Have you ever noticed how strongly nature factors into the Christian Bible?
Sparrows (Matthew 10:29-31)
Milk and honey (Deut. 6:2-3)
Rainbows (Genesis 9:12-13)
Mountains (Psalm 95:4-5)
Olive trees (Psalm 52:8)
Cypress, cedar, acacia, etc trees: (Isaiah 41:19)
Vines and branches (John 15:1-10)
Tree of life (Revelation 22:1-2)
Notice how many time Jesus himself retreated to remote mountains and gardens to spend time with His Father.
…and that just scratches the surface.
Nature is deeply embedded in every part of the Creation story.
Nature IS the Creation Story.
Creation is part of God’s living Word.
In fact, creation and God and Scripture are inextricably linked.
Nature helps us understand the Bible,
And the Bible gives us insight into God and His Creation.
Combining forest bathing with Scripture study improves both practices exponentially. Quiet time with Him in nature is such a powerful way to grow in your relationship with Him.
I encourage you to give it a try…
What Forest Bathing with Scripture looks like
I encourage you to grab your Bible and head out to your sit spot.
Start by closing your eyes and following your breath in and out.
Then, tune in to each one of your senses separately.
When you’re ready, invite God into your experience and draw your attention to His presence.
Next, open your Bible and read through whatever verses or chapters you feel called to. A good place to start might be the book of Song of Solomon. References to nature explode from the pages.
Notice how nature brings the words alive and how the words bring nature alive and how it all comes together to glorify God. How you can feel it more deeply than ever before.
Just spend as much time here as you like, soaking in the words, in the context, in the vibrancy and spending this time of richness with Christ.
I know some of my most poignant memories with God happened in nature, whether it was on a youth group retreat or while camping. There’s something about the God-breathed open air and quiet and room to think and pray that allows your relationship to flourish.
I’ve written about How to Forest Bathe in the Winter before, but I think the topic of winter forest bathing is worth revisiting again.
And again.
Every year.
And also in article form. Heh.
After several more winters after the first writing, I’ve come to appreciate winter forest bathing even more. And I wanted to share some new insights with you.
Choosing a setting for your winter forest bathing experience
I love to visit all my normal stomping grounds for winter forest bathing. In the video above, I visit a tract of land owned by a local school that I travel quite often. I recommend choosing a setting that’s familiar to you as well, so you can see the differences among the seasons (and you don’t get lost on ungroomed trails).
The cool thing about the winter forest is that it’s barren and “see-through.” You can see clear through the forest when all the leaves and greens are gone. The stark contrast is visually stimulating and allows you to get to know your area better, through all of its phases.
Not all trees are barren though. You should be able to find a stand of evergreen trees, such as pines or cedars, that still hold their green color. Forest bathing under the pine trees is a great place to experience the living influences of the forest, even in winter.
Nature Scratch and Sniff
I’ll touch on this more in its own dedicated post, but nature Scratch and Sniff is one really potent way to use your sense of smell in the forest.
Next time your standing under the pine trees, grab a needle and dent it with your fingernail. Then, bring it up to your nose.
You get a really strong whiff of pine as the needle releases its essential oils.
I like to try this with other materials too, like bark and herbs. Try the scratch and sniff method next time you’re out forest bathing.
[Bottle some of that evergreen goodness for daily use with DIY pine needle body oil]
Now that you’ve found a place to practice shinrin-yoku, let’s talk about what that practice might look like.
Forest Bathing Exercises for Winter
I like to follow the following general formula when I head to the forest in the winter:
Threshold exercise: transition from your daily life into the forest. Enter the forest with intention, take a stretch, and find a sit spot. Try the breath work described in the next section.
Grounding: try to gain your bearings. Close your eyes and feel yourself in space, your weight, your positioning, the ground under your feet.
Checking in with all five senses: concentrate on the smells, sounds, air temperature, and visuals around you.
Complete a forest bathing exercise or two (see below).
Exit exercise: transition from the forest back into daily life. You might take one last deep breath at the edge of the forest, step forward and exhale back into your routine.
Here are a few example exercises to try:
Concentric Circle Exercise:
Use all five senses to experience your own body at its core.
Then, move your senses out to your immediate surroundings.
Then, move out a little further to 15 feet around you.
Then, move out again and again as far as you can see and hear.
