When artist Amos Marsters thinks about his happy place, the spot he feels most at peace, his mind floats to his parents\u2019 farm in Quebec\u2019s Gatineau Valley. To the woods and the fields, the wind and the light there. <\/p>\n
The scene feels a world away from his phone, his downtown Toronto condo, the subway ride to his day job in tech, in user experience design. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been trying to spend more time in nature and not even really knowing why, other than knowing that I feel better when I do,\u201d Mr. Marsters said. \u201cThere is less distraction, the kind of life we\u2019ve told ourselves we need to live \u2013 to be busy all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Spending time in nature can be as simple as an excursion to a local park, like visiting Toronto’s High Park to spend time among the cherry blossoms.Brendan George Ko\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n This spring, he decided to try forest bathing \u2013 a guided practice that sees people immersing themselves in nature. <\/p>\n Originating in the eighties in Japan, shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, has become a pillar of preventative medicine in that country. The practice has since gained traction around the world, with a growing community of nature bathing guides and ecotherapists inviting harried people to engage with nature in slower, less productive ways. Not for fitness, where the natural world is a backdrop, but to restore more deeply. <\/p>\n In this culture of overwhelm, more people are trading in speed, multitasking and distraction for respite in green environments. For simplified time.<\/p>\n Health care providers, too, are giving the natural world more serious consideration. Some are issuing nature prescriptions, sharing national park passes and clear instructions, drafted on medical pads, to get outside as a balm for stress, anxiety, depression and a host of other ills. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re in nature, you kind of feel like the guest. It humbles you,\u201d Mr. Marsters said. <\/p>\n \u201cIt reminds you that this human thing we\u2019re doing, the society we\u2019ve decided to build and make really complicated and stressful \u2013 we\u2019ve done this to ourselves.\u201d <\/p>\n On a sunny Sunday in April, he gathered along with other forest bathers at Toronto\u2019s Evergreen Brick Works, a quarry-turned-greenspace connected to a system of serpentine ravines. Leading them was Emily Pleasance, founder of Forest Bathing Club in the city. <\/p>\n The session would span a languorous three hours. Ms. Pleasance asked everyone to stow away their phones, and the group sat in a circle in a clearing. <\/p>\n Early in the outing, she invited her forest bathers to take in sensory details around them. Red-tailed hawks gliding overhead, ducks waddling in a pond, different languages burbling through the woods. The scent of cedar warmed in the sun. City sounds beyond this oasis \u2013 police sirens, the hum of a nearby highway.<\/p>\n Rousing from their meditative states, the bathers shared their impressions, worries and thoughts; the mood grew lighter. <\/p>\n Later in the afternoon, Ms. Pleasance invited the group to stroll nearby boardwalks and trails as slowly as they could muster, then touch the murky edges of a pond. As the hours passed, the forest bathers grew closer, their laughter rippling through the trees. <\/p>\n The day saw no to-do list checked off, no step count tallied, nothing filtered and posted to Instagram. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never had someone leave a session and be more stressed,\u201d said Ms. Pleasance, who\u2019s led free and paid sessions across the city\u2019s green spaces with all kinds of forest bathers \u2013 families, people on first dates, corporate executives, bedbound clients gazing out a window.<\/p>\n Through her guided sessions, Ms. Pleasance hopes to instill more reciprocity between forest bathing practitioners and the natural world.<\/p>\n Ms. Pleasance, a qualifying psychotherapist, finds people feel more quieted after the experience. \u201cThey\u2019re saying, \u2018I feel more clear-minded. I\u2019m ready to go back to my life. I feel like I\u2019ve just kind of gone away for a little bit.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Across Canada, people are pausing the busy churn of their lives to join these rituals. In Montreal, organizers are planning a series of eco-somatic walks<\/a> focused on the sensory relationships between nature and the body. Forest therapy sessions have woven through conservation areas in Ontario\u2019s Kawarthas. At the University of British Columbia\u2019s botanical gardens, nature bathing took up residence alongside a hatha yoga session last August. In Newfoundland, clubs have met on forest trails, ending the day with tea ceremonies and foraged snacks. <\/p>\n Beyond these communities, a growing body of research is backing the idea that time in nature is good medicine. People living in or near green spaces had lower rates of anxiety and depression<\/a>, according to one meta-analysis that also found residents reported better overall health and physicians diagnosed fewer illnesses. A separate study found cortisol dropped<\/a> after people spent just 20 minutes exposed to the natural world. <\/p>\n This January, another meta-analysis<\/a> showed that time in nature lightens mental overload, hones attention and quiets the chattering mind. <\/p>\n Mar Estarellas, a postdoctoral researcher in psychiatry at McGill University, and co-authors reviewed 108 studies on how nature affects the brain. All involved neuro-imaging scans of people who\u2019d been exposed to nature, from walking in a forest to looking at images of natural environments.