The Healing Magic of Forest Bathing Quotes

“In the forest, there’s no need to try to relax. Just go outside and Nature will work her magic to relax and restore you. Studies show that people feel more relaxed after just fifteen minutes of being in nature. And they report feeling greater vitality, too. Being surrounded by aliveness literally makes us feel more alive.”
― Julia Plevin, The Healing Magic of Forest Bathing: Finding Calm, Creativity, and Connection in the Natural World

“Humans have evolved in nature; we’ve spent 99.9 percent of our time in the natural world, and our physiological functions are adapted to it. We’re evolved to find relaxation and restoration in nature. It’s been scientifically shown that spending time immersed in nature reduces stress, lowers heart rate, lowers cortisol levels, decreases inflammation, boosts the immune system, improves mood, increases the ability to focus, jump-starts creativity, increases energy levels, and makes us more generous and compassionate.”
― Julia Plevin, The Healing Magic of Forest Bathing: Finding Calm, Creativity, and Connection in the Natural World

“Step out barefoot and notice that your mind starts to quiet and you feel more present in your body. Walk on the Earth as though each step is a prayer. Studies have shown that earthing, contacting the earth directly with your feet—in the soil, grass, sand, moss, anything—can help reduce inflammation and chronic pain, reduce stress, improve energy, and improve sleep. Earthing is a cure-all. The two hundred thousand nerve endings on the sole of each foot pick up the electrons transferred from the earth. Walking barefoot will calm your nervous system and help your body return to an optimal electrical state, from which you’re better able to self-regulate and self-heal.”
― Julia Plevin, The Healing Magic of Forest Bathing: Finding Calm, Creativity, and Connection in the Natural World

“Go out in the woods, go out. If you don’t go out in the woods nothing will ever happen and your life will never begin.” —CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, Women Who Run with the Wolves”
― Julia Plevin, The Healing Magic of Forest Bathing: Finding Calm, Creativity, and Connection in the Natural World

“Now you see it. This is the moment. Humans have been on a trajectory of distraction and overconsumption for centuries, and we had to reach the breaking point for the great transformation to begin. We’ve become completely misaligned—with ourselves and the earth. Now is the time to begin the process of coming back to ourselves and to one another. This is what forest bathing is all about.”
― Julia Plevin, The Healing Magic of Forest Bathing: Finding Calm, Creativity, and Connection in the Natural World

“Nature offers us signposts, but they can be difficult to notice unless you are paying attention. Nature’s signposts confirm that you’re exactly where you are meant to be. You may see them over and over again—a type of plant you always seem to spot, a shrub with particularly tasty fruit, or an animal that crosses your path. Every time you see Nature’s signposts, she is reminding you that you are in conversation with her and that you’re going the right way.”
― Julia Plevin, The Healing Magic of Forest Bathing: Finding Calm, Creativity, and Connection in the Natural World

“Nothing that’s living is fixed or finished; all is constantly emerging. It’s the same with our bodies. We are not stagnant beings. Our heart rates are always fluctuating in a fractal process. Laid out on a graph over time, the fluctuations of the heart rate look similar to the fluctuations of a coastline, canyons, or mountain ranges. Our blood vessels mirror the pattern of tree branches or root systems. “This is the grandeur of Nature,” said Goethe, “that she is so simple, and that she always repeats her greatest phenomena on a small scale.”
― Julia Plevin, The Healing Magic of Forest Bathing: Finding Calm, Creativity, and Connection in the Natural World

“Like trees, we are in an inextricable relationship with the earth for the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. As American naturalist John Burroughs wrote, “We are rooted to the air through our lungs and to the soil through our stomachs. We are walking trees and floating plants.” When we forget this, we become disconnected and ungrounded. We need to reestablish the connection by taking in energy from Earth and the cosmos and releasing energy that’s been stuck inside our bodies. Energy does best when it is free to flow.”
― Julia Plevin, The Healing Magic of Forest Bathing: Finding Calm, Creativity, and Connection in the Natural World

“We’re not even breathing. Many of us suffer from “screen apnea” or “email apnea”—we stop breathing or breathe shallowly when we look at screens. The apps that we download might be “free,” but when we spend hours scrolling on social media, what we’re paying with is our attention and health—the most valuable things we have. What we pay attention to determines the quality of our lives. As twentieth-century Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gassett said, “Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.” We owe it to ourselves to look and listen closely to understand the systems and biological technologies that have created the conditions for life for the past four and a half billion years. We must first learn to listen and look to nature to see how we can design technology that is aligned to how the systems of the earth work.”
― Julia Plevin, The Healing Magic of Forest Bathing: Finding Calm, Creativity, and Connection in the Natural World

“Forest bathing is a process of rewilding, simultaneously the most natural and the hardest thing. It’s a stomping out of all our learned behaviors so we can reacquaint with our true selves and, with that, the web that comprises every living thing.”
― Julia Plevin, The Healing Magic of Forest Bathing: Finding Calm, Creativity, and Connection in the Natural World