Relieve Stress with Forest Bathing

Spas, resorts, retreat centers, gardens and parks have adopted a new way to help their customers relieve stress. Forest bathing, which was derived from the Japanese word "shinrin-yoku," is now a growing concept as a way to eliminate stress, calm your senses and be one with nature.

According to The Seattle Times, forest bathing is not considered a hike since the walk is not far and the pacing is not fast. It is a new way of immersing one's self in nature to improve its well-being. People may think about the usual concept of spas and saunas like taking all clothes of and go nude while you relax and sweat your stress out in hot springs but customers are assured that they still get to keep their clothes for they don't need to take a thing off their body to de-stress.

Forest bathing is about taking participants into a slow walk into the woods to contemplate and calm their senses. One participant described the experience as "absolutely wonderful." Rona London participated in a forest walk in Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, N.Y and said that they walked in to the woods to see the beauty of what was surrounding them. She also mentioned about realizing the real beauty of nature and the world from the smallest details. "The pebbles under your feet or the branches and the bark on the trees, to how the air felt and listening to the sounds around us," she added.

Sugarloaf Ridge State Park in Kenwood, California, Osmosis Day Spa Sanctuary in Freestone, California, and The Lodge at Woodloch, a resort in Hawley, Penn now offer the forest walk program and is lead by Amos Clifford, who founded the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy Guides and Programs.

The benefits of forest bathing were formally recognized in the early 1980s by Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. Aside from calming one's senses by walking into the woods, the program is also said to lower blood pressure, heart rates and stress hormones.

Accroding to Clifford, the therapists who guide the participants in forest bathing are not allowed to diagnose or treat mental issues.

"We say the forest is the therapist," he says. "The guide opens the doors."