Wild Walking by Melanie Choukas-Bradley offers a wonderful introduction to forest bathing in this short but quite beautiful book.
She starts by describing the practice and the potential benefits such as lowered stress, blood pressure, and increases in immune system responses and improved mood/mental state. What I found particularly interesting was the information about chemicals that trees and plants emit to protect themselves may also be beneficial when humans breathe them in.
The descriptions of activities and potential activities for each season were useful. I often look and listen when hiking in the woods but really slowing down to observe with all senses in a variety of mindful ways is newer to me.
I appreciated the suggestions for starting the practice and transitioning out of a forest bathing session to make it a little more special. Drinking a cup of tea is so easy but it would not have occurred to me to do so.
The illustrations are beautiful and really add to the feeling of the prose and overall sensibility of the book.
Thank you to NetGalley and the author for providing the eARC. ( )