Reverse Senses
After you take in the sights, sounds, smells, taste, and touch of your immediate environment, reverse your focus and try to imagine what it feels like for the forest to see, smell, hear, taste, and touch you.
For example, you may reach out and touch a tree and feel its solidity, temperature, and texture against your palm. Then, think about how your warm, smooth hand feels against the tree.
Or think about how the birds you hear experience the sounds you make. Imagine how your own warm body heats up the air around you.
Reverse Senses is a great exercise to nurture a reciprocal relationship with nature.
Breath work in the winter
I love the taste of breathing in the winter. When you inhale, you can feel the chill, minty air as it reaches the bottom of your lungs. The winter air is different, and you can literally feel it, in a visceral sense. That’s one major benefit to take advantage of in the winter.
In fact, aside from an oxygen chamber, breathing deeply in the fresh cool air is one of the best ways to oxygenate your blood. Oxygenated blood has many benefits, such as improving your immune system, helping your body self-repair, reducing stress, and improving brain function because every cell in your body needs the molecule.
How to incorporate breath work into your forest bathing practice
Always begin your practice with a session of deep breathing. I like to take a series of 10 breaths with my eyes closed.
Use the Wring-Out Technique to warm up. Gently twist your body side to side as you loosen up your spine. Follow the movement with your breath, literally wringing out air as you twist into an exhale.
Return to your breath as you practice mindfulness in the forest. Deep, full belly breaths are a foundational practice in forest bathing.
By far the 2 most common reasons for avoiding forest bathing in the winter are:
I hate winter. It’s too cold.
I don’t have the time.
To that, I say, you have a choice. ‘
You can either choose to try to enjoy winter forest bathing and make space for it or not. That’s up to you, not any external factor.
If you’re too cold, wear more layers.
I know that sounds really trite, but honestly, it’s the hard truth. The only reason why you’d be cold is if you weren’t adequately dressed. Simply add more layers.
Another trick you can use is to warm up before you start your practice. You might even choose to go forest bathing after you work out. The colder environment will feel good after a good sweat. Otherwise, you can do a few blood-pumping exercises (i.e. jumping jacks, walking lunges, etc) before you head to your sit spot to warm up.
If you say you don’t have the time, replace your words with “it’s not a priority.”
You’ve heard that saying before, right? Instead of saying you don’t have time to exercise, what you’re really saying is exercise isn’t a priority for you. Same with forest bathing. And that’s okay if it’s really not a priority for you.
While shinrin-yoku might not be for everybody, it has undeniable benefits–check out the stacks of studies–which we still need in the winter.
There really aren’t any barriers to nature bathing. Heck, you don’t even need the trees. So, if you really appreciate the break and all the psychological and physical benefits–or you just love nature, then you can make it happen.
Final thoughts
I really hope these new insights inspire you to give winter forest bathing a shot. The forest can give such a welcome reprieve in the winter, just as it does in the summer. And we still need that exposure to phytoncides, sunlight, and nature in general in the winter.
Would you do me a favor?
Would you get out there today, and then post a picture of your excursion in the Forest Bathing Central Facebook group? I’d love to see what winter forest bathing looks like for you.
The traditional way to forest bathe involves an actual forest, of course. However, I’d be remiss to dismiss the benefits of being in nature, even when you don’t have access to an actual forest.
If you’re not inside the forest, you may not be exposed to the specific phytoncides that trees give off, but you can still get therapeutic value from the other elements of nature, and probably many scientists haven’t identified yet.
So we know we benefit from nature, scientifically and intuitively, whether under a dense stand of trees or not. Plus, nature offers relief from modern overload and mental nourishment in any of its forms.
Let’s explore several ways to receive the benefits of forest bathing without the dense canopy of forest.
7 Ways to Forest Bathe Without Trees
Practice garden medicine: gardening isn’t just a way to make your environment prettier, it’s also a real way to improve your wellbeing. First, gardening is a physical activity that can give you a pretty good workout. Also, when you work in the soil, you’re exposed to the beneficial microbiome that exists there. Finally, the colors of living growth, the exposure to the sun, the grounding effects of having your hands in the earth: these all provide profound mood-boosting effects right in your backyard.
Visit a botanical garden or greenhouse: most cities have a green oasis awaiting you somewhere inside their concrete bustle. Like gardening, botanical gardens and greenhouses offer exposure to life-giving natural elements. You can feel the positive effects the minute you step into the glass building. The temperature and sunlight invite you in, the quality of the air expands your breath, and the rawness of the green beauty there leaves you with a sense of balance and vitality.
Find one tree: most people aren’t far from a single tree, and that one tree can be a significant source of retreat. One single tree is enough to oxygenize and relax you, if you let it. Prop your spine against its trunk. Rest your ear against its bark. Hold its leaves in your hand. Climb into it if you’re nimble. Five minutes in a natural landscape like this can enhance mood and reduce stress, which we can all use. Pull up a tree and stay awhile!
Head to the meadow: think about the sounds that reverberate from the meadow in deep summer. The crickets, grasshoppers, katydids, toads, and other wildlife create a pleasing cacophony. Even in the absence of trees, that reverberations alone gives you a healing experience. The tranquility of a meadow environment is optimal for your mindfulness practice, so feel free to practice any of your invitations there. My own sit spot is more meadow than trees, but it isn’t any less replenishing than a certified therapy forest.
Take a sound bath: the idea of a sound bath shouldn’t be foreign if you understand the concept of a forest bath. Just like immersing yourself in the forest atmosphere, a sound bath is about surrounding yourself with pleasing sound. Scientists say the sounds of nature are ideal for sound baths, such as the meadow in the above example. If you don’t have access to a meadow or similar wild space, the next best thing is to listen to a recording of it. You can use sites like myNoise to give yourself a healing sound bath.
Use authentic aromas: Pure essential oils and infused oils literally encapsulate the essence of the forest in a bottle. In fact, Dr. Qing Li discovered Hinoki Cypress essential oil contains the healing phytoncides you get exposed to when forest bathing. You can purchase or make your own oils and incorporate them into your meditative practices to access some of the forest’s healing elements when the forest is inaccessible.
Pepper your space with indoor plants: Studies show the mere view of greenery has mood-enhancing effects for employees, cancer patients, post-op patients, and you. But you have to lift your eyes long enough to appreciate it. Start by adding green plants, even indoor trees, to your home or work environments. You may even incorporate a breathing room or Skogluft into your space. Then, set aside a sit spot inside your house next to your greenery to meditate and absorb the benefits.
Now that you have several forest-less to forest bathe, let’s go over how to actually practice shinrin-yoku without the trees.
Forest Bathe Without the Forest Exercise:
Choose a natural space from above to have your session. Find a comfortable spot to sit or stand.
Set an intention. Think about what you’re doing this for, what you hope to get out of your practice. Do you need to relax? Get reprieve from the noise of your life or brain? Appreciate nature? The reason helps you connect to your practice in a more meaningful way.
Unplug. The overarching purpose of your practice is to eliminate distraction, so turn off all devices and get as far away from mechanical noises as possible. You won’t get much out of this if you look at your phone or wander a million miles away in thought.
Get grounded. Wiggle your bare feet into the grass or place your hands on top of the soil to ground into the earth.
Breathe deeply and slowly. Bring your focus to your breath as you lengthen and deepen your breathing. You may even close your eyes. The point is to switch from running on your overactive sympathetic nervous system to your relaxed parasympathetic nervous system.
Be mindful. Open your eyes and take in your environment with each of your five senses separately and then all at once. Where you direct your attention is important. Pay attention to what’s going on around you in nature rather than the ruminations of your mind.
Spend as much time enjoying your environment as you’d like. When you’re done, close your eyes and take a few grounding breaths before returning to your regular routine.
Nature provides so many potent benefits, with or without trees. It’s important to spend more time outdoors, whether you have direct access to a forest or not. Leverage what is available to you at any given moment and find respite in those quiet pockets of nature around you.
An annual forest bathing calibration is an opportunity to realign with your values and your purpose, in life or just as it pertains to forest bathing.
Basically, you go to a quiet, natural landscape on a set yearly date and perform a mental audit of the year past and the year ahead. It’s kinda like an annual business review, where you analyze your progress and make adjustments for the year ahead.
I decided to start this annual forest bathing tradition on my last birthday, and thought I’d share the process with you.
My birthday falls in mid-June, so I can generally expect decent weather.
I also think birthdays or New Year’s Day are prime opportunities to recalibrate.
