HEALING forest is becoming a world trend as a new way to recover stress, both physically and mentally. In Matther P. White’s research, published in the journal Scientific Report volume 9, June 12, 2019 edition, it was proven that tree stands, forest ecosystems, and open nature could restore physical and mental health.
White analyzed the physical and psychiatric conditions of nearly 20,000 respondents in Britain. He and his team concluded that the immune system of the respondents to the virus attack rose after they walked in the open, in the park, or the beach for 120 minutes to 300 minutes.
White’s research popularized the term “forest bathing” which was absorbed from the Japanese term “shinrin-yoku”. This term was introduced by Qing Li, President of the Forest Medicine Group in Tokyo, in his book Shinrin-Yoku: The Art and Science of Forest Bathing. According to him, walking under the forest and finding natural greenery while login sbobet and playing online poker is an important factor in combating diseases in the body and mind.
Every day, Qing goes for a walk in a city park near Nippon Medical School in Tokyo. Within a month, Li spent three days walking in the pure natural forests of Japan. In the book published in 2018, Li made a guide to “bathing the forest”:
“Leave the cellphone and camera. Walk aimlessly and slowly. Let your body guide you. Listen to where he wants to take you. Follow your nose and five senses. It doesn’t matter if you don’t walk and just stay quiet. Enjoy the sounds, smells, and scenes of nature and let nature enter you, and you begin. ”
With the same concept, Hikmat Ramdan developed a “healing forest” and researched it for years. He tested it at the Forest Camp event of the alumni of the Faculty of Forestry on October 27, 2019, at Gunung Walat, Sukabumi, West Java, Indonesia. With the Smart Pulse application, made in Korea, Hikmat measured the physical and mental stress conditions of six volunteers to be tested before and after walking in the forest.
Before implementing it in Gunung Walat, Hikmat tested the healing forest in the Puncak Bintang Nature Tourism Park in North Bandung, West Java. “The forest ecosystem there has reduced stress by an average of up to 20 levels,” he said.
According to Wisdom, the stress in humans arises because the body responds negatively to the surroundings. Because of that, the concept of healing is now utilizing the forest ecosystem so that humans and their environments are interconnected. Therefore several conditions must be possessed so that an ecosystem can be a means of healing.
Where does the forest provide comfort and reduce stress? According to Hikmat, the resultant of forest space dominated by natural green color, cool temperature with sunlight filtering canopy of trees, minimal and soothing noise in the forest, the amount of clean air that is inhaled into the body and relaxed activities that are not relaxed cause fatigue, thirst and hunger, create physical and mental comfort.
With a healthier body, we will be easily connected to the ecosystem so that stress goes down because stress is triggered by things that are uncomfortable for the body, both physically and psychologically.
In many studies, fresh air contains many phytoncides, natural chemicals produced by plants in protecting themselves from pests and insects. The literature explains that if we inhale these chemicals, the body will respond by increasing the number and activity of white blood cell types that become natural killer cells. These cells play a role in killing cells infected with tumors and viruses in our bodies.
Forest bathing studies, especially those formulated by Qing Li, found that the increased activity of cancer-killing cells occurred after walking in the forest three days two nights in 30 days. So no wonder, Li always took the time to walk in the park for two hours every evening and enter the forest every weekend to accumulate the “shinrin-yoku” travel time. Japanese researchers are investigating whether “bathing in the forest” can cure certain types of cancer.
Therefore, according to Hikmat, the healing forest requires several conditions. In fact, he said, in the process of healing using forests, the ecosystem must be determined in advance because several other conditions must be met. “Not all forest areas have spots for healing forests,” he said.
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