v. Nature Therapy
Forest bathing with a baby Nathalie Moriarty In Forest Bathing, we slow down and use all our Marianne Hughes, illustration by Hazel senses to engage with with the forest environment. To me, what makes Forest Bathing special is that we can re-engage with a lost part of ourselves: our sense of child-like curiosity. As we progress through our busy lives, we forget to slow down and notice the small things. We take our senses for granted, heavily using the ones we need for modern life, and neglecting those we don’t. For example, many of us wear shoes as soon as we leave our homes; as children, we took our shoes off at the first chance we got, playing on fresh grass or running around water features in the park. I found as an adult that I had spent many years neglecting my feet and denying them the different sensations that can be found outdoors. Similarly, we increasingly use our eyes for close up work on a computer screen for many hours at a time, relying heavily on our near vision at the expense of our long-distance vision. Studies have found a dramatic increase in near-sightedness (myopia) in primary and secondary school-age children in Japanese and Chinese cities; while the exact reasons are debated, it has been noted that children are under pressure to perform well in school exams and are spending more time on small screens and less time outdoors. Eye specialists warn that the eyeball is not able to develop correctly when under constant unusual strain (Gardner,
2017); if we keep our focus up close, we limit
Brady our eyes’ capabilities. Getting outside gives us space to see further. We may think that it would be impossible to do something as slow and meditative as Forest Bathing with a baby. However, babies’ openness to the world make them excellent participants. Babies are primed to use all their senses for learning, and do not give preference to one sense over the next. It also takes time for all their senses to develop, and not all mature at the same rate— a baby’s hearing, for example, is one of the first senses to develop, and we know they can hear the voice of their mothers while in the womb. I suggest that the key difference between taking adults and babies on a Forest Bathing walk is that the adults have to ‘un-learn’ the habit of only relying on one sense, or on duller versions of their senses. A baby, on the other hand, is open to using all their senses indiscriminately. Before the last lockdown, I spent some time on an immersive winter walk in the woods with my sister, her partner and their one-year-old. We entered the space with purpose and calm, looking for opportunities to help a nonroaming baby engage her senses in the different elements of the woodland. To experience a rich sensory Forest Bathing walk, seek a woodland with a variety of elements. Ideally it should contain some type of water feature, particularly running water, which introduces a new element and allows for different sensations. The walk itself should not be very long: a mile or so should suffice. The aim is to find different places along the walk which invite us to engage our senses in the woodland. The purpose of the walk is not to get to a location, but to be consciously experiencing a journey of the senses. With a young baby who is not yet able to explore on their own, it is up to the adults to guide their engagement with the different elements of the woodland. We want to help the baby explore sights, colours, textures and