<\/p>\n Across the board, researchers observed a cascading effect in the brain. It starts with sensory ease.<\/p>\n \u201cThe natural sights, sounds, trees, waves or birds singing have simple and repeating patterns, which we call fractals. Simple, repeating patterns are very easy, even pleasurable, for the brain to process,\u201d said Ms. Estarellas, a forest bathing guide who\u2019s led sessions in Montreal.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s visually and sensorially gentle, so the brain has less work to do and can relax. Versus in the city, we\u2019re always filtering chaos and noise.\u201d <\/p>\n Next comes a calming of the alarm centre within the brain\u2019s amygdala, which processes emotions. The body\u2019s fight-or-flight response eases, heart rate slows, breathing deepens and digestion improves. <\/p>\n After that, attention starts to sharpen and self-obsessed thoughts ramp down.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re on a big cliff and suddenly you feel really small, like you\u2019re part of something much bigger than yourself. There\u2019s less self-criticism and rumination because you\u2019re this tiny speck of dust in a bigger system,\u201d Ms. Estarellas said. <\/p>\n \u201cThis sense of awe is what makes us feel small. That\u2019s a good thing for us because all our problems also feel very small.\u201d <\/p>\n People fully immersed in nature experienced these effects the longest. But even three to 10 minutes of looking at images of natural environments stimulated this positive cascade in the brain. <\/p>\n \u201cI thought, how incredible it must feel to our body and our brain to be closer to nature, that three minutes looking at a picture of a beach makes you feel better,\u201d Ms. Estarellas said. <\/p>\n More health care providers are becoming aware of the connections between well-being and the outdoors. <\/p>\n Sehjal Bhargava, an Ottawa family physician, now views nature as the fourth pillar of health \u2013 along with sleep, diet and exercise. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like another magic pill,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen it comes to stress management, chronic disease management, physical inactivity, sedentary behaviour, screen time, it\u2019s in line with the rest of the lifestyle counselling family medicine provides.\u201d<\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Researchers have found that people who connect regularly with the natural world tend to take better care of it.<\/p>\n Dr. Bhargava is president-elect of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment \u2013 doctors, nurses, pharmacists, social workers and other health care providers concerned about climate change and its effect on patients\u2019 health. <\/p>\n \u201cWe are trying to connect those dots between a healthy climate and a healthy person, looking at climate change as a risk factor for ill health and exacerbation of health conditions,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n As part of her practice, Dr. Bhargava tries to give her busy patients permission to go outside for the sake of their health.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s evidence that shows people are more likely to spend time in nature if it\u2019s recommended by a health-care professional,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen I talk about time in nature with the patient, I write it down on a prescription pad, sign it and give it to them.\u201d <\/p>\n For financially strained patients, Dr. Bhargava can share free discovery passes for national parks and special memberships for AllTrails, an app with guides and maps for various outdoor activities. <\/p>\n It\u2019s all arranged through partnerships between participating organizations and PaRx<\/a>, a national nature prescription program with more than 20,000 prescribers registered and an estimated 1.8 million Canadians receiving these prescriptions. The cost is covered by the partner organizations. As part of the program, an initiative called PaRx Connectors pairs patients with forest therapy guides, horticultural therapists who use gardening to promote well-being, and other resources.<\/p>\n \u201cI love how accessible it is. It\u2019s not, \u2018Go climb a mountain.\u2019 It\u2019s not even, \u2018Go exercise.\u2019 It\u2019s, \u2018Go spend time in a natural environment that you find meaningful.\u2019 It could be your garden plot, your balcony, house plants. Anything where you derive meaningful time from nature, you begin to accrue health benefits,\u201d Dr. Bhargava said. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is a way to take a step back in a world where we\u2019re progressively zooming in on our own lives, constantly under the barrage of acute stressors, and overwhelmed trying to get through the day. Giving people permission to go be in nature doesn\u2019t add more to the plate. It\u2019s an accessible lifestyle intervention that doesn\u2019t add cognitive load or burden to their day.