So it makes sense that Japan’s scientists are in the vanguard of knowing how green spaces soothe the body and brain. The tsunami that hit in 2011 killed 20,000 people, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant suffered a triple meltdown, and now some of the country’s prized rice has radioactive cesium in it. On top of all that, the small island nation trembles and yaws with more than 1,500 earthquakes a year. Ten percent of the country’s 128 million residents live in greater Tokyo, where rush hour is so crowded that white-gloved workers shove people onto Metro trains, leading to another coinage, tsukin-jigoku-commuter hell. The Japanese have good reason to require unwinding: In addition to those long workdays, pressure and competition for schools and jobs have helped Japan achieve the third-highest suicide rate in the developed world (after South Korea and Hungary). Visitors here are routinely hauled off to a cabin where rangers measure their blood pressure, part of an effort to provide ever more data to support the project. It intends to designate a total of 100 Forest Therapy sites within 10 years. In an effort to benefit the Japanese and find nonextractive ways to use forests, which cover 67 percent of the country’s landmass, the government has funded about $4 million in forest-bathing research since 2004. We knew this because we were on one of Japan’s 48 official Forest Therapy trails, designated for shinrin-yoku by Japan’s Forestry Agency. I was feeling pretty mellow, and tests would soon validate this: between the beginning and the end of the two-hour hike, my blood pressure had dropped a couple of points. I stretched out across the top of a cool, mossy boulder. The idea with shinrin-yoku, a term coined by the government in 1982 but inspired by ancient Shinto and Buddhist practices, is to let nature enter your body through all five senses, and this was the taste part. In a grove of rod-straight Japanese red pine, Kunio pulled a thermos from his massive daypack and served us some mountain-grown, bark-flavored wasabi-root tea. WITH THE LARGEST CONCENTRATION of broad-leafed evergreens in Japan, mountainous Chichibu-Tama-Kai is an ideal place to put into practice the newest principles of wellness science. “What’s the Japanese word for stress?” I asked. “When I’m out here, I don’t think about things,” he said. Since he began lollygagging in the woods and picnicking on octopus, Ito’s shoulders seemed to be unclenching by the minute. They’ve even coined a term, karoshi, meaning death by overwork. The Japanese would make great Boy Scouts, which is probably why they make such fervent office workers, logging longer hours than almost anyone else in the developed world. Like many Japanese day hikers, he was carrying an inordinate amount of gear, much of it dangling from his belt: a cell phone, a camera, a water bottle, and a set of keys. Most of us were urban desk jockeys, including Tokyo businessman Ito Tatsuya, 41, standing next to me. Elfin, with noticeably large ears, he told us to breathe in for a count of seven, hold for five, release. Kunio could have been one of the seven dwarves. We looked like earthlings transfixed by the light of the beamship. “This way they are able to become relaxed.” To help us along, Kunio-a volunteer ranger-had us standing still on a hillside, facing the creek, with our arms at our sides. “People come out from the city and literally shower in the greenery,” our guide Kunio explained. The Nature Cure Looking at pictures of nature can be enough to make you feel better.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |