A Walk In the Woods: Forest Bathing & Exercise for the Win

June was busy and kind of rough, both personally and with the business. Lots of travel and still dealing with the financial fallout of a big tax bill and continuing cash burn from my real estate investments. It’s hard when you feel you are making little to no progress. We are wired for progress so when you feel like your momentum is gone, it’s easy to feel down. Being a bit sick from a cold due to all the business travel doesn’t help either. 

But it was my daughter’s 17th birthday and she wanted to visit Muir Woods, so that’s what we did. And like many of her ideas it was a good one. We hiked for 2.5 hours, the first hour was a bit hard but miraculously I started to feel better. Something about exercise helps. Walking, sweating and moving your body is always good. 

But maybe even more importantly, doing this in nature is even better. There is something about being in the forest that heals you. There have been Japanese research studies that have validated this point. There is a treatment called “Forest bathing”. 

“Trees produce these compounds to defend themselves against insects, bacteria, and fungi. Pine, cedar, oak, and cypress trees release them in particularly large amounts, especially in warmer weather and after rainfall. When you walk through a forest, you are inhaling those molecules into your lungs and absorbing them through your skin, and once inside your body they appear to directly stimulate the production and activity of the very immune cells Li was measuring in his lab. 

Roughly 50 percent of the health benefit of a forest walk, according to Li's data, comes from the chemistry of the air itself. The other half comes from what the forest is doing to your nervous system.

The result was that participants experienced a 21.3 percent drop in cortisol per hour spent in nature, with the biggest payoff happening between minutes 20 and 30 of the walk. After that, the cortisol kept dropping, but more slowly. The threshold dose for measurable stress relief was just 20 minutes outside in something that looked and felt like nature.” (Source: https://x.com/MillieMarconnni/status/2067909538670641526)

I truly felt so much better after. My cold had diminished. I was more energetic and I had lots of new ideas that I was able to use to get out of my particular financial predicament. 

So anytime you feel down or stressed about life. Exercise but even more importantly, exercise in the woods. Even if it’s a simple walk. It’s a quick and easy way to get a boost.