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World image In search of no-sound

In search of no-sound

Patrick Shen, the director of the crowd-funded documentary In Pursuit of Silence, traveled to various locations, among which Japan, where environmental expert Yoshifumi Miyazaki of the University of Chiba immersed 700 hardened Japanese city dwellers in a silent, woody environment. The results of his study are remarkable. Their stay in the forest reduced the stress level of the test subjects as well as strengthened their immune system. In addition, the activity of anti-cancer cells increased by 56 percent. ‘Silence is a preventive medicine’, Miyazaki concludes. In short: a basic prerequisite for human well-being. .

(Reproduced from magazine EOS Wetenschap, sept. 2018) The Aokigahara forest, also known as the ‘Sea Of Trees’, owes its impressive silence to the solidified lava on which the forest has grown since the last eruption of Mount Fuji (Japan) in the year 864.