I went into the woods to do nothing – and was thrilled (Part 3)
In my last two blog posts, I explained how I was fascinated by forest bathing and how the concept is based on scientific findings.
Now I come to the question of what I do when I want to relieve stress but do not happen to be near a forest.
The answer is actually quite simple: I look for nature in the city. It’s seldom the same as a dense green forest – but I can at least try to apply what I learned in the forest to urban places that have been more or less left to nature, for example in a park or on a riverbank.
It is about finding a state of “incidental, undirected attention,” as psychology professor Anja Göritz once described it to the “ZEIT” newspaper. She said that this kind of attention is often neglected in city life, but is stimulated in nature, “primarily by surprising moments, particularly beautiful flowers or an unexpected clearing.”
In principle, forest bathing is nothing more than a special form of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). There are excellent courses for MBSR, and there is certainly a lot to learn in forest bathing courses. But sometimes you don’t have to grasp the full depth of a concept to be inspired by it. Learning that there was an ancient Far Eastern tradition called Shinrin-yoku – forest bathing – was enough to remind me that I sometimes hurry through the days a little too hectically.
When I find myself in the city and can scarcely catch my breath with so many appointments, I consciously sit for a moment in the shade of a tree, on the shore of a lake or in the tranquillity of a secluded courtyard. And if I’m lucky, the memories of my last walk in the woods flow through me, of the mild shimmering light, the clear air and the springy ground beneath my feet.
