Tag: forest bathing exercise

October 8, 2018

Forest Bathing and Green Color Psychology

I am drawn to the color green.

Like any good little nature lover.

I just looked over and not only am I wearing green, but my purse and laptop bags are green. Green is woven through my house in various decorations. My branding for this site and my freelance/fitness site have green in them, naturally.

Green, green, everywhere!

I was thinking about why I’m so drawn to the color and it led me to research about color therapy and green psychology.

Forest Bathing and Green Psychology

Green is associated with livelihood.

Perhaps that goes without saying because green = photosynthesis = life.

We are also encouraged to eat our greens in unlimited supply. Edible greens are both alive and life sustaining.

In fact, the chlorophyll that gives plants their green color converts sunlight into energy.

By ingesting greens, we get to partake of sunbeams and life energies.

That’s some glittery magic unicorn wands, if you think about it.

Makes a bowl of spinach sound much more exciting now too, doesn’t it?

Green signifies growth.

It also symbolizes wealth.

Green makes me think of a rich, pulsing spring forest brimming with life! That’s exactly what the color represents internally as well as externally.

Green is at the center of our planet and our hearts.

Jades and olives also elicits a charged yet calm and balanced energy.

Is that the epitome of forest bathing, or what?

That’s pretty much the goal of forest bathing for me and many others.

To feel energized yet grounded. To restore equilibrium.

Therapists use green in chromatic color therapy to deactivate nervous energy, stimulate depleted energy, and calm the soul.

Um, yes please!

Interior designers use natural shades of green and plant life to create a clean, relaxing home sanctuary.

Yes, and more!

Hospitals have long incorporated green into their color schemes. As William Ludlow put it “Our eyes were made to find rest and contentment in soft greens.”

Yes, yes, yes!

On the other hand…

A deficiency of green can cause irritability, fatigue, an unhealthy turning inward.

So, go immerse yourself in green to treat your deficiency.

Here’s how:

Green Forest Bathing Exercise

Here’s a quick exercise to calm anxious energy and ground your wily thoughts.

{If you enjoy forest bathing exercises like this, grab your free forest bathing starter guide.}

I hope you enjoyed this exploration of green psychology.

The next time you’re in the forest, pay attention to how alive the green makes the woods feel.

Such a friendly and inviting color.

From my green roots to yours,

~Jess

I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments below!

August 30, 2018

ASMR Foot Friction Exercise

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I feel like I just talked about feet.

And I’m here to talk about feet again.

For some reason, the subject keeps coming up.

No, I don’t have any sort of foot fetish; quite the opposite actually.

But our feet are such significant portals into the natural world.

Yet for some reason (you know, germs, ankle support, etc) we keep them covered most of the time.

Our feet give us so much more information about nature than we allow them to with shoes. Our feet:

Harbor countless nerves
Contain a large portion of our body’s pores
Need air to breathe
Are crucial to proprioception, balance, and body mechanics
Are the limbs that touch the earth
Absorb healthy negative ions

They wiggle and feel and create pressure and thereby offer a more information, a more comprehensive experience with nature.

So, point #1: take off your shoes when it’s safe during your time in nature

Now, let’s talk about one other way we can use our feet to explore our worlds.

The Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. ASMR for short.

If you look up ASMR on YouTube, you’ll find myriads of videos showing people combing their hair, whispering, tapping their fingers, and other interesting things.

The whole point of ASMR is that it’s supposed to trigger a feel-good response and give you the tingles. Pleasurable tingles.

Like the feeling you get when someone massages your scalp or lightly scratches your back.

There isn’t a whole lot of science behind ASMR yet because it’s so new. But I bet there will be.

ASMR stimulates both a positive physical (tingles) and an emotional (pleasure) response.

And you can use your feet and the grass to acquire that response. You also get all the benefits of grounding to go along with it.

ASMR Foot Friction Exercise

Find a bench or a chair to sit in out in nature. You need a seat that’s the right height to be able to run your feet through the grass.
To start, rub your feet back and forth or side to side over the top of the grass.
Get into a good rhythm and continue for 30 seconds or more. Really tune in and listen and feel the grass.
When the time is up, lift your feet and come to an abrupt stop.
Take a moment to feel that sensation. You can still feel that tickly stimulated sensation.

