Japanese researchers have discovered a marvelous benefit of walking in old-growth forests. When they allowed diabetic patients to amble through these ancient groves, their blood sugar values dropped!
The Japanese have a word for this walking through old-growth forests: shinrin-yoku or wood-air bathing. The researchers have identified, besides a drop in the blood sugar of diabetics, a whole host of healthful benefits associated with this practice.
When we think about the forests, most of us think about the sight of magnificent trees. But what about the wonderful smells associated with walking through their dappled shade? Scientists, in one Sierra-Nevada study, identified over 120 unique chemical compounds given off by trees, but could only identify 70 of them. As Joan Maloof, the author of Teaching the Trees: Lessons from the Forest, writes, "We are literally breathing things we don't understand; which also means, of course, that when we lose these forests, we don't know what we are losing."
There are only a few remmnants of old growth forests left here in the United States. But I like to think that walking in any forest, among any living trees, will benefit us. By breathing in, we take in the oxygen given off by the trees themselves...when we breathe out, our carbon dioxide goes to feed the leaves.
We literally become each other.
The researchers have identified, besides a drop in the blood sugar of diabetics, a whole host of healthful benefits associated with this practice.
Posted by: Ergo Baby Carrier | February 17, 2010 at 08:30 AM