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Nature

Anxiety, stress and high cortisol: forest bathing to the rescue

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On the way home from a snorkelling trip to the beach earlier this week we stopped at Centennial Park in Sydney and were wowed by the magnificent trees. It inspired me to write this blog about forest bathing to inspire you to think about the power of nature as a simple way to give you joy and contribute to a wonderful sense of calm and peace. I was quite giddy with these feelings while there and still feel waves of awe days later when thinking about it and looking at these pictures of the Paperbark Grove and the massive Morton Bay fig trees.

We know being in nature has a psychological impact making us feel calm and relaxed, happy and joyful, and even playful. But what exactly is forest bathing and are there really physiological impacts i.e. does forest bathing simply help you feel good or does it actually lower your cortisol levels or blood pressure?

This paper, The physiological effects of Shinrin-yoku (taking in the forest atmosphere or forest bathing): evidence from field experiments in 24 forests across Japan, defines forest bathing:

The term Shinrin-yoku (taking in the forest atmosphere or forest bathing) was coined by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries in 1982. It can be defined as making contact with and taking in the atmosphere of the forest: a process intended to improve an individual’s state of mental and physical relaxation

The above study set out to measure and clarify the physiological effects of Shinrin-yoku or forest bathing with 12 young male university students who had no history of physical or psychiatric disorders:

12 subjects walked in and viewed a forest or city area. On the first day, six subjects were sent to a forest area, and the others to a city area. On the second day, each group was sent to the other area as a cross-check.

The participants sat and viewed the landscape for 12-16 minutes and then walked in the landscape for 14-18 minutes (in one of the 24 forests and then in one of the 24 city areas on the second day).

The subjects had the following markers measured before breakfast and both before and after the walking and viewing periods:

  • salivary cortisol
  • blood pressure
  • pulse rate and
  • heart rate variability

After this surprisingly short period of viewing and walking in the forests the following results were found:

forest bathing promotes lower concentrations of cortisol, lower pulse rate, lower blood pressure, greater parasympathetic nerve activity, and lower sympathetic nerve activity

So, what we have, is more activity of the parasympathetic system i.e. more of the calming “rest and digest” activity and less activity of the sympathetic system i.e. what we term as “fight or flight” or stress activity.

The authors suggest that forest bathing “may be used as a strategy for preventive medicine” and I wholeheartedly agree.

Given that GABA can lower high pressure and calm down the “fight or flight” sympathetic system (see this animal study) I won’t be surprised when we see research showing us that forest bathing boosts GABA levels just in a similar way that yoga boosts GABA.

If you don’t have everyday access to parks, trees or forests be sure to go out of your way to make detours down nearby tree-lined streets to get some of these wonderful health benefits.

And because we know that simply looking at images of greenery and nature can have a calming and stress-reducing effect, here is a bigger version of the photo I took of the Paperbark Grove for you to enjoy looking at!

My picture of the Paperbark Grove in Centennial Park, Sydney

We were so excited to “discover” this gem and got home and googled it only to find out it’s a popular avenue for wedding parties! I’m sure you can see why!

Right next to the Paperbark Grove are three giant Moreton Bay fig trees. These trees are estimated to be older that the park, which was opened in 1888.

Here I am being “hugged” by one of them (doesn’t it take tree-hugging to another level!?)

If you’re local to Sydney or come for a visit one day, I highly recommend a trip to Centennial Park to see these magnificent trees and do your own Australian version of forest bathing. You may just see me there!

Until then, I encourage you to get outside into forests, get “hugged” by trees, hug trees and gaze up and enjoy every calming and joyous moment. It can help to lower your cortisol levels so you can be free of anxiety and it may even help to prevent anxiety!

Please do share your favorite forest bathing locations and how they make you feel.

Green tree-lined streets reduce anxiety, making you feel more positive and calm, improving your attention and help with recovery from stressful situations.

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I’m a nature-lover and don’t need to be told that seeing trees or walking under them or driving along a tree-lined street has research supporting their benefits. I just feel the sense of wonderment, the calming effects and a heightened sense of joy and pleasure as soon as I’m in amongst trees in a street like the one above.

This is a quiet side street in the small town of Richmond in NSW, Australia. It runs perpendicular to a really busy road that heads up to North Richmond and beyond. Now the traffic doesn’t come close to comparing with Los Angeles traffic but for a small town it can be rather hectic from 4pm. If we happen to be heading towards North Richmond, we always take a detour along this wonderful tree-lined road and other similar tree-lined roads to get to where we’re going. As well as avoiding the bumper to bumper traffic we get this sense of ahhhhh!

