Learn About Ecotherapy from a Certified Forest Therapy Guide

Chelsi Abbott, a technical advisor and education specialist at the Davey Institute (and Certified Forest Therapy Guide), talks about ecotherapy, also known as forest bathing, including how to do it and its benefits. 

In this episode we cover:  

• What is ecotherapy? (0:53)
• What a Certified Forest Therapy Guide does (1:45)
• How long does forest bathing take? (4:19)
• What the forest gives (5:46)
• Garden Meditation Day (6:38)
• Why Chelsi is a guide (8:22)
• How Chelsi became a guide (10:00)
• Finding yourself in nature (11:09)
• Forest bathing tips (12:52)
• Fungi and forest bathing (13:55)
• The goal of forest bathing (16:13)
• What Chelsi gets out of forest bathing (17:17)

To find your local Davey office, check out our find a local office page to search by zip code.  

To learn more about the benefits of trees and nature, check out our blog, The Endless Ways Planting a Tree Can Benefit You.

To learn more about the best times to prune, read our blog, When is the Best Time to Prune Trees?  

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Connect with Doug Oster at www.dougoster.com. 

Have topics you'd like us to cover on the podcast? Email us at podcasts@davey.com. We want to hear from you!    

Transcript

Doug Oster: Welcome to the Davey Tree Expert Company's podcast, Talking Trees. I'm your host, Doug Oster. Each week, our expert arborists share advice on seasonal tree care, how to make your trees thrive, arborists' favorite trees, and much, much more. Tune in every Thursday to learn more, because here at the Talking Trees podcast, we know trees are the answer.

This week, I'm joined again by Chelsi Abbott. She's a technical advisor for the Davey Institute based in Chicago. Today, we're talking all about ecotherapy and nature's healing properties. Chelsi, welcome back to the show. Over the years, we've talked about lots of cool stuff, including one of your favorite things, fungi, but I think ecotherapy is another one of your favorites, right?

Chelsi Abbott: I have so many favorite things, but yes, thank you. Thank you for having me back yet again.

Doug: Just tell me what ecotherapy is and how you're connected to ecotherapy.

Chelsi: Ecotherapy, also known as, say, forest therapy or forest bathing, is essentially using nature to access mental health and even sometimes physical health benefits, but not in the form of exercise or even meditation. It's sort of in this, I would say, right in between land where you're not necessarily standing still, but you're not also going for a very long walk. It's really just being in nature and not expecting anything from it other than just being. My connection to it, I am a certified forest bathing or forest therapy guide. I actually got that certification last year. I can certainly talk more about forest bathing, the process of it, the benefits. You just ask me whatever you need.

Doug: Well, let's just go there. I've touched on forest bathing before, but you tell me, as an ecotherapist, what you do at a forest bathing class or get-together.

Chelsi: Sure. Okay. First off, just to be clear, I want to make sure, I'm not an ecotherapist, I'm an ecotherapy guide, because one of the main tenets, and the reason why, and you'll like this, one of the main tenets that we learn when going through this certification process is that we are not the therapist, the forest and the nature is the therapist. We are simply the guide to bring people into that space, to sort of let nature do the therapy for us.

It's sort of a little bit, you have to open up to it, but our training is trying to get people comfortable enough to allow those experiences to happen. With that, it's just a little tiny thing, but it helps to understand that the forest and the nature is supposed to be the therapist. In this sense, what say a forest therapy guide or forest bathing guide or ecotherapy guide would be doing is leading people into nature and giving them what's called several invitations. The language is pretty important, because theoretically, you could do whatever you want [chuckles] out in nature, but we'll give an invitation. For example, something like, "Go explore the textures of the space."

You would walk out into the space and just touch as many things. Nothing poisonous, please. As many things and just experience the different textures. Then, oh, maybe you had a thought or, "Oh, maybe I want to go do something else," and you sort of follow it. You almost get into the space, headspace sometimes, where you don't even realize that time is passing, because you're really just experiencing it, but it does take a little bit sometimes. Some people can get into that headspace quicker, but we're really just meant to open that door and make the space so you feel free that you can do things like that.

Doug: I like that first step with the texture.

Chelsi: It's one of my favorite invitations.

Doug: Yes, because it's something that I guess we normally wouldn't do. Feel the bark, or the mushroom, or whatever it might be. Not the poison ivy, but anything else. When you're doing this, how much time? Does it depend on the people? Does it depend on the space? How much time are you spending in the forest?

Chelsi: Yes. I would say space is less important than time. I've led people in fully forested areas, I've led people closer to parking lots. Obviously, the more deep into the forest you can get, the better, just because of soundscape mostly. Theoretically, you could do this anywhere as long as there's some green space. Generally, time, we like to have at least an hour, but we could go up to three hours. It really, honestly, depends upon each guide, but also the group. Some people are like, "I can't give you three hours on a Saturday. That's ridiculous." So we do a condensed version.

Yes, there's actually some studies out there that would show the longer you spend out in nature, obviously the more benefits you're going to have. Ideally, I think the best time that we've seen is about two hours spent in nature.

Doug: I bet you have people that would love the two hour, three hour version.