So, I headed to the forest with a pen, paper, and water and found a sit spot. Then, I went to work…
Watch the video here:
How to perform an annual forest bathing calibration
To perform your annual calibration, start by setting a date. Think of a day with special meaning, or that will acquire special meaning from this practice.
Decide on a date for your forest bathing calibration:
Consider what the weather may be like on your chosen day. A day in the middle of February in the northern hemisphere might be frigid. A day in April may be unpredictable. A day in June might be just right.
My birthday falls in mid-June, so I’m using that as my yearly calibration trip.
Here are some more ideas for your calibration date:
Your birthday
New Year’s day
Winter and/or spring solstice
A day with special meaning
The day after Independence Day or another holiday (because you usually take off)
Any day, really;)
Once you have your date set, it’s time to do a little planning.
Prepare Your Agenda
Before you head to the forest, prepare yourself with an “agenda.” Now, I use that term loosely. Your agenda could simply be to go in with one simple intention or with pages of worksheets to fill out. Find an agenda that fits your personality and aligns with this exercise.
Your agenda should relate to an annual check-in, similar to a yearly physical or an annual employee review to see where you’re at and make a plan going forward.
So, that could look like an annual review that a business might perform.
It might be a few pages in your journal exploring the past year and the year going forward.
Or, you might just head into the forest with a simple intention to discover an approach for the year ahead.
The four criteria below will be the basis of your agenda:
Define your purpose. Decide what the purpose of your forest bathing calibration trip is. Do you want to do a deep dive into the outlook of your entire life? Do you want to assess what your year of forest bathing has taught you? Or, do you want to simply listen to see what message is waiting for you?
Plot your tasks. Now that you’ve defined your purpose, decide what tasks you’ll do to fulfill your purpose and how you want this calibration to look. You might start with a meditation and a gratitude list and then move onto a yearly audit. After that, you can make goals for the year and finish up with a solitary tea ceremony.
Decide how long you expect to need for your agenda. A workbook of deep-dive questions may take hours or an entire day. A simpler intention may require only an hour. Decide what you’re going to do with your time, how much you’ll allot to each task. Make sure you block this time in your schedule and make proper arrangements at home/work.
Gather the materials you want to bring along with you for the process. If you want to do some journaling, bring your journal and your journal questions. If you have workbook questions you want to fill in, bring them along. You don’t need any materials, but if you want them, gather them together before you go.
You can find goal worksheets online, design your own, or just wing it. However, I recommend bringing a list of relevant questions to guide your calibration.
A few example questions for your annual calibration exercise:
*Use questions like these during your annual calibration to define your experience. You may simply “think” about them, journal through them, or use a more formal review.
Again, you can come at these questions from the perspective of your whole lifestyle or just your forest bathing experience. For example, you can make life goals for the next year or just forest bathing goals for the next year.
Past year
How do I feel my appreciation for nature has grown over the past year?
In what ways has the forest/nature made my life better in the last year?
What would I say the “theme” for the last year was?
Have I been true to my values this past year?
How did I do on my goals for this past year?
Year ahead
What do I want to focus on this next year?
How can I bring more nature focus into my life this year?
What do I want the “theme” for this upcoming year to be?
What are my values and how can I honor them this year?
What are my goals for this next year?
Print these questions up on some pretty paper with spare room to write.
Once you’ve planned your forest bathing calibration, the only thing left to do is to actually DO it. You can design your calibration however you’d like. Make sure it feels right to you. I’m just here to give you some ideas.
Sample calibration agenda:
Perform a threshold exercise before entering the forest.
Find a quiet sit spot, a prime place to ponder (how’s that for alliteration?)
Once you feel like you’ve gotten to a place of mindful calm, take out your journal, workbook, or questions and ponder them for awhile. Write down or just think about your answers to each. Take as long as you’d like, but try to write down what comes to mind first. Often your gut instinct is on the ball.
Let your mind wander. You finally have this wide open physical and mind space to let your thoughts expand. How often do you get time like this to think things through? Let your thoughts and writing take on a stream-of-consciousness flow.
Come back to where you are and ground yourself again. Take a few minutes to feel into the culmination of this exercise.
Prepare a tea ceremony or exit exercise for yourself to celebrate what you accomplished and denote the end of your excursion.
When you’re done with your calibration, adjust your sails for the intentions you’ve set. If you want to make changes in the upcoming year, make sure you implement them when you get home. Create new routines and habits that bring your goals to fruition.