I mentioned that I don’t need to be told there is research supporting the calming effects of tree lined-roads. But you know me: I’m always curious about the science so when I heard there was research I was of course intrigued about it and wanted to understand why they make us feel so good.

Here is some of the research I found: In Benefits of nature: what we are learning about why people respond to nature we discover that in general we respond in a positive way to nature and to trees in particular, especially “trees with spreading forms” reminiscent of trees on the African savanna. I was born in Africa and spent 32 years there so I find this so interesting! This paper also reports that

all colors were calming, but bright green trees were more calming than other tree colors, including less bright greens and oranges

and that

Adult responses to plants are also influenced by their childhood interactions with nature. We have shown that the more interaction people have with nature as children, the more positive are their attitudes towards nature as adults.

In this study: Stress recovery during exposure to natural and urban environments, the 120 participants were exposed to “color/sound videotapes of one of six different natural and urban settings” after watching a stressful movie. Watching the natural settings had a measurable impact on parasympathetic measures such as heart rate and muscle tension and they felt more positive, experienced improved attention and had better stress recovery.

In another study The View From the Road: Implications for Stress Recovery and Immunization, drivers were presented with a stress-causing stimulus and their reactions measured as they recovered from the stress. The Safe Streets report from the University of Washington summarizes the outcome:

Those viewing built-up, strip-mall-style roadside environments in a simulated drive after the stressful experience showed a slower and physiologically incomplete recovery and reported more negative feelings. Study participants seeing more natural roadside scenes (forests or golf courses) returned to normal baseline measures faster. An “immunization effect” was also detected, as initial exposure to a natural roadside setting decreased the magnitude of response to a subsequent stressful task.

And finally, the research about forest-bathing (known as Shinrin-yoku), although not directly related to stress-reduction from driving along tree-lined streets is worth mentioning. Just the word “forest-bathing” makes me smile.

Research on forest-bathing shows how spending time in forests can lower high blood pressure, and help ease modern-day “stress-state” and “technostress”. In one study, Effects of Short Forest Bathing Program on Autonomic Nervous System Activity and Mood States in Middle-Aged and Elderly Individuals:

The Profile of Mood States negative mood subscale scores of “tension-anxiety”, “anger-hostility”, “fatigue-inertia”, “depression-dejection”, and “confusion-bewilderment” were significantly lower, whereas the positive mood subscale score of “vigor-activity” was higher.

In summary, in this study, the 128 middle-aged and elderly individuals spent only 2 hours in a forest setting and felt less tense, had reduced anxiety, experienced less anger and hostility, felt less fatigued, were not depressed or dejected, felt less confused/bewildered and had more vigor and energy. This was after only 2 hours of forest-bathing!

Here are some ways you can get the most out of this information for your own sense of calm:

  • Take a detour like we do if at all possible and enjoy the calming effects of driving along a tree-lined street. Better yet, take a moment to get out the car and soak in the beauty while walking down the road. And best of all, take a full-day hike on a weekend or go camping for 2 days.
  • Plant a tree (or more than one) outside your home or get involved with a tree-planting committee at your child’s or your grand-child’s school or place of work to do the same
  • Talk to your local mayor and council members to make tree planting in your community a priority
  • If you live in a built-up city and can’t do any of the above, make an effort to spend quiet time in a nearby park
  • Find a tree-planting charity that is a good fit and make a donation in the name of a loved one in lieu of a gift or just do it for yourself
  • If you’re housebound (with agoraphobia for some other reason), find some pictures or a poster of green trees or dig out some old photos. Just looking at pictures of nature and greenery have a stress reducing effect.

On that note here is the bigger version of my Richmond tree-lined street image so you can enjoy looking at it while reading this blog AND get some of the stress-reducing benefits…until you’re in your own tree-lined street or out in nature.

Tree-lined street stress-reducing

 

I hope this motivates and inspires you to drive down more tree-lined streets and to do something tree-related in your life in addition to all the nutritional changes you’re making to eliminate your anxiety!

We’d love to hear how much you love trees and the outdoors. Do you have a favorite tree-planting charity? Feel free to share your feedback and questions too.

Children who garden have fun, eat more vegetables, and have less anxiety, depression and ADHD symptoms

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Little hands gathering fennel for juicing with apples and cucumber (photo: Anne Binder)

I’m sure you’d agree that children who garden have fun and that it may motivate them to actually eat more vegetables but would you expect gardening to reduce anxiety, depression and ADHD symptoms? Read on to learn more and be inspired.

My friend Anne Binder has the children at her school, Sunrise Montessori School of Roseville, participate in gardening and juicing and I just love it! She told me that the kids love gardening and that she’s been doing it with her pupils for 31 years now. They are constantly in the garden, weeding, raking, planting and reaping the benefits of their hard work.

