Tree Oils is going to make a big difference big difference yeah so now you're just skipping the forest and you're you're finding a way to bottle the forest yeah yeah to get these effects yeah yeah this is uh Aroma oil essential oil so the four bit the effect of four bit is a total effect but the biggest effect is from the all Factory all Factory you mean smell smell sense of smell is the most important part we call the sides fight and sides are the smell smell yeah okay also people call the essential oil ARA ARA you could get a fight on side from almost any tree um yeah any tree but different they have different effects yeah best one is Japanese saies that's the best tree best tree this different makeer but the same Japanese saice oil and this what we call the hinoi Japanese saice but a different producer and is called hiai another Japanese saice produced in North Japan M this why Japanese saice stem oil and where do you get it other oils you can buy but this one you cannot basically the plant it manufactured this oil for him specially specifically can't buy it commercially really really expensive what would that cost oh hard yeah so it's more than 65 M yeah it's cheaper just to go to Forest it's a lot cheaper to maybe you can yeah so I think you can take about 50% of the effect of for Bing from the oil for example the for 100% but the state hotel in the room with the essential oil about half 50% the oil how big how bigest the effect so this room yes deep freezer minus 80 what are you store in deep verion lot of sample blond sample and urinary samples antibodies also antibodies yeah people weren't doing this research well the method of measuring it wasn't was developed by him they couldn't do it before he invented it this is sort of Cutting Edge in a ways go I have the antibody when you want antibodies or um really specific experiments like this you can't just mass-produce them from like companies like nobody does that you have to get them yourself wow antibodies sometimes are really expensive like you can have micro leaders cost like please follow me to my culture room I have another experiment is we call the in ritual put the sales and the finding s together into the tubes and incubate culture for one week one week incubation can increase unare activity this is a direct effect I mean this is this is actually what we could think of as a medicine I mean I like a medicine you're taking the medicine out of the forest or you're taking 50% of the 50% right because there's more right you can't quite bottle the forest [Music] this is a very famous string H in Tokyo is this enough to get Forest bathing you can take a a walk but it can't be an Urban Walk can an urban park yeah Urban Park yes like Park okay uh yeah Urban Park is okay you'd have to take a walk daily to have equivalent effects as opposed to being able to do it like once a month in a real Forest so a real Forest is it more effective more effective it's more effective but we don't have data for this but I think there are lot of trees I think have some effect the density of the tree is a big so if you have a lot of tree in a park that Park will have a bigger effect also of the area how big of the area of the park park yeah in Japan we have a six0 we call the for for therapy for safy station it's basically like a tra but how is it different from just a hiking trail hiking trail maybe no choice the forest basing you have to have good the forest have a high density forest and also big areer also the very good trail I think about the 5 Kil 5 km and for the distance of the trail and you will walk very slow very slow so just for the 5 kilometer take four hours walk slowly slowly you you can take you can take rest you can take break you can also can drink can eat something also can read the book yeah saying 5 kilm for a full day so it's a slow walk slow walk and and just encourage people to to look around yeah just see the beautiful scenery and just the here some seeing of the bird and also just the deep breathing deep breathing for example something you kind do some exercise like Tai I just do some like this I don't do the whole T but do some action and why why what would that be stimulating what's that doing because you have to do some physical activity physical activ plus environment do you see a time when perhaps we'll be able to completely artificially mimic nature you know with smell and then finding Visual and no artificially no I think you canot reproduce the environmental Forest artificial is not yeah some people try to do artificial environment more more the forest but it's very difficult it's too complex too complex because the atmos atmosphere is different the total atmosphere is very important so you cannot reproduce a varment like Forest it's almost yeah impossible does this does this type of research almost make you want to move to the forest or do you not think it we need to be that extreme yeah but uh I have to work so I cannot work for but after retire I will go to the forest because for to leing for reduce the blood pressure pressure people have the higher blood pressure by aging so I think after the rard I will buy a house in forest
#Practicing #forestbathing #maladies #wellbeing
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Why not just get his son to explain it. This is impossible to listen to
Just ugh
I rode my bicycle near a small patch of cedar trees and it felt great…It was a hot day and cool air was coming out on the breeze,
“The woods are so human,” wrote John Foster, “that to know them one must live with them.
An occasional saunter through them, keeping to the well-trodden paths, will never admit us to their intimacy.
If we wish to be friends we must seek them out and win them by frequent, reverent visits at all hours; by morning, by noon, and by night; and at all seasons, in spring, in summer, in autumn, in winter.
Otherwise we can never really know them and any pretence we may make to the contrary will never impose on them.
They have their own effective way of keeping aliens at a distance and shutting their hearts to mere casual sightseers. It is of no use to seek the woods from any motive except sheer love of them; they will find us out at once and hide all their sweet, old-world secrets from us.
But if they know we come to them because we love them they will be very kind to us and give us such treasures of beauty and delight as are not bought or sold in any market-place.
For the woods, when they give at all, give unstintedly and hold nothing back from their true worshippers.
We must go to them lovingly, humbly, patiently, watchfully, and we shall learn what poignant loveliness lurks in the wild places and silent intervales, lying under starshine and sunset, what cadences of unearthly music are harped on aged pine boughs or crooned in copses of fir, what delicate savours exhale from mosses and ferns in sunny corners or on damp brooklands, what dreams and myths and legends of an older time haunt them.
Then the immortal heart of the woods will beat against ours and its subtle life will steal into our veins and make us its own forever, so that no matter where we go or how widely we wander we shall yet be drawn back to the forest to find our most enduring kinship.”
It's like I've always known I'm just going to spend the rest of my life hiking
My dad, when I was growing up in Germany told us to take a deep breath every time we were in the Forrest. My dad went for a walk in the Forrest daily and died at 93. Germans love the Forrest.
What a good sense video! I thoroughly enjoyed it! I must plant more bigger podocarps in my land 💚🌳💚
Loved the change in topic. Thanks for introducing us to this wonderful effect of forest bathing and immunology (Shinrin-yoku, Prof Qing Li).
I will dig more into it definitely, something that I have been always felt is highly beneficial for spiritual and mental well-being. Please see https://youtu.be/12CCjoixpkA
Forest bathing – I suppose that means submerging yourself in the beauty and spiritual healing of the trees around you.
Could there be anything better than this ?? Love it. It's mindfulness. Got to be good for you. I think taking off your clothes and doing it would be even better lol
So I don't live in a forested country, it is a desert country although we do have thorn trees. Is sitting under a single tree or few small trees in nature as good as a thick, moist, leafy forest?
I forest bathe every day for an hour with my dog in Oklahoma ❤
This is a really good interview! Thank you for making it.
Love your videos of arquitecture. I am a forest bathing guide based in Argentina. Love you practice shinrin-yoky!
Send to YouTube-Bruce Lipton please thanks.
thank u
Kristen, I’ve been watching your small house videos for years but this is the first time I see this theme. THANK YOU for doing this, for reminding people how important nature is to human beings. Keep up the good content (y)
If your thinking what I’m thinking I’ll see you in the forest. I’ve always felt a special energy just walking under trees in a park or on Hampstead heath. I suppose house plants have a similar, but smaller, effect on the mind and body.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t trees take co2 and release oxygen. So aren’t you walking thru a pure oxygen environment???
Why live for after retirement, live now
"Right. You can't quite bottle the forest." Truer words…
Let's protect our forests and fall in love with them again by walking in them. 🙏
Love this ❤
No better bath than the redwoods….