Some of the best ways I’ve found to incorporate new habits is to:
Track your new habits and shoot for long “streaks,” or the number of days in a row you perform your new habit. Once you’ve got a good streak going (15 days in a row), you won’t want to break it.
Remind yourself of your goals every day. Either keep a daily checklist and cross your habits off as you go or journal your goals every morning to keep them top-of-mind.
Incorporate them into your established routine
For example, say you decide you want to get out into nature every day. Build outdoor time into your already-established morning routine. Brush your hair while you do your grounding practice or take your morning coffee under a tree, so you don’t have to sacrifice any additional time. Over the course of several weeks, you can rewire your brain to follow this new pattern automatically.
Remember, you don’t want to watch the year pass with your goals crumpled up in the bottom of a bag somewhere. You want to show up next year completely changed.
I’d love to hear from you in the comments. Let me know how this article has inspired you to do a yearly calibration session and when you plan to do it.
On my birthday, all I asked for was a day alone in the woods.
That’s all I really wanted.
It just felt right.
You can probably guess why.
We lead really interrupted lives.
When I’m home alone for several days with children, for example, I start to realize just how interrupted I am.
I can’t start a project,
Read a page in a book,
Watch a Youtube video,
Start an Amazon order,
Write a blog post,
Experience a meditation…
Without being interrupted approximately 12,382 times.
Just by the kids.
That’s not even counting the ads, the outside influences, the phone, the dogs, etc.
Ultimately…
I cannot start a thought and finish it to completion.
How often are your thoughts interrupted?
Do you know where you can start a thought and finish it to completion?
The forest.
Or perhaps a sensory deprivation tank.
But that costs and takes more effort to organize.
Forest bathing is free and accessible.
So, to the forest I went.
And I did a few practices there to allow my thoughts to flow uninterrupted.
I found a sit spot off the trail in case anyone else was on the trails.
I flipped my phone to silent,
And I started a mindfulness exercise by concentrating on one leaf on a stump. I returned to that same leaf every time my thoughts started to wander.
I also focused on my breathing, taking in the minty fresh air.
After grounding myself like this, I finally did allow my mind to wander.
I also brought my journal and other writing paper in case I needed to brainstorm and wring out my soaked mind.
And it was glorious!
A novelty really.
To sit quietly and allow the forest to focus me rather than allowing my focus to be stolen from me.
The next time you’re in need of a mind break (and it takes some intentional focus to even notice when this is happening), find your thinking tree.
The Thinking Tree Exercise
Find a quiet sit spot [learn about sit spots here] in the forest, a park, or your yard. Ideally away from passersby and other distractions.
Take up to 10 minutes to settle in, taking deep breaths.
Find a spot to focus. Could be something like the tip of a plant, a certain leaf, or a pebble. Every time your mind starts to wander, bring your attention back to your focus spot.
Once you’re grounded and your mind has quieted, shift into thinking mode. Don’t force thought, just allow your mind to wander and your thoughts to focus wherever they will.
Keep a notebook handy to write down any ideas you want to remember later.
Just allow your thoughts and follow them wherever they lead.
If something has been weighing heavily on your mind, it will probably naturally come in. Let it. Oftentimes, nature is a great place to find solutions or perspective for those problems. If a question has been bugging you lately or you need clarity on a decision, let it in. If everything is going well, let it in. Give your mind space to think about whatever it gravitates toward. Only try to steer your thought process toward the productive, not the limiting.
When you feel like you’ve reached the completion of this exercise, however long that takes, close your eyes, take a few culminating breaths, and return to your normal routine.
Take a moment to think about how good this exercise makes you feel, to follow thoughts without unwanted interruption.
Check out this Livestream where I explain the process in visual form.
As simple as this exercise sounds, the Thinking Tree exercise is profoundly cathartic. It’s brain catharsis.
When you return home from this exercise, you should notice a sense of relief at allowing your brain to do its thing, uninterrupted.
You might find you’re able to concentrate better once your brain is wrung out.
You may have more patience.
You may feel a tangible sense of relief.
We all need those breaks from interruption.
Return to your thinking tree every time you need a break from over-stimulation, too much input, too much distraction, too much interruption.
I’d love to hear from you…come back and tell me about your experiences at The Thinking Tree.