Chelsi: Oh, yes. Again, like I said, time sort of like melts away. If you really feel yourself getting into that right headspace, you don't even realize that time is going. There'll be some times when I'm guiding and I'll sort of see that people are really into it. I'm like, "Okay, I'm just going to give them like 15 more minutes." Then when I call them back, they're just like, "How long was that?" [laughs] Because they were just out there frolicking. It's amazing.

Doug: What kind of other therapy can the forest give us?

Chelsi: Oh, goodness. It's actually, it's so personal to really, each people's individual experience. I know that there's some people, and I want to be clear, forest bathing or forest therapy, it's not for everyone. The same as any type of therapy. Some people like to use it just to be outside and breathe some fresh air for a little while. Some people have very moving, very deep, like spiritual experiences. I would think, like any level that you can get, you can get as deep as needed in that moment. Yes, I've had some people have some pretty significant breakthroughs regarding mostly trauma, but it's going to be, again, very individualized.

Doug: The day after this podcast drops is Garden Meditation Day. Tell me a little bit about that. That's got to be part of forest bathing. It just sounds so wonderful to me.

Chelsi: Yes.

Doug: I live in a forest, but I don't do as much forest bathing as I should. I'm walking through the trails, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. I'm picking daffodils. I just like the idea of this meditation. Tell me a little bit about that meditation part of this.

Chelsi: Yes. That's why I mentioned that it doesn't necessarily need to be in a forest to be considered forest bathing. It's really just interacting with nature in any sort of way. That usually, you don't want to have sort of a goal. Like, "Oh, I need to hike 2 kilometers." Sometimes when you're gardening, it can be a bit more stressful if you're like crying over why plants are being eaten by slugs or something like that. Any interaction that we can have with nature is going to obviously bring us closer to it and allow us to sort of work into our brains where we're in a bit of a different headspace than, say, we would be at work.

Certainly, garden meditation, or being in your garden can be a form of forest bathing. You're maybe not getting invitations by an active forest therapy guide, but you're certainly-- your hands are in the dirt, there's plenty of not only mental health, but physical benefits that can come with interacting with the bacteria and microbes that actually are naturally occurring in the dirt. Also, the trees are letting off these gases that as we interact with them as well, it has a lot of physical health benefits.

Doug: Why is this right for you to be a guide?

Chelsi: Why is this right?

Doug: Yes, why is this right for you?

Chelsi: Oh, so this is, funny enough, this is actually something that I learned about while speaking at a conference in Finland. They were actually doing a study where they tested the cortisol levels of people before and after spending time in nature to actually show that it dropped. They were trying to build a prescriptive approach. Meaning, oh, do you need to do 15 minutes every two days, or two hours once a week? It sort of just opened my mind up to this whole thing. Then once I started to look at my own career, I'm a plant pathologist. I mostly do diagnostics and teach people, but also do a lot of, I would say, field diagnostics.

A lot of my now experience with nature is diagnosing dying trees. One of the things I noticed was I started to get almost a little bit, like they were an object, not a living thing. I became detached from nature. Myself and many other people that I work with and teach got into this line of work because we love nature. When it starts to get detached, you lose that feeling of connectedness and benefit of it. It was something that was important. I would say, right for me, because I wanted to reconnect. Learn how to reconnect. I also wanted to try to teach people in my industry, maybe let's get back to the reason we got into this industry.

Instead of seeing that as yet another tree that we need to take down, or yet another oak that declined for whatever reason. They're living beings, part of an ecosystem, and they're also special to people.

Doug: What was the training like?

Chelsi: It was about six-- there might be different ways to do this. The way that I went through it is through ANFT, which is American Nature Forest Therapy, I believe. That's an accredited sort of accreditation. It was six months online training, like every Saturday, which three hours, four hours every Saturday. Then at the end, you do a four-day immersion, where you go on walks led by established forest therapy guides, as well as talk about your own experience guiding, some maybe workshopping, some different types of invitations, learning maybe what works and what doesn't work, what to do when this happens or this happens.

Actually, it was a wonderful experience. Like I said, through the training, I not only learned how to make the space for other people to connect, but I learned a lot just about my own relationship with nature. It was sort of like a self-finding process, while also helping other people find it. It was very rewarding.

Doug: Talk a little bit about that. What do you mean by that? By finding a little bit of your own connection with nature?

Chelsi: Yes, I think it was like I rediscovered a little bit. When I was a kid, I used to just go out into the woods and just sort of, just to continue to use this term, just sort of frolic. [laughs] You don't really recognize when you stop doing that, you just stop it. Most of my interactions with nature as an adult have been either through like hiking, so exercise, right? I have a goal in mind. I need to get this amount, or I want to find this view, or something like that, or through work. Which ended up making me a little bit hardened towards nature. So, when I was going through this, because every weekend, or some weekends, they would make you go out and do these virtual walks.

They would lead you through it, and then we would have debriefs afterwards. To just have to sit for two hours, while someone talks in your ear and gives you invitations, and you put yourself through it, it was like, "Oh, well, yes, this is a different way to interact with nature." Where you're just sort of slowly, you're not really expecting anything. It was like we were becoming forest therapy guides, but also being [chuckles] the people led in to forest therapy. It was like having two roles. It was very cool.

