Forest Bathing: Nature Heals Our Disconnect

Nature deficit syndrome is silently affecting millions as we spend over 95% of our lives indoors beneath artificial lighting that disrupts our biology at the most fundamental level. Dr. Mark Pettus delivers a compelling exploration of this modern disconnection, introducing the powerful concept that our current "junk light" epidemic may soon be viewed with the same concern we now direct toward processed foods.

Drawing from both scientific research and ancient wisdom traditions, Dr. Pettus reveals how the Japanese practice of Shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) offers a profound antidote to our indoor, technology-dominated existence. The evidence is remarkable – even brief nature immersion triggers measurable shifts from sympathetic nervous system dominance (fight-or-flight) to parasympathetic activation (rest and digest), resulting in lower blood pressure, improved heart rate variability, reduced inflammation, and enhanced immune function through natural killer cell activation.

At the heart of this discussion lies a philosophical revelation about human existence itself. The "illusion of separateness" that characterizes modern living contradicts our true biological nature as integral parts of a larger ecosystem. When we reconnect with natural environments – feeling the sunlight, breathing forest air rich with beneficial compounds, and simply being present – we synchronize with rhythms and frequencies our bodies inherently recognize. This reconnection doesn't require abandoning modern life but rather intentionally incorporating nature exposure alongside other ancestral practices to create states of clarity, focus, and happiness that aren't random gifts of fortune but natural conditions we can cultivate. Visit Essential Provisions to discover more resources for integrating nature's healing power into your wellness journey.

For slide deck: www.thehealthedgepodcast.com

For sumptuous meals ready to eat (MREs): www.essentialprovisions.com

Transcript

Nature Deficit Syndrome Introduction

Speaker 1 0:00

Hi, I'm Dr Mark Pettis, medical Director of Essential Provisions, and welcome to this webinar on nature deficit syndrome, this modern phenomenon where humans spend 95 plus percent of their time indoors under non-native lighting, lighting that has become less compatible with human health. That's a huge issue. I discussed this in our circadian rhythm talk, but many of the more recent iterations of the compact fluorescent bulbs and the LED technology that's necessary to meet the regulatory standards, which the incandescent bulb no longer does and has been essentially taken out of the supply chain, is lighting that is more energy efficient but very poor quality, and I think the implication from a human health perspective has yet to be fully realized. But the point is that we've substituted the gold standard for light exposure, which is just being out in nature out in nature, and we've replaced that with very poor light quality. I think the light story is we'll look back at junk light in much the same way that we now look back on junk food. Of course, it took quite a while to get here, even though it's been obvious for decades, but I think the lighting issue is a really important one, and so nature does many things, and we'll explore that in this very brief overview of this fascinating topic. Let me just share my slides with you. Slides with you.

Speaker 1 2:15

And many of you may be familiar with the Japanese tradition of Shinrin-yoku forest bathing, and for those who may not be, there's a lot of research. The Japanese realize that extraordinarily long lives some of the longest living adults in the world are in Okinawa and many ancient traditions have long understood the importance of communing with nature, and the Japanese in particular have really cultivated this wonderful practice and it emphasizes the fact right that we're part of this holistic ecosystem. We're getting much more research that is affirming that what we see as white light is many frequencies of light, from the ultraviolet end of the spectrum to the near infrared end of the spectrum on the longer wavelength end, and then every frequency in between, as we remember the colors of the rainbow right, the violets, the indigos, the blues, the green, yellow, orange, red. You know these are all frequencies that have very specific and multiple biologic effects, health-promoting effects and again, if you want a little more detail there, I would encourage you to check out the webinar on circadian rhythms and we know that the research that has been published around the world is consistent with this strong relationship between time outdoors and health, resilience, longevity and improved quality of life. I do think and I've touched on this in other other talks that I do.

Moving Beyond The Illusion of Separateness

Speaker 1 4:16

You know we live in this three-dimensional reality here on Earth where, where're in 3D, you know physics, quantum physics and the classical physics models would now suggest that we're up to at least 11 and possibly more dimensions that have been mathematically sort of proven, affirmed. Imagine what reality would be like if you lived in a place that had 10, 11 dimensions instead of just this three-dimensional hologram, if you will, that we are occupying. And part of the experience in this hologram is humans will have this tendency to see themselves as separate. It's one of the great illusions, this illusion of separateness, that I'm separate from other people and when I'm outdoors I'm separate from the grass and the trees and the animals, and you know the birds and the air. And again, that is really not a very natural way to perceive oneself in the context of this greater reality that we are in. And all ancient ancestral spiritual traditions just naturally understood that we were part of something much greater. And so you know, we live in this reality where we're so distracted and so much of that distraction right takes the form of negativity and conflict and judgment and I won't go down that path for obvious reasons. But you know, when we're still for a moment, when you're out in nature and just still, you can begin to appreciate that this separateness is clearly illusory.

