Do you know the need to run outside and take a walk among trees, which comes over you after a moment of strong tension? The need to breathe the clean air of a forest or run in a meadow, as a call from nature? This is not a coincidence, but a real need that has its roots in human evolution, and which brings real benefits to the body, mind and spirit.
It has been observed the more the human goes away from natural environments, the more the human is attracted to nature.
The 80% of the world’s population lives in urban areas, and very few individuals experience daily contact with the environment. Furthermore, human beings are naturally inclined to create technologies to facilitate their work and survival. One would expect, then, that this continuous distancing from nature would lead to a loss of interest and a breaking of the bond that still holds them together, but it is exactly the opposite. Nowadays people always more frequently search the contact with nature.
So, especially after COVID-19, it has been observed that an increasing public interest to visit forest environment to contrast high stress levels.
Today we call it forest therapy. Forest therapy makes use of various elements of the forest environment to help individuals cope with stress and to maintain and promote their health.
Be in a forest, in contact with a garden, working in a vegetable garden, we not only feel better for the clean air and the calm and silent atmosphere. Visiting these places, being in the environment, regulates the heartbeat and has excellent effects on blood pressure, reduces aggression, calms and instills serenity, increases energy, the power of memory and cognitive abilities, and is able to improve immune defenses, and also the body’s ability to fight diseases.
Stress conditions affect immune function, chronic stress suppresses immune responses and promotes pathological immune responses, including inflammatory responses. Moreover, environmental factors have a greater impact on immune function than genetic factors. This indicates environmental characteristics, such as those provided by forest therapy, can have a positive effect on immune function.
Our accelerated life, the times and responsibilities imposed by society make contemporary populations among the most stressed ever. We come to experience up to fifty episodes of stress a day, peaks of tension that have many more consequences than we think. Stress affects the well-being of the heart and lowers the immune system. Being with nature, frequenting nature, always respecting it, is good for everyone.
It has been also demonstrated that natural killer cells (very important cells of the immune system, that can kill infected or cancerous cells) significant increase after forest therapy intervention continued to increase significantly, for up to seven days or longer after returning to the urban environment.
In forest therapy the principle of the therapeutic landscape is applied. The theory considers that everyone can have a great benefit being immersed in a certain type of landscape. The difference is made by the type of landscape, because each of us has a connection with a certain type of environment which ends up having a therapeutic and regenerating effect. For someone it is a forest, with its smells and the air teeming with life, for someone it is a mountain landscape with its breathtaking view, for others a regenerating sea view with its unmistakable scents.
These scents have a name, for example monoterpenes. Monoterpenes are a group of biomolecules produced by plants and responsible for the typical smell that we associate with nature. Being in contact with these molecules, immersing ourselves in a place teeming with them and breathing them, give real physical benefits: it decongests the respiratory tract, stimulates digestive action, has an antiseptic and antispasmodic action. Furthermore, natural environments are naturally plenty of negative ions. Negative ions ameliorate asthma and stress, while in artificial environments ions are attracted by digital systems and they are less available for our immune systems.
Forest therapy programs, including walking in the forest, may contribute to the improvement of immune function, and forest therapy is expected to be utilized for the enhancement of immune function in the future.
References:
[1] La Terapia Segreta degli Alberi, L’energia nascosta delle piante e dei boschi per il nostro benessere, Marco Nieri, Marco Mencagli – 2020 – Pickwick editor
[2] Chae, Y.; Lee, S.; Jo, Y.; Kang, S.; Park, S.; Kang, H. The Effects of Forest Therapy on Immune Function. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18, 8440. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18168440
