Activate the senses in a forest
This idea arrived in the West at the beginning of the second decade of the 2000s. Between the years 2012, 2013 and 2014, the forest bathing began to be taken into account in therapeutic practices , just as they had done in Japan since the 1980s. In the Japanese country, the revolution of work in offices, offices, closed spaces, led to the urgent need to go out and breathe nature as soon as possible. And that led to Shinrin (forest) Yoku (bath) . Forest baths emerged as wellness therapy, individual, intimate disconnection, hence the concept of bathing. All contact with nature, breathe clean air away from cities with charged atmosphere , already supposes a trip to the well-being. But the trees and everything in the microcosm of a forest born, grows, blooms and dies to continue giving plant life, all this acts as a energy enhancer for the human body.
Entering a forest is synonymous with isolation, refuge, shelter, recollection and protection . The silence it fills with content when our senses are activated, especially smell, hearing, sight and touch. From the soft movement of the tree leaves or the sound of our steps on the ground, to the contemplation of the trees around us, they draw the ideal setting for the disconnection . Focused on everything that the forest awakens in us directly from within, we advance in this suggestive proposal of bathing in a forest.
Alex Gese , founder of Forest Bathing Institute and consultant specialist in the Expert Group on Human Health and Wellbeing of Forest Europe affirms that “immersed in the forest space, we got out of that kind of hamster wheel in which we live ”. Entering the forest is granting oneself that and being aware of it helps us to connect with nature, “establish a relationship with the elements of the forest”, says Gesse. “It does not mean hugging or talking to the trees, interacting with the landscape does not require any specific parameters, It's something much simpler like feeling”.
Retamar Bridge
Feeling the atmosphere, the temperature, and perceiving where it is taking us, which can be, now if it arises from our inner desire, to take off our shoes to feel the earth directly under the soles of our feet, lean on a tree trunk or surround it with the arms. “ For each person, forest bathing is a different experience . What matters is that we are creating a space of time and place in which to feel comfortable, ”he specifies.
Gesse is the author of the first guide that proposes forests where to go to carry out this experience: Forest baths. 50 routes to feel nature . Edited by alhenamedia in your collection Petit Fute , this work combines the knowledge of the forest spaces with the activity of evasion and well-being.
“A forest bath is not an alternative medicine ”, he points out Alex Gese . It is a complementary health therapy, in the same way that physical exercise practiced in a gym, or eating properly can help. “It is a good intervention from the preventive and rehabilitation point of view, such as going for a walk a couple of kilometers every day to avoid or recover from mobility problems ”, points out the specialist, guide and teacher of forest bathing guides.
'Forest baths. 50 routes to feel nature'
Each of the authors describing the 50 routes proposed in the forest bathing guide directed by Alex Gesse They have also been trained as guides in it. because the forest bathing experience can be done individually, enter the forest, walk, feel, sit, breathe deeply, obey the senses . But doing it the first time accompanied by a guide will allow us to get much more out of the experience, discover possibilities, details that perhaps we would overlook.
FOREST BATHS IN SPAIN
Basque Country, Cantabria, Asturias, Galicia, Castilla y León, Extremadura, Andalusia, Madrid, Castilla la Mancha, La Rioja, Navarra, Aragón, Catalonia, Valencian Community, Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands These are the regions in which these 50 routes with forest spaces are located where to practice a forest bath. They have all been selected for their proximity to capitals, unhurried, paying attention, letting the tranquility, serenity, peace, comfort, calm … and every sensation that this natural environment awakens in us. "Actually, it's a super simple wellness sensory experience that improves our well-being in an affordable and suitable way for all people”, declares Alex Gesse.
In his classes and lectures, Gesse explains how volatile organic compounds (voc's) that trees produce and release when their leaves carry out photosynthesis, at certain times of the day, together with the ionization of water that helps us breathe better, plus the sun and the vitamin D that it provides us, add up to a set of benefits that positively affect the body. “80% of our health responds to the place where we live and what the environment generates . Everything that surrounds us affects us, much more than the programming of our DNA”, he highlights.
Fraga de Catasós, in Lalín
And when Gesse refers to health, he speaks of all health: physical, mental, social, spiritual and ecological . “We live in a single health in which all these healths come together and which is unique for the entire Planet, ecohealth, health understood as an ecosystem”, the specialist points out.
In the guide that Gesse is the promoter of, we will find places like the Arratzu oak forest, which is a Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve . After an introduction to the place, he describes the itinerary and is accompanied by a sheet with practical information indicating the starting point and where to park if we arrive with our own vehicle. It also indicates how to get there and if it can be done by public transport, the most recommended time to do that route, the difficulty, the distance that we can travel in each proposal, and if it is accessible to people with some type of mobility difficulty.
In Asturias , one of the routes runs in Braña de la Campa, in the Somiedo Natural Park ; in Galicia, we can go, for example, to the Sobreiral de Froxán, in the Serra do Courel ; in Zamora the Forest of Valorium ; in Extremadura, the Umbria Path , in the Monfrague National Park ; in Cordoba, the Botanical Trail , belonging to Sierra de Hornachuelos Natural Park is another of the spaces selected for forest baths, such as the Forest of La Herreria , located next to Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial.
We will know each forest area, its ecological and landscape characteristics , some history of its surroundings and what is nearby. In this way we will be able to combine a highly therapeutic practice with the discovery of places to return to and in which to carry out complementary activities. In each file of a route, in addition, the level of ionization of the water in the area appears in a graph.
And so throughout the territory, to each his forest to afford that break so vital and energetic regenerator.
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