Scientists from Japan have found that a tradition called Shinri-ioku still remains strong, and why this is so, the reasons are of biochemical nature.
Everyone enjoyed the beauty of nature walking down the woods for at least once in theirs’ life. This is why some people choose to live in the woods or next to them and why other people travel thousands of miles to walk in the forests of the Redwood, the jungles of Costa Rica or Ecuador.
However, scientists from Japan say that the tradition called Shinri-ioku or “swimming in the forest” remains strong, and why this is so, the reasons are of biochemical nature.
Specifically, the researchers found that staying in the forest improves natural immunity, which is important for preventing cancer and other chronic diseases.
How this in fact happens?
When researchers tested people before and after a two-hour walk in the woods, they found that in all patients except for one person had increases T-cells for 50%. They also had lower blood pressure, felt calm and their mind was clear.
Researchers have described this phenomena
The trees and plants in the environment environment emit “antimicrobial VOCs plant derivative called phytoncides to exterminate bacteria and fungi”. Fungi and bacteria can be a problem for our immune system, and it turns out that even the trees do not like them.
Forest trees are hundreds, if not thousands of years old. Trees and other plants improved their protection, what is in fact a compound that can kill fungi and bacteria. When walking in the woods, your breath becomes one with these components. The effect lasts for about 2 months.
For example, when we walk in the forest we bathe in its natural immunity. We are diving in the “phytochemical” immune system of the forest.
Professor King Li of the Department of Hygiene and Public Health of the Nippon Medical School in Tokyo, presented this story to an American science writer Anna Lena Phillips.
In the article there is more specific information on the effects of specific hormones, including the effects of noradrenaline and DHEA stress and adiponectin. The low levels of adiponectin is associated with type 2 diabetes and obesity.
The study in published in European Journal of Applied Phisiology.