Speaker 1 6:08

In the same way, our biology is very much synchronized with the biology of the ecosystem that we inhabit, and that is also something that's very easy to overlook or perhaps take for granted. If you look at plants, plants will take sunlight and water and convert that to energy in the form of fruits and growth. Humans can then consume that energy and we then metabolize that to produce carbon dioxide and water. And the biophysics field would suggest that we produce a lot of light as well. We're light-producing organisms. These fields of light are outside the visible spectrum, so our senses can't pick that up. Some people do seem to have broader sensory awareness and can see auras and colors.

Speaker 1 7:15

So again, when you sort of get beyond the material science, this reductionist reality that certainly the medical and scientific community has been in and what we've been taught to sort of embrace, is largely energy, vibration, frequency and light, and everything in nature is giving off color and frequencies of energy that are electromagnetic, that are photonic. This is sort of upstream from the material. And I do think, as the medical enterprise slowly crawls out of this limited paradigm of reductionist material thinking, that we'll begin to appreciate that the real healing occurs in the non-material, whether it's light, whether it's being in relationship with other life forms and nature, whether it's sound and certain sounds that can elicit healing effects, and that, I think, is a frontier that we've yet to enter. And so human biology is tightly linked and again, these disconnections have led us into an experience of life that's totally removed from these inherent biologic rhythms that nature really epitomizes. And of course, this impacts our health at many levels.

Nature's Effect on Our Biology

Speaker 1 8:55

When you look at the concept of nature therapy and again a lot has been written about this, you know most of us are in these stress states, these sort of fight, flight, activated states. There's so much conflict and emotionally charged interaction. And when we are in nature, who tends to be more right, oblivious? I believe that plants are conscious. That might be a controversial statement, but there's very little doubt in my mind and I think the physics is consistent with that. But when we're around natural settings, understandably we will start to feel more calm. And we will start to feel more calm and we will start to resonate. If you think of this in terms of vibration, you will tend to resonate with the frequencies that you are immersed in, and we know that plant life, trees, earth has these low level frequencies we might call it the Schumann resonance seven to eight hertz. And when we are sort of grounded and connected in a conscious way to that life, those same frequencies will begin to resonate with us.

Speaker 1 10:26

So if you're at a dysfunctional frequency, as you know, sort of chaotic frequency that might characterize anger or frustration or impatience or fear, your ability to have those fields synchronized in a more calm, grounded, balanced way is made possible every time we connect with nature and this causes a physiologic response that we might measure as a lower blood pressure or a lower heart rate, lower respiratory rate, more positivity, better mood, more clear thinking. And so you know you couldn't prescribe anything that has these effects and you know virtually no side effects. These effects and you know virtually no side effects. So you know it would seem kind of a no-brainer, and yet that which is obvious is sometimes incredibly elusive. And when you look at I'm just giving you a snapshot of a very robust body of scientific research If you look at the immune effects, your immune system, which is for many modern Americans, is in a state of overdrive, so a system that ordinarily turns on in response to a threat and then turns off tends to be on all the time, and we might call that inflammation, we might call that autoimmunity, and if you look at most health concerns from depression to anxiety, to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer you will tend to find evidence of over-activated or dysregulated immune responses.

Speaker 1 12:23

So this is the green bar is you know, forest bathing and these volatile organic compounds that nature produces? We can't necessarily you might smell them, but many of them will not have an odor that you can, your senses will pick up or something that you can visualize or hear. But these have effects on lowering inflammation, enhancing our immune system to do what it's intended to do and that's to recognize a threat accurately and address that threat. That's what these NK, these natural killer cells, do. They also eliminate cancer cells we have rogue, early cancer cells throughout the life cycle that we may be developing that our immune system can recognize before they get out of hand and take them out of circulation.

Scientific Evidence for Nature's Benefits

Speaker 1 13:31

And so, from just being in nature to some of the organic volatile compounds that nature produces, the fragrances you know, just smelling plants can bring you to a place. You know, lavender is an example of one that's been well-researched in terms of lowering anxiety and having a nice calming effect in terms of lowering anxiety and having a nice calming effect. And so these are an array of really interesting immune effects that tend to be synergistic. Being in nature, the volatile organic compounds, the fragrances, forest bathing has some effects, but it's other things that one finds in nature that can add to those effects, and that's the point of this slide. Fragrances, lavender, may not have anti-inflammatory effects, but if you're getting that lavender while out in nature and experiencing other signals, if you will, that nature is bathing us with, you start to see synergy and how those effects diversify and enhance human health.

