Forest Bathing to Reinspire Creativity

When I first read about Shinrin-Yoku, the Japanese art of Forest Bathing, since I'm a big nerd I immediately imagined myself languidly draped in the butterfly boughs of the pygmy oaks of the Elfin Forest, with the sunlight filtering flaxen light through my golden hair. 

And wardrobe provided by Harper's Bazaar, obvs.

I tried taking a selfie to capture the moment but it didn't really come out.

Is this it? Am I doing it? 

Even if you don't have a disconnect between fantasy and reality (okay, I KNOW I AM A BRUNETTE!) taking a selfie would actually never have worked. See, Forest Bathing is rooted in the idea that our constant exposure to and immersion in technology is literally making us sick. Too much time in front of the computer, tv, and smart phones in addition to our extremely stimulating daily lives--we drive in five lanes of traffic, we manage tight timetables, we negotiate music and shock jocks and small talk--has left us distracted, impatient, forgetful. We blow off bad judgement from stress and the stress itself as just another part of our urban life; but in fact, scientists with the Neuroscience division of the CDC have found these symptoms so pervasive in city dwellers that they've dubbed it "Directed Attention Fatigue". Researchers at the University of Michigan found that even a few minutes of the intensity of a city street can affect focus and self-control--so what is it doing to us when we live in it?

Talk to a parent in their thirties of a young kid these days and you'll realize that little kids are the canaries in the coal mine for this phenomenon, displaying more openly the stresses we've learned to hide and accept. We all grew up with Nintendo controllers in our hands and had access to computers for typing up essays; but pre-millenial kids didn't suffer from anger and depression as a result of it. Today's kids are "Wired and Tired"--chronically tired, apathetic, or prone to irrational mood swings and rages because their screentime is radically different than ours was, not just in amount of time but in intensity. Hard core gamers of the 90s would have spent after school time on Nintendo games with limited directionality: Mario went forward, backward, jumped, shot fire or ran. Now Mario goes forward, backward, jumps and runs; but also swims, flies, jumps high, propels, propels in mid-air, jumps and then can propel on the downward arch; climbs vines, shoots fire, shoots ice, bounces off walls, can miniaturize, swims as a penguin, breaks through lateral blocks, can pick things up and throw them, can do a spinning downward jump to destroy objects. The Mario universe is interactive, with objects hiding behind the clouds, secret entrances, secret tunnels, mazes that have to be completed in a certain order. Expert gamers learn to look for clues simultaneous to completing the basic shoot-jump-run level so they can find the coins to get into to the final secret levels that only open after you complete the game. Small kids have no problem with this game--why should they? Today's kids have tablets in the classroom and they complete their homework online. They have computer lab time at school and required educational computer games for homework. Grade school kids have phones and tablets of their own. Psychology Today says their chronically high mental arousal levels have left them agitated but exhausted, suffering with memory problems, and with symptoms that mimic ADHD and bipolar disorder.

I'm so sorry, kids. I've failed you. 

Forest Bathing, or what the Japanese call Shinrin-yoku, is the idea that going for a walk in the forest is a form of preventative and healing medicine. The principles of "Breathe, Relax, Wander, Touch, Listen, and Heal" were developed in the 80's in Japan as a way for city dwellers to deal with the intense pace of modern life, and since then, study after study have shown an increase in both physical and mental health. Now Shinrin-yoku is a specific engagement of the five senses, requiring a total unplugging of technology and immersion in a gentle, guided walk through nature (the official U.S. site for shinrin-yoku HERE will send you a free starter kit to help you guide your own forest walks); but Stanford University researchers have also found that just walking for 90 minutes in nature lowered anxiety and depression versus people who walked in urban settings. Patients having undergone surgery recovered more quickly, had shorter hospital stays and had less pain when they had a view of trees. A view of nature helps in the workplace too, leading to lowered stress and higher work satisfaction, better productivity, improved concentration, increased creativity. Most telling, though, is the Japanese study that specifically measured something called NK cells--Natural Killer cells. These building blocks of the immune system help pregnant women carry to term, control innate immunity to HIV, and have been used in anti-cancer therapies. Spending a day out in nature significantly increased these NK cells, and that boost? Stuck around for a week after the trip. 

On a recent trip to Mexico I found myself fascinated with the waves. Yeah, I get it, that's not really newsworthy...waves and beach vistas are actually pretty hypnotic but I'm from San Diego, home of some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, with dramatic promontories, dynamic waves, and spectacular dragon cloud sunsets. This beach was not that. It was plain and flat and straight, with the horizon stretching out somewhat monotonously in every direction. Because of the bay we were in, the waves came in with a predictable height and regularity, and being located on the eastern coast of Baja, the sunset was diluted and moved from pastel shades of peach and pale ochre to a starry night in quick succession. Still, I couldn't stop walking out to the beach to watch the waves. Why? The sea was a different shade of green than the deep blue I was used to in San Diego but it wasn't a gemstone; it was a soft bottle glass green. If you watched long enough the waves would pull back against the tide enough to clear the foam and the wave would rear up perfectly green and translucent enough to see the flat triangular shapes of surfing manta rays silhouetted in the curl before it crashed. The sand was alternately pillowy soft and absurdly fluffy or painfully gritty and crystalline; either way there was no ignoring what was under my bare feet. The drop off from the dunes to the beach to the shelf where the waves crashed was steep, too dangerous to swim; maybe that was why the waves crashed with a thunderous boom like I've never heard before, a violent explosion of salt spray fireworks that diffused to butterfly kisses on our cheeks. I watched and walked and lost myself in thought. I tried to take pictures to capture what I was feeling, the release, the relaxation, but they were just plain and ordinary pictures of a somewhat cloudy day on an uninteresting stretch of beige beach. No one could make a postcard out of this vista, and yet I found myself drawn again and again away from the pulsing club remix of Adele and Taylor Swift songs out onto that beach, with my senses restored. 

I started to understand why gardeners can lose themselves for afternoons at a time; why hiking is addictive; and why watching chickens peck blades of grass while sipping margaritas is totally a thing. A party-worthy thing. A party full of academics and brilliant thinkers, creators and engineers, thing. It'd be great if we all had a nearby forest where we could immerse ourselves for 90 minutes in the middle of the work day five days a week. It'd be great if there was a local Shinrin-Yoku forest therapy group on the block that met conveniently after dinner at the forest at the end of the cul de sac. But it'd be really great if there was some way we could deal with the stress of city life, jobs, driving, technology and horrible people driven crazy by the same forces pressing in on us at all times that was free and sustainable--and it sounds like getting out into the natural world is the cheapest and most effective therapy there is.

My personal hell is people who small talk because they can't stand silence. I hear them while I'm getting my pedicure, chattering away about the intimate details of their lives and their soap operas for 45 minutes to a total stranger. I hear them at the theatre, stage whispering their commentary in the uncomfortable silences. I hear them whenever some unfortunate secretary or waitress gamely asks "How was your weekend?" and it all comes tumbling out. If I get out into the sunshine more often will my vitamin D depletion reverse itself and the increased air quality around green and living things improve my bad attitude toward annoying people, until I just hear them as babbling brooks or a gently bubbling Roman fountain? 

I can only hope. At least if I'm walking, I'll be looking good doing it.