The Forest Isn’t Asking You to Do Anything

What forest bathing taught me about stress, the nervous system, and a different way of being in nature.

This summer, I found myself standing in the forest doing something I don't usually do there.

Nothing.

I wasn't hiking. I wasn't trying to get anywhere. I wasn't counting steps or watching the trail ahead of me. And perhaps most surprisingly, I wasn't thinking about what I needed to do next.

That last part was particularly notable because I was in the middle of hosting FNLP Connect, an event I'd spent months planning with an amazing team of women. There were people to take care of, details to manage, meals to think about, and schedules to keep moving.

So when I joined a guided forest bathing experience with Serena Vogel, I honestly didn't know what to expect. And I wasn't even sure I could fully be present for it. But Serena didn't ask us to do very much. Instead, she offered us “invitations.” We could participate if we chose. We could notice. Listen. Explore. Slow down.

And somewhere in the middle of all that not-doing, I noticed something. My breathing had changed. My shoulders had dropped. My thoughts had slowed. I was listening to the forest in a way I don't think I ever had before. It was profoundly simple. And I remember thinking:

I know people who need this.

So, what exactly is forest bathing?

The practice we were experiencing is called shinrin-yoku, a Japanese term commonly translated as “forest bathing.” Despite the name, no swimsuit is required. And it isn't really hiking, either.

The term shinrin-yoku was introduced by Japan's Forestry Agency as a way of encouraging people to spend intentional time among the country's forests. The idea was to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the forest through your senses—to “bathe” in the forest much as you might bathe in sunlight. There's some important context here.

Japan has become increasingly urbanized and technologically driven. Long working hours and the health effects associated with chronic stress are growing concerns (sound familiar?). Shinrin-yoku emerged, in part, from a recognition that Japan's forests might offer people something their increasingly modern lives did not.

It wasn't about conquering a trail. It wasn't about exercise goals. It was about being in relationship with the natural environment through the senses. Japanese researchers began studying what happened physiologically when people spent time this way. And that's where this gets particularly interesting to me. Because that “exhale” I experienced in the forest? It may not have been simply a feeling. We can actually measure some of it.

What was happening in my body when I finally slowed down?

We use the word stress all the time. I'm stressed. Work is stressful. This season of life is stressful. But stress isn't just something we feel emotionally. It's physiological.

One of the systems involved in our stress response is called the HPA axis—a communication pathway between the brain and adrenal glands that helps regulate cortisol and our response to perceived stress. We need this system. Cortisol isn't bad. Neither is stress. We need the ability to mobilize energy, respond to challenges, get out of the way of a moving car, meet a deadline, care for someone we love, or—in my case that weekend—help to run a conference.

The problem isn't that our bodies know how to respond to stress. The problem comes when we're continually asking them to respond without giving them enough opportunities to recover.

Our autonomic nervous system plays a role here, too. You've probably heard its two primary branches described as:

Sympathetic: “fight or flight”

Parasympathetic: “rest and digest”

Again, neither is good or bad. We need both. Healthy regulation isn't about staying calm all the time. It's about flexibility—being able to mobilize when life requires it and then return to a more restorative state when it doesn't. And researchers studying forest bathing have repeatedly found signs that time in forest environments may help support that shift.

Can being among trees really change my stress response?

This is where the cortisol research gets fascinating. A review of studies examining forest exposure and cortisol found a fairly consistent pattern: cortisol tended to be lower after time in forest environments and lower when forest experiences were compared with urban ones.

Researchers had older adults walk for 40 minutes, twice a week, for a month. One group walked in a forest environment. The other walked in an urban environment. After a month, the forest-walking group showed a significant decrease in cortisol compared with the month before they began. The urban-walking group didn't show the same change. Think about that for a minute.

Both groups were walking.

The difference was where they were doing it. Now, does one study prove that forests lower chronic stress? No. But it raises a question about something we don't always consider when we're thinking about health: Does the environment in which we do something matter to our physiology, too?

Does my nervous system know I'm in a forest?

Apparently, it might. Researchers have measured things like heart rate, blood pressure and heart rate variability (HRV) while people spend time in forests.

HRV is simply the natural variation in time between heartbeats. Without turning this into a physiology class, certain patterns in HRV can give researchers information about what's happening within the autonomic nervous system.

Across multiple studies, forest environments have been associated with lower heart rate, decreased sympathetic—or “fight or flight”—activity, and increased parasympathetic—or “rest and digest”—activity. Some studies have also found modest reductions in blood pressure. In one large Japanese field experiment, researchers studied hundreds of people across multiple forests and compared their physiological responses in forest and city environments. The forest environments were associated with lower cortisol, lower pulse rate and lower blood pressure, along with a shift toward greater parasympathetic activity. In other words:

The people weren't just reporting that they felt more relaxed. Their bodies were behaving differently, too.

And this matters for reasons that go far beyond feeling calm. Your nervous system doesn't operate in isolation. It communicates with your digestion. Your sleep. Your blood sugar regulation. Your hormone signaling. Your immune system. Your inflammatory response. This is one of the reasons I talk so often about health as something much bigger than food. Food matters enormously.

But food isn't the only information your body is receiving.

Wait...what does the immune system have to do with trees?

