Forest is the Cure

The theme for this year’s International Day of Forests is “Forest restoration: a path to recovery and well-being". The message is loud and clear — rewild and reconnect! The more we are axing trees to construct flyovers and buying gadgets to shut nature out of our lives, the further we are getting sucked into mental, physiological and social distress. The cure lies in nature, we just need to look for it. Be it an invigorating hike in the woods, a meditative session of forest bathing or turning to forest nutrition and medicine, urban societies must find a way to reach out to forests.
Make space for self-healing
Sehatvan was born out of the same sentiment. Literally meaning “healing forest”, this laboratory-cum-wellness retreat near Bhopal, is an exciting new space exploring the effect of forests on human body and psyche. Run by a drug discovery scientist, Dr Vipin Gupta and his psychologist son, Madhur Anand, Sehatvan seeks to heal people of chronic lifestyle disorders like diabetes, thyroidism and hypertension through the threefold method of community, wilderness and autophagy.
“The disconnect from nature is creating all sorts of diseases. If we look broadly, it's making my generation age faster than the previous ones. To slow down this ageing of humans and to revive forests, kind of go hand in hand,” feels Madhur. Self healing is the overpowering thought at their retreat. Explains Madhur, “All living beings are biologically designed to grow, reproduce and heal by themselves; however, with more medicines around, humans have somehow forgotten the potential of self-healing. We try to strengthen the self-healing potential by providing the right habitat and community environment.” Focused on treating the person and not the disease, they have also found Forest Therapy to be quite effective in cases of allergies and autoimmune conditions including asthma and lupus.
Multi-sensory experience
Professional forest bathing guide Dipika Sharma founded Forest Therapy India a few years ago to take people back to the woods. Having spent her early years in the tranquil locales of Upper Assam and Darjeeling, Dipika was always drawn to the serenity of the verdant forest. The need to be closer to nature resurfaced when she became a mother. While she conducts garden walks in Delhi too, her favourite haunt for workshops are the jungles of Pangot in Uttarakhand. “We spend two hours in the forest of Kilbury where the participants are asked to put their gadgets on silent mode as we want them to be completely present in the moment. We work on concepts of Grounding, Mindfulness and Qi gong (meditation in movement). We have sharing circles where participants share what they notice, many are connected back to memories from childhood, many find answers to questions they had. The session ends with a lovely tea ceremony,” tells Dipika.
Forest Bathing, originally called Shinrin Yoku, has several therapeutic benefits attached to it. Some of these include: Reduced stress, lesser mood swings, optimised blood pressure, better sleep patterns, balanced blood sugar levels, increased count of NK Cells (Natural Killer cells that fight cancer), better intuition, quicker recovery from surgery/illness and more. “The pandemic has influenced many to go within and self reflect and find nature connections as a meaning full way to relax. I have used this time to spread awareness about the healing nature of forests through webinars and will continue to do so,” says Dipika.
Japan now has 62 designated therapeutic woods attracting about 5 million visitors annually. But you don’t need to go to a certified forest to get your dose of forest medicine. Start from your neighbourhood, your city, your state.