\u201d <\/p>\n There appear to be other offshoot benefits to all this forest bathing: Researchers have found that people who connect regularly with the natural world tend to take better care of it. Multiple<\/a> studies<\/a> have linked \u201cnature connectedness\u201d to environmentally protective<\/a> behaviour.<\/p>\n \u201cIt helps us recognize that our natural surroundings are a privilege, something we need to protect,\u201d Dr. Bhargava said. <\/p>\n Ms. Pleasance incorporates seed and rock collections into her sessions, which can add to the overall sensory experience of forest bathing.<\/p>\n Forest bathing practitioners hope people will start treating nature as more than a resource for their own well-being. Through her sessions at Evergreen in Toronto, Ms. Pleasance hopes to instill more reciprocity. <\/p>\n \u201cA lot of our recreation is human-centric,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re going out into nature with this point of view of, \u2018I\u2019m getting the benefits, getting sun, moving my body.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Forest bathing is different, she said: \u201cThis is more of a relational practice.\u201d<\/p>\n During her April session, Ms. Pleasance raised the concept of climate emotions. She described a sensation, solastalgia, the grief people feel for a place being damaged, sometimes experienced as homesickness felt while still home. Another notion: soliphilia, empathy and solidarity with a place that drives people to try and protect it. Sometimes, connection to nature comes with anger and sorrow, Ms. Pleasance said.<\/p>\n At Patricia Hasbach\u2019s psychotherapy office in Eugene, Ore., climate anxiety comes up frequently \u2013 wildfires have ravaged communities throughout the state in recent years.<\/p>\n Dr. Hasbach, who wrote the 2025 book Prescribing Nature: A Clinician\u2019s Guide to Ecotherapy, asks clients about their relationship to the natural world. During clinical intake, she\u2019ll ask whether nature was part of their childhoods and how they use green spaces now. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s our intention when we go outdoors?\u201d Dr. Hasbach asks. \u201cSomebody who goes for a run, their intention might be focused on their heart rate and speed \u2013 there\u2019s a place for that. Science tells us green exercise<\/a> is better for us psychologically than doing it on a treadmill in a windowless gym. But if you do that for the body, what are you doing for the mind? Do you also take time to go out for a contemplative walk, to sit and take in what\u2019s around you?\u201d<\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Health care providers are giving the natural world more serious consideration, with some issuing nature prescriptions as a balm for stress, depression and a host of other ills.Chris Young\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n Often, she\u2019ll do walk and talk therapy, strolling with clients along a river path near her office, instead of sitting across from each other in a room. <\/p>\n She also frequently prescribes time in nature, asking clients to pick a spot they can return to regularly; it could be their garden or a city park. To help slow their thoughts, she asks them to remove their earbuds, put their phones away and focus on what draws their senses and their attention. <\/p>\n \u201cBeing connected with the natural world is healing to many people. It\u2019s always been to me personally, having grown up in a rural setting. I thought, we never include this in the work we do with our clients,\u201d Dr. Hasbach said.<\/p>\n Throughout her book, she tracks a troubling disinterest in being out in the wilds. <\/p>\n \u201cWith each generation, we see people more removed from nature. More of us are living in urban centres. We\u2019re getting more instant gratification with our use of technology,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n \u201cAs people become more insulated, they show less interest in connecting with nature. It\u2019s a dangerous precedent we\u2019re setting, particularly as people are raising children.\u201d <\/p>\n But the therapist saw some hopeful signs during pandemic lockdowns. With just about every form of amusement taken away, people started going outside in droves. National and provincial park bookings remain high in Canada, and more people have picked up unhurried, green pursuits including gardening<\/a> and birding<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cIt gets people outdoors in unstructured ways that require some patience,\u201d she said. \u201cNature takes time to observe. It helps us slow our pace.\u201d<\/p>\n Editor\u2019s note: <\/strong>This version of the story clarifies that the PaRx Connectors initiative is part of PaRx, a national prescription program in Canada. PaRx Connectors links people with forest therapy guides, horticultural therapists and other resources, while PaRx helps healthcare professionals prescribe patients time in nature.<\/p>\n The Decibel: Why time feels like it\u2019s speeding up \u2013 and how to slow it down<\/p>\n We know that time can\u2019t actually slow down or speed up \u2013 but why does it feel like that? The Globe\u2019s time use reporter, Zosia Bielski<\/a>, speaks to The Decibel about why our perception of time can change<\/a>, what it is about this particular moment that\u2019s making us feel so pressed for time and how we can take back control of the pace.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n