Forest bathing, good for the soul!

Liz Nicholls

Berkshire, Hampshire, Health & Nutrition, Oxfordshire, Round and About

Ecotherapist, Shinrin-Yoku guide & dad Rob Faure Walker tells us how he can help you unwind in a frazzled world thanks to the ancient art of forest bathing in the Savernake Forest

It now seems inevitable that I’d end up working in the woods as an ecotherapist, but it wasn’t always so obvious. My former academic work explored how counter-terrorism policy promotes rather than prevents violence and led me to Westminster to advise universities on policymaking. So, how does one go from heated arguments in Parliament committee rooms to quietly guiding people to connect with nature?!

Parliament and universities both force people into disagreements, disagreements that leave everyone stressed. Don’t get me wrong, the thrashing out of ideas is vital (it’s how knowledge and society progress). But looking around the world today, that’s up for debate.

A few years ago, in response to these stressful disagreements, I started a new project. This led to my next book, Love and the Market: How to Recover from the Enlightenment and Survive the Current Crisis. Drawing on eastern philosophy, I suggest that we need to seek connections and to recognise more of the world. Through doing so, we develop our capacity to care and love, and rise above the oppositional arguments that seem to be tearing us and our environment apart. This connection, recognition, care, and love starts with nature, and we’re lucky to still have some precious chalk downland and ancient woodlands in north Wiltshire. Having trained with leading ecotherapist Stefan Batorijs, I now practise as an ecotherapist or Shinrin-Yoku guide to help others to connect with these threatened, beautiful landscapes.

Shinrin-Yoku, or “forest bathing”, was developed in Japan in 1982 to help people to cope with the stresses of a rapidly urbanising society. Specifically, the Japanese Health Ministry started prescribing guided time in nature in response to the very Japanese problem of “Sudden Office Death Syndrome”. While this may seem like a problem particular to the overstretched workers of Tokyo, work-related mental health crises are all-too familiar here. With 40 years of clinical trials showing Shinrin-Yoku to be more effective than antidepressants, the NHS has recently caught up and started prescribing time in nature too.

This fills me with hope for the future as I’ve seen firsthand how guided nature connection has helped my clients to heal.

You can find out more about Rob at integratedmind scapes.co.uk. Love and the Market: How to Recover from the Enlightenment and Survive the Current Crisis is available from Bristol University Press (you can claim a 50% discount with code CNF24 until 15th October); visit bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/love-and-the-market to buy your copy.