They recently harvested some fennel that they had been growing and seeing the pictures she shared on Facebook just made my day! She kindly gave me permission to share them via a blog so here goes:

We grew the fennel and then the children picked it and we made juice with the fennel, apples and cucumber. 

This is one of my favorite pictures – the newly picked fennel with all their little feet showing! (photo: Anne Binder)

Here are just some of the things she overheard the children saying on harvest day:  

  • This is so much fun. I love fennel.
  • The leaves are beautiful.
  • Gardening is my favorite thing to do.  We have a garden at home.
  • I love tomatoes. 
  • Look at the bees

And this is some of what she heard the day they released butterflies into the garden

  • Look he’s flying into the tree.
  • Are they going to come back?
  • Oh look it wants to stay at our school!

And then it was time to juice the fennel with apples and cucumbers and they all got stuck in

They loved it. They also loved the lovely licorice smell of the leaves and fennel was new to all of them. None of them had seen it or eaten it before – but they were good sports and tried it. I also cut up slivers of fennel to taste by itself and most of them tried it too.

Anne shows them how to use the juicer (photo: Anne Binder)
Enthusiastic little hands working the juicer (photos: Anne Binder)

What fun! What joy! And what a wonderful learning opportunity for these kids!

Other than the fun factor, this type of activity has far-reaching impacts in terms of their future vegetable and fruit consumption, and even their mental health and focus.

Gardening has an impact on vegetable preference and consumption as reported in this 2016 paper – Previous Gardening Experience and Gardening Enjoyment Is Related to Vegetable Preferences and Consumption Among Low-Income Elementary School Children.

Children with more gardening experience had greater vegetable exposure and higher vegetable preference and consumed more vegetables compared with children who reported less gardening experience.

And this paper – Involving children in cooking activities: A potential strategy for directing food choices toward novel foods containing vegetables concludes that these cooking activities.

can increase their willingness to taste novel foods and direct food choices towards foods containing vegetables.

As always I like to make the connection to anxiety, mental health, ADHD and overall well-being. There is actually research that supports how good you feel after spending time outdoors and in the garden.

In this 2016 paper – Gardening is beneficial for health: A meta-analysis the authors report:

a wide range of health outcomes, such as reductions in depression, anxiety, and body mass index, as well as increases in life satisfaction, quality of life, and sense of community.

In a recent blog I write about how Most children with anxiety relapse, regardless of treatment: Now is the time for Nutritional Psychiatry! Let us also add gardening to the mix!

In this paper – A Potential Natural Treatment for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Evidence From a National Study

Green outdoor settings appear to reduce ADHD symptoms in children across a wide range of individual, residential, and case characteristics.

And in this paper Home Gardening and the Health and Well-Being of Adolescents, the authors report that gardening was

positively associated with physical activity and improved mental health and well-being. Students who participate in gardening report slightly lower levels of depressive symptoms and enhanced emotional well-being and experience higher family connection than students who do not participate in gardening.

They conclude that we should be including gardening in future interventions for young people and I couldn’t agree more.

I hope these pictures and the research has inspired you to get out and do some gardening with the children in your life, either at home or at school or in a community setting.

If you are already doing some form of gardening or food activity with children please feel free to share so we can inspire more of this.

Finally, a thank you to Anne and your pupils for making my day and inspiring this blog post!

Why green spaces in cities are good for grey matter, stress and anxiety

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Central Park in New York City
Central Park in New York City

I love all research that support green space and nature for anxiety and stress reduction. And I’m thrilled to see this taking a front seat in cities where people often have less access to greenery!   A great example is the beautiful   Central Park in New York City.

New research is reviewed in this report in Science Daily: Why green spaces in cities are good for grey matter

Walking between busy urban environments and green spaces triggers changes in levels of excitement, engagement and frustration in the brain, a study of older people has found.

Researchers at the Universities of York and Edinburgh say the findings have important implications for architects, planners and health professionals as we deal with an aging population.

The volunteers experienced beneficial effects of green space and preferred it, as it was calming and quieter, the study revealed.

Dr Chris Neale, Research Fellow, from the University of York’s Stockholm Environment Institute, said: “There are concerns about mental wellbeing as the global population becomes older and more urbanised.”

“Urban green space has a role to play in contributing to a supportive city environment for older people through mediating the stress induced by built up settings.”

You can read the study abstract here – Older People’s Experiences of Mobility and Mood in an Urban Environment: A Mixed Methods Approach Using Electroencephalography (EEG) and Interviews.

Personally I need greenery and nature and thrive on it!

How important is greenery for you? Especially if you’re a city person?