Mariel Cigarra

And we'll share some exercises to get you started.

Feel free to head outside to listen to this one.

If, like me, you're wondering why forests are so good for our health, there's an evolutionary hypothesis for this.

Simply put, for much of human history, we lived in nature.

So we love nature because we learn to love the things that have helped us survive.

That's Dr. Ching Lee, by the way.

He's a professor at Nippon Medical School in Tokyo and the president of the Japanese Society of Forest Medicine.

He's designed and carried out a lot of Japan's research on forest bathing.

Another expert you'll hear from in this episode is Gary Evans.

director of the Forest Bathing Institute in the UK, which was heavily inspired by Dr. Lee's work.

Gary says at this point, we can survive without exposure to nature and forests specifically.

All right, let's get thriving.

We're going to start with some forest bathing basics.

Gary says a lot of the time when we head to the woods or a hiking trail,

Nature is a backdrop.

You know, it's secondary.

But he says if you want to get all the benefits of forest bathing, your primary focus should be connecting with nature.

So takeaway one, really let yourself bathe in the forest.

It's kind of like bathing in your tub.

You're there to relax and dwell in the experience.