This might actually be one of my favorite parts. Some forest bathing research has looked at natural killer cells, or NK cells. These are immune cells that are part of our body's first-line defense system. They help identify and respond to abnormal or infected cells. Several studies have reported increases in NK cell number or activity following forest exposure, with some effects lasting for days afterward. So naturally, researchers started asking: Why?

One reason involves something called phytoncides. Trees and plants release volatile aromatic compounds into the air—things like alpha-pinene and limonene. If you've ever walked into a pine forest, inhaled deeply and thought, Ohhhh, that smells good... You're already familiar with them. Researchers are studying whether inhaling these plant compounds may influence immune activity. It's intriguing.

And it's also an area where I want to say one of my favorite things: True, but partial... Yes, phytoncides may play a role. However, there are a whole lot of other things happening when we step out of a city or building and into a forest.

We're exposed to different sounds. Different smells. Different visual patterns. Potentially less noise and air pollution. We're probably looking at fewer screens. We're moving differently. We're paying attention differently. We're breathing differently.

Maybe it's the phytoncides. Maybe it's the sensory environment. Maybe it's the nervous system shift. Maybe it's all of it interacting. The human body rarely gives us the satisfaction of one simple answer.

Is it the forest—or is it that I'm finally paying attention?

I keep coming back to this question. Think about what your nervous system processes during an ordinary day. Screens. Notifications. Traffic. Artificial light. Conversations. Deadlines. Noise. Decisions. Schedules. Things that need to be fixed, answered, remembered, finished or handled.

Now compare that with what Serena invited us to do that morning. Listen. Notice. Feel. Look. Be curious. At one point, I simply listened to the forest. That's it. And yet that may have been one of the most impactful parts of the experience for me. I wasn't asking my body to accomplish anything. I wasn't trying to hike farther or faster. I wasn't trying to make my walk “count.” I was simply noticing the world around me. Maybe that change in sensory input matters more than we realize.

But is the science settled? Nope. And I think that's important to say. The research on forest bathing is promising, but much of it is still relatively small and short-term. The studies aren't all studying the same thing, either. Some people sit in forests. Some walk. Some participate in guided forest therapy. Some spend two hours outside; others spend several days. It's also difficult to separate the forest itself from everything else happening during the experience.

Is it the trees? The movement? The quiet? The absence of technology? Reduced pollution? Our expectation that we'll feel better? Some combination? We don't completely know. And we don't yet have enough long-term research to tell us how durable all of these physiological changes might be. So I'm not interested in turning forest bathing into another wellness prescription.

Two hours in the woods isn't going to undo a life that is continually asking too much of your physiology.

Forest bathing isn't a treatment for high blood pressure, chronic stress, immune dysfunction or anything else. It doesn't replace medical care. But perhaps that's asking it to do something it was never intended to do. Maybe it can simply be one of the ways we give our bodies another kind of input. One that says: You don't have to be on alert right now.

What if I stopped trying to “do” nature?

Something changed for me after that morning. I still hike. I still go for walks. And sometimes I absolutely want to get to the top of something. But now I notice myself doing something else, too.

I listen. I look for different colors. I notice textures. I stop. I pay attention to things I probably would have walked right past before. I'm learning there's a difference between moving through nature and being with it. And you don't need a special forest, a guide, or several hours to begin experimenting with that difference.

Find somewhere green where you feel safe and comfortable. Put your phone away if you can. Forget about distance. Move slowly. Or don't move at all. Sit somewhere for a while without needing the sitting to accomplish anything. Many forest bathing experiences last an hour or two—or even longer. But if that's unrealistic? Start with ten minutes. A neighborhood park counts. A tree-lined trail counts. Your backyard counts.

Ten intentional minutes outside is different from no intentional minutes outside.

Please don't turn this into one more thing you're failing to do “correctly.” That would sort of miss the point.

Maybe the next right step isn't another thing to do

Functional nutrition has taught me to ask a question that extends far beyond food: What is influencing the terrain in which this person is trying to heal?

Food is part of that terrain. Sleep is part of it. Movement is part of it. Relationships are part of it. Stress is part of it. Our environment is part of it. And I think perhaps our relationship with nature belongs on that list, too. My experience this summer wasn't dramatic. There was no mountaintop revelation.

I listened to a forest.

I breathed.

I noticed things.

And somehow, in its simplicity, it shifted something. Enough that I came home thinking about the women I know who spend so much of their lives managing, accomplishing, caring, fixing, planning—and moving immediately on to whatever needs them next.

I know people who need this.

That's why, this October, I'm partnering with Serena to offer A Morning Among the Trees: Guided Forest Bathing + Shared Lunch here in Monument, Colorado. Not because I think everyone needs another wellness activity to add to the calendar. Quite the opposite.

It's an invitation to spend a morning experiencing nature differently—first connecting with what's around us, then noticing what's happening within us, and finally coming back together around the table.

Nature → Self → Others.

Because maybe the forest isn't another place we need to go to accomplish something.

Maybe, every once in a while, we can simply let ourselves be there.

Research Note

This article was informed by a compilation of peer-reviewed research on shinrin-yoku (forest bathing), including systematic reviews, meta-analyses and clinical studies examining cortisol and stress physiology, autonomic nervous system activity, heart rate variability, blood pressure, natural killer cell activity, phytoncides and nature exposure. As with all emerging areas of research, findings continue to evolve as larger and longer-term studies are conducted.

This article is for educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Nature-based practices can complement appropriate healthcare but should not replace medical treatment or prescribed medications.