Most of us go into a forest to reach somewhere: a waterfall, a summit, a campsite. Forest bathing proposes dropping that destination entirely.
Forest bathing, shinrin yoku in Japanese, is a way of being in a forest very slowly, with no destination and no distance to count, paying attention with all five senses rather than with the eyes alone. The term appeared in Japan in the 1980s and has spread to many countries since.
A two-hour session in four parts
- The first twenty minutes: walk at half your usual pace, without talking and without music. Just let the body come down.
- The middle forty minutes: stop three times, five minutes each. Each time choose one sense to attend to, for example only listening, then only smelling, then only touching.
- The next thirty minutes: sit still in one place. This is usually the hardest stretch and also the one most people remember.
- The last thirty minutes: walk out slowly, the way you came, without taking photographs.
Saying the right thing about health
There is a good deal of research on the effect of time spent in forests on heart rate, blood pressure and the sense of stress. We are not drawing medical conclusions here, because the studies differ in sample size, in measurement and in context, and pulling one confident sentence out of them would be overstating.
What can be said without going beyond the data is this: two hours walking slowly in a forest is usually more pleasant than two hours walking fast, and most people who try it say they slept better that evening. If you have a specific health concern, ask someone qualified rather than relying on a walk in the woods.
You do not need old-growth forest to do it
A park with large trees, a line of trees along a river, a big garden are all enough to practise in. What decides it is not how wild the place is but whether you genuinely slow down. In ZUNGZA's own trials, the sessions with the clearest results were the ones where nobody brought a plan.
A few questions you often send us
Does it have to be silent
It is not compulsory, but silence helps a great deal in the first stretch. If you are with other people, an easy approach is to agree on silence for the first thirty minutes and only talk after that.
What about carrying a phone
Bring it for safety, but keep it silent and in your bag. Taking photographs puts the eyes back in charge, and that is exactly what this walk wants to set aside for a while.
Should I go when it rains
Light rain usually makes the walk better, because the smell of earth and leaves comes through far more clearly. Heavy rain, strong wind or any flood risk does not, and that is when you change the day.