Forest Bathing & the Parasympathetic Nervous System
A Return to Rest and Deep Belonging
In a culture that rewards urgency, performance, and noise, rest often becomes something we have to earn. Yet, nature reminds us that rest is not a luxury—it’s a rhythm. It’s how we come home to ourselves.
At Friends of the Forest, we gather in wild spaces not to escape life, but to remember the deeper ways of being that the forest so generously reflects back to us. One of the most powerful of these ways is forest bathing, a slow, sensory practice that invites the body to soften, the mind to settle, and the spirit to listen.
What Is Forest Bathing?
Forest bathing, or Shinrin-yoku, began as a Japanese wellness practice in the 1980s. Its translation—“bathing in the forest”—points not to a physical act of washing, but to an immersion of the senses. It is not a hike or a workout. There is no destination, no goal, no pace to maintain. It is the art of being with the forest.
You might spend an hour walking just a short distance, stopping often to notice light on the leaves, moss under your fingertips, the quiet call of a bird. In this slowness, something begins to shift—not just in the mind, but deep in the nervous system.
The Nervous System Connection: Why This Practice Heals
To understand why forest bathing is so powerful, we must talk about the parasympathetic nervous system.
Your autonomic nervous system has two main branches:
The sympathetic, which is responsible for fight, flight, or freeze responses—activated during stress or perceived danger.
The parasympathetic, known as the rest-and-digest (or rest-and-receive) system—responsible for calming the body, repairing tissues, supporting digestion, and bringing us back into balance.
In the wild, the body naturally cycles between these states. But in modern life, we are often trapped in prolonged sympathetic activation—always “on,” overstimulated, and stuck in patterns of survival. Over time, this wears down our immunity, disrupts sleep, clouds intuition, and disconnects us from the grounded presence that brings true clarity and healing.
Forest bathing gently guides us back into the parasympathetic state.
When you step into a quiet forest, surrounded by green light and living systems, your breath begins to deepen. Your heart rate slows. The stress hormone cortisol drops. Muscles unclench. The forest literally signals to your body: It is safe to soften now.
Studies show that time in the forest reduces anxiety, lowers blood pressure, enhances immune function, and even increases natural killer cell activity—boosting the body’s innate ability to heal. Trees release phytoncides—natural compounds that, when inhaled, promote calm and vitality.
But beyond science, there is something deeply intuitive about forest bathing. It touches a part of us that still remembers how to belong—how to listen, how to receive, how to be without needing to produce or perform.
A Sacred Practice of Reconnection
At Friends of the Forest, our guided forest bathing walks are small, intimate, and intentional. We walk slowly, in silence. We pause to touch, breathe, notice. Sometimes we journal, sometimes we offer small rituals. Always, we allow the forest to be the teacher.
Each walk is a doorway back into your body’s own wisdom—into the rhythm of breath, the cycle of the moon, the whispers of the soil beneath your feet.
This is more than stress relief. It’s a sacred act of remembrance.
If you're feeling overwhelmed, disconnected, or simply longing for a gentler pace—this practice is for you.
You don’t need to fix anything. You don’t need to be anything. You just need to show up, and let the forest do the rest.
We invite you to join us.
Step into the quiet.
Let your nervous system exhale.
Let the softening begin.