This quick exercise serves as a reminder of how receptive our feet are and how pleasure in nature is accessible anywhere, even just outside your work building.

It’s also a different way to experience grounding and the ASMR response at the same time.

This tickly massage:

Stimulates the nerves in your feet
Awakens your sensory cells
Provides a repetitive, rhythmic, meditative quality
Causes that positive physical and emotional ASMR response

I hope you’ll take 30 seconds out of your day today to experience nature in this quick way. Then tuck this exercise in your back pocket the next time you need a mini break.

I also filmed a video explaining the ASMR Foot Friction Exercise:

Let me know in the comments:

Have you tried getting the ASMR response before? What are other simple ways you enjoy nature?

December 7, 2017

Your First Forest Bathing Exercise

You’re here because you’re ready to try your first forest bathing exercise!

You’ve heard about shinrin-yoku (forest bathing), you understand the concept, but you don’t really know what it looks like to go forest bathing. How do you actually do it?

Well, I recorded an “Introduction to Forest Bathing” video for you, so you can try your first forest bathing exercise.

The video is also a great way for experienced forest bathers to return to the basics.

It’s also a great exercise to begin every practice.

Follow along with the instructions in this video to hone in on your sensory awareness. The process of tuning in to your senses in the here and now is also the basis for mindfulness meditation, so you get to experience the benefits of nature and meditation together.

Enjoy!

Your First Forest Bathing Exercise

{If you’d like three more free forest bathing invitations and a forest bathing starter guide to help you make more of your time in nature, click here to grab the PDFs}

If you’re new to forest bathing, check out these articles to learn more:

From my roots to yours,

~Jessica

How about you?

Did you try the exercise? What other questions do you have about forest bathing?

October 18, 2017

A Forest Bathing Reflection on the Forest Floor

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Recently, I made a comment in the Forest Bathing Central Facebook group reflecting about how perfect the forest floor is, and I thought it actually warranted a thorough post.

Then, I went into the woods with my kids this past weekend and thought about it a lot more.

Have you ever noticed how perfect the forest floor is?

It’s got almost a wabi-sabi type essence to it. Perfect in its imperfect-ness.

The leaves seem to scatter in regular intervals.

The knobby tree roots poke out in the neatest patterns.

The patterns and the pattern-less parts.

The crooks and holes and dips and rises.

The twigs laid out in perfectly random scatters.

The strategic places plants and fungus pop out.

The paradoxical tidy-ness of the dirt.

The permanence of the forest, the impermanence of the biome.

Yes, perfection!

Perfect coloring. Perfect scattering. Live and dead, whole and disintegrated…

After contemplating about this for awhile, I decided to do a Google search on a whim for “forest floor poems.” I came across a neatly descriptive poem called The Forest Floor by Mariella Rossi. It got me to thinking more about the descriptive phrases you could use to explain the forest floor. Here are some of the most intense descriptions pulled from her poem:

A place alive with secrets and knowing

A place intent on living

Poly-rhythmic sway

Lichen-rough rocks

Soften pricked dendrites of moss cushion my knee

Find my place within its creeping, writhing breath

A perfect work of art. A spot that would “cushion your knee”

I love these word visuals (and visual visuals) to help you gauge what I’m talking about.

A little leaf cup accumulating water.

All decked out in moss, crinkly leaves, and pine needle confetti

This almost doesn’t even look real! Such true art!

Perfect symmetry in an imperfect asymmetrical mess. Green life and brown passing.

Couldn’t be more perfect! Live among death. Beauty among fallen trees.

Next time you’re out on a forest bathing adventure, take a few moments–or heck, an entire hour or longer–to marvel at the perfection of the forest floor. Really, this could be an entire forest bathing exercise to try: a meditation on the forest floor. Try it!

Take a tiny four by four inch segment or parts of the floor you can see for hundreds of feet. Step back and take it all in at once. Then, slowly narrow in on the details. Alternate between the nearsighted and the farsighted, marveling at the details and the full picture. Listen to its chatter under your feet. Make note of the cushion-y feel under your feet. Bend down and touch it. Run your fingers over it. Take it in like a piece of fine art (there is no finer!)!

Take time to appreciate the forest floor.

Over to you…

Come on over and share your pics in the Facebook group if you take any great images of the forest floor.