Is Forest Bathing Bullshit?

I mean....I'll try anything once

Instagram seems to know I’m in the woods. Of course it does. It knows everything about me. I no longer have any doubt that Meta is regularly listening to me through my phone to serve me ads. Even typing those paranoid words I feel almost like a crazy anti-vaxxer but in this case it’s definitely true.

I know it’s true because it serves me products tailored to the exact age of my baby to the week. And the fact that the other day my friend Jackie was talking to me about Sculptra injections and now they’re all over my feed. I also know it is true because it seems to know I am in the woods right now and it is taunting me about it.

Specifically by serving me content about forest bathing.

Every time I open my phone it feels like I am being shamed. Why are you scrolling social media or dicking around on the computer when you could be out enjoying nature and soaking in all that Vitamin D.

I hate being shamed by my phone.

Will I get that butt or those abs if I forest bathe every day? Because if so….even though I am very body positive and love my post baby body…LOVE IT….I would probably do it just because you know….society.

Now forest bathing itself has been around for a very long time. It’s ancient, if you believe the Internet.

It’s also appeared in trend pieces for years now. I first read about it in this piece in the WSJ.

The practice of shinrin-yoku isn’t new—the Japanese government has spent millions funding research and promotion of it, and early adopters like Justin Bieber and Gwyneth Paltrow solidified its spread to Hollywood. But a sudden spate of social-media influencers, fashion designers and wellness gurus offering immersive forest-bathing experiences, classes or even forest-bathing rental properties are expanding the trend.

Reading this again I feel like I should add forest bathing to the AIRBNB listing for our cabin.

And obviously Goop fucking loves it!

Since it is well-known that stress inhibits immune function, I speculated that forest bathing may have a beneficial effect on immune function by reducing stress. And I tested this hypothesis by conducting many experiments: I looked at the effects of walking in forests and of phytoncides—the scents that trees give off—on immune cells, stress hormones, blood pressure, and heart rate. I compared the mortality rates from cancer between people who live in areas with high versus low forest coverage. And I compared the effects on mood and mental state (anxiety, depression, anger, fatigue, and confusion) of walking in forests versus walking on treeless city streets.

But taking beautifully filtered pictures of yourself forest bathing and claiming it cured everything from your anxiety to your auto immune disorder. That’s newish.

I like the woods. That was not always the case. I didn’t grow up camping and hiking. When we traveled at all my parents were more hotel bar people than campfire people. But I married a man who would happily live in the wilderness and never cut his hair if I hadn’t come along and so now I go into the woods a lot. And I like it. But I don’t usually do it solo and I don’t do it for any curative reasons.

Except now Instagram has told me to and I’m kind of curious. Should I forest bathe?

We are in the Catskills for the rest of the summer with access to thousands of acres of hiking trails. There’s a gorgeous waterfall that’s a mile hike just minutes from my house. I mean. I guess I should bathe.

So I’ve committed. Every day this week I will not only hike to the waterfall solo but I will also cold plunge into said freezing waterfall. Cold plunging is something else Instagram seems to want me to do according to the other videos I get served.

I started yesterday.

The walk into the woods here is super pretty.

Clearly I am skeptical of taking of my clothes and jumping into this freezing waterfall.

But I did it and this is what happened.