Lessons from the forest. Or how to do forest bathing (森林浴 shinrin-yoku )

It’s not often I find myself lying face-up on a snow-covered forest floor, tracking bird flight while listening for the distant sound of water. Above me, the trees are silhouetted against a sky the colour of stonewashed jeans, the tips of the smaller branches silvered by the late-winter sun.

I am in Takashima, a small town on the edge of Lake Biwa, treating myself to the grounding experience of shinrin-yoku (森林浴 forest bathing) – a term coined in 1982 by the Director General of Japan’s Agricult...