Making Friends With Trees
Our brains and bodies talk to trees through energetic and chemical pathways established millions of years ago. Humans came from the forest. We are primates, relatives of great apes, and, once upon a time; we lived in trees.
When we spend enough time with trees, the ancient connection to them and the earth ignites inside us. Our bodies and brains are receptive to the elemental, chemical and energetic fields circulating throughout the living world.
All our physiological systems are engaged. And when we stand with trees and begin to breathe, our body and brain heal themselves.
Nature Bathing
In the process of ‘ nature bathing’, or Shinrin – Yoku, humans can bond to trees when we breathe, and it’s more than the air we share that unites us.
Trees release particular chemical messages into the atmosphere to help them fight diseases. These natural chemical compounds, plant oils and aerosols are also helpful to humans.
The antiviral and antifungal compounds plants release through their leaves and bark trigger our immune system to create special Killer Cells. KC cells kill viruses and tumours and boost our immunity.
– Dr Qing Li, ‘Into The Forest’
Resources and Links
‘Into the Forest’
How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness
(Author: Dr Qing Li, Associate Professor at the Nippon Medical School in Tokyo and President of the Japanese Society of Forest Therapy.)
https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2019/may/how-to-improve-your-health-by-forest-bathing-shinrin-yoku.html
Time To Make Friends With Trees
It’s time to do more than just spending time in nature, it is time to make friends.
Touching the trunk of a tree or even touching something made from wood lowers blood pressure and cortisol levels and balances our hormones. People are calmer, happier and live longer when around trees regularly. Humans who live in houses made from trees and work from desks made of timber are more productive in their work, feel more creative, less distracted, and sleep better.
Trees help us heal, grieve, and connect to nature; they are the gatekeepers to our elemental world.
Trees are social and emotional beings like we are. They have families, live in communities, communicate via a vast underground communication network, share information and grieve. There is much to be said about our relationship to nature and why we mistreat it. Everything is perception. How we perceive the world is how we live in it.
If trees were perceived as friends, family, relatives and mothers, we would undoubtedly do much more to hold onto them. I am sure.
Guest Contributor: Emily Rack
Business Name: Horatio’s Jar
Publisher: Digital Schools
Emily Rack is a freelance creative writer and researcher, visual content creator and designer. She is the head of the content production, publication and editing for Upschool+ Guest Contributors and Horatio’s Jar is her content production agency and wellbeing school.
Emily has dedicated her life to researching and understanding matters of the mind, body and the human experience. Her discoveries and research are focused on cultivating tools and dialogue that encourage us to live in peace and harmony here on earth.
Her current focus is the environment and human connectivity, conservation, environmentalism, plant medicine, botany, biology and the practice of ‘Nature Bathing’. Emily is a writer, digital content creator, seasoned photographer and visual artist.
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