Speaker 1 14:54

A, you know, nature deficit disorder, vitamin N deficiency is. You know it's an informal, not a particularly scientific term, but it makes the point and it made me think of a paper written now almost 10 years ago that I really liked and I've referenced often in talks that I give because I think it's representative of human life in general, and I would call that the paleo deficit disorder. Not only do we spend less time in nature, but the foods we consume are new to nature. The indoor lighting that we're bathed in is new to nature. The 24-7 hubbub of media, of politics, of news, you know, just bringing any catastrophe out there and you know, into your private personal sanctuary. You know these are foreign experiences of reality when compared to our paleo ancestry. Which is not to say that we need to be living in caves to realize that benefit, but living a more ancestral way of life that still allows one to enjoy the benefits of this technologic revolution that we're in is important.

Speaker 1 16:18

Finding the balance is what is challenging for most of us, of course. But if you look at natural light right, the daytime blue light in particular is important, and not getting blue light after sunset, the quality of darkness at night is really important. We look at this in the circadian rhythm, webinar right. More physical activity in natural environments we've lost touch with. We're a species with amnesia. We don't have the quality and diversity of environmental inputs from nature that our ancestors had the fragrances, the sounds, the innate connection to the seasons. Indigenous cultures were just so tuned in to that and saw disruption of that as the primal force of a diminished quality of life and the shamanic healing as a necessity to reawaken those relationships. Certainly the foods that we eat are no longer of what I would consider paleo quality. I think paleo principles and nutrition in general I mean there are many ways to get from A to B, but I think they're good principles in terms of whole foods and foods that are more compatible with human biology.

Practical Forest Bathing Guidelines

Speaker 1 17:47

Having more privacy and solitude, you know, know, for many of us is a real challenge. Just being still for a moment has become a rare sort of commodity. And you know, again, I think, um, so much of our environment now has a lot of electromagnetic smog and so, you know, getting into nature, while you can't escape the planetary effects of much of what's happening in modern life, we can mitigate those effects and being out in nature is a free and readily accessible way to do that. And we know that the stress response, this fight flight response, which has been widely studied, is greatly modified with time in nature. And so this very recent review article, systematic review, if you're really interested in some of this science.

Speaker 1 18:51

But when you look at the, you take a group of stressed individuals, and I have colleagues that do psychotherapy, they do group therapy, they're doing more of these out in nature. I've done many hikes. We call them hike with the healer, and people show up at a particular place and we go on a hike together. It's really just to be a mindful, enjoyable experience. I might interject now and then a little bit of education. There we're communing with each other and, you know, you compare how you feel before the hike with how you feel after and it's like, ah, it's just night and day different. And so they looked at a couple dozen people who were really stressed out, who had all kinds of measures blood pressure, heart rate variability, their blood sugar and, not surprisingly, very small exposures significantly improved all of these parameters. There was less evidence of the sympathetic fight-flight activity, rapid heart rate, shallow rapid breathing, increases in blood pressure, increases in blood sugar, decreases in heart rate variability these are all markers of stress that after time in nature dramatic improvements in all those measures, as the parasympathetic nervous system is so quickly and naturally activated in these settings.

Speaker 1 20:37

And so forest bathing is the holy grail. I mean, if I were, it's one of my top recommendations for any lifestyle strategy to be integrated with some nutrition. Movement outdoors, particularly with a pet or a friend, even adds to that. And so you start to see improvements in sleep hygiene, function, cardiovascular risk reduction, creativity and focus. Not uncommonly, if I'm giving a talk, I may be on the road. I'll definitely go out, sit in the sun, just do some centering and a little bit of breathing and a little bit of breathing and then I'll go on and I'm totally energized.

Key Takeaways and Conclusion

Speaker 1 21:32

When I'm around other people and presenting and I get that feedback, people will say, mark, geez, you're really high energy. I can feel that you seem clear and focused and happy and these aren't random sort of experiences of life that either fall upon us or don't. These aren't issues of good luck or bad luck. These are states that we can create and nature and our integration into a holistic ecosystem is really what makes all of that possible. So there's no magic to this.

Speaker 1 22:10

Choosing a quiet natural setting it doesn't have to be a forest, but just being out, walking slowly and taking your time, noticing your mind, thinking about you, know what happened, what's going to happen. Just notice. Part of that mindfulness experience is noticing what your busy mind is exploring and not judging it, just honoring it. And then come back to a place where maybe you're going to sit and focus on a plant. Focus on the feeling of the light against the skin, the sun, the warmth, the smells, the sounds. You know these our senses can really be activated in nature and with deep breathing and obviously disconnecting from technology.

Speaker 1 23:03

I always chuckle when I see people out and walking talking on their phone. It's like, ah really, you know, don't judge right, but that is almost a comical expression of the extent to which every aspect of industrialization has in some way crept into every experience of life. So you know, leave your technology in your car or at home, you know it'll be there for you when you return. And again, being with a pet or a friend just adds to the gift, just adds to the gift. And so that is a very brief overview of Shinrin Yoku forest bathing, some of the high-level review of the science, and I hope you found that helpful. I would encourage you to check out Essential Provisions, other webinars, and I'm really delighted and honored to be able to share with you and have an awesome day. How much better can it get right? Have an awesome day and stay well and peace.