Doug: It's funny, because when my wife and I walk in the woods, I'm always the one lingering, looking down at the little things. She has a goal, like you were saying.

Chelsi: Yes.

Doug: "We're going to get from here to there." I'm just like, "Oh, look at--

Chelsi: Exactly.

Doug: What's down here?" Can you give us a few other tips on slowing down a little bit and getting some therapy from the forest?

Chelsi: Yes, absolutely. One of the best ways that I've [chuckles] learned to describe how to, I would say, forest bathe, or what it's like to forest bathe is, have you ever watched a cat go for a walk outside?

Doug: Yes.

Chelsi: You know how they-- dogs are very much like, "I'll walk with you." Right? Whereas cats are like, "Stop, start. Oh, I'm going to go over here, maybe I'll lay down for a little bit. Oh, I'll climb this tree just randomly." I think cats are excellent forest bathers. Sometimes, when I'm out in the forest, I find myself becoming more dog, right? Where I'm like, "Yes, I'm walking, and I'm going." I'm like, "Okay, wait, wait, wait. Let's be a cat here." Let's just like, "Oh, that's a fun color over there," or, "Oh, there's a bug, let's chase that for a while."

You sort of just like get into the headspace of like, "Let's just be random." Don't let people know your next move, kind of thing. I would say, if you ever want to think about, "Well, who's the best forest bather?" Cats. Cats are excellent.

[laughter]

Doug: Tell me a little bit about how your love of fungi relates, because I know it has to relate to-

Chelsi: Of course, it does.

Doug: -guiding a nice forest bathing walk.

Chelsi: Sure. One of my favorite-- well, there's so many things I love about fungi, of course. One of the favorite things about fungi is really how they interconnect everything underground, right? They really are the main drivers of a lot of that common mycelial network that some people might know as either the tree internet or the wood wide web. It's really, that's fungal network, right? They're sort of connecting hosts to gain carbon. They're like these unsung heroes that are just going about their business. They really tend to-- it's like a whole ecosystem underneath there just based fully on fungi, and them interacting with not only trees, but also other microbes and insects as well.

One of the great things about fungi is, because they're so pervasive, they're just excellent at just connecting one to the other. They do it in the most efficient way possible. One of the things I like to tell people as well is, when you're thinking about grounding yourself or thinking about, "How do I look to other beings?" I like to think about like, how would you imagine you tromping through the forest would look to like a fungi? Would they be able to sense your footsteps? What would that seem like? One of the fun things, and it gets a little edgy for some people, but the fun things that I like to have people do is imagine what it looks like from the forest to you.

What do you think, and imagine how it would be to be observed by beings that are not human. It's a little bit of, again, get a little bit weird, [laughs] but it's fun to sort of think about, because there's intelligence in these different fungi and trees. It might not be the same as a human intelligence, but certainly, when you look at how fungi grow, and how efficient they are, there's certainly an intelligence about there. I like to think about, how does fungi see a human? What would that do to their ecosystem, and how would they react to that?

Doug: I hope the fungi look at me as a fun guy.

Chelsi: [laughs] I know they look at me as a fun gal.

[laughter]

Doug: Tell me a little bit about what you hope that the people that you guide get out of time with you in the forest.

Chelsi: I try not to bring too many expectations when I'm guiding people. Most of what I hope for people when I'm out there with them is that they, at some point, find themselves feeling a little bit calmer. I've had a lot of really good conversations afterwards. One of the things that's important about forest bathing or forest therapy is there's no right way to do it. There's no like, "Oh, I've achieved this, therefore--" Because then you're back to thinking, "Okay, I need to get to this goal."

Most of the times, when I'm guiding people, what I hope for is I just hope that they sort of have whatever experience is best for them for that hour or two hours that we're in together. If that means talking to someone the whole time, or if that means go sitting alone underneath the tree, or sticking your hands in a river, so be it. It's choose your own adventure.

Doug: Tell me what you get out of doing it. About guiding people.

Chelsi: Oh, man. I had this one solo walk that I did by myself, where you give yourself-- you guide yourself. It's really cool, where you flip back and forth between being a guide and being the led. I had this really interesting moment where I was walking, and I was listening to the birds, and it was-- I don't know if you've ever read What the Robin Knows. It's a book that talks about bird language. I felt like the birds were trying to tell me something as I continue to slowly walk. I was just like, "What are you guys talking about?" I sort of turned a corner and there was just like this big bull elk that was just sort of like laying down in the middle of a sunspot.

I was like, "Okey-dokey." I just turned around and walked the other way. I was like, "Thanks, guys." I had sort of this cool moment where it was like the birds were being like, "Hey, hey, you're maybe getting close to something you don't want to be around." Sort of being able to put those two together before I maybe got into a situation where the bull saw me. I was like, "All right." It made me feel very much like what we're supposed to be, which is really, part of nature, rather than a lot of people thinking we're distinctly different, in a different circle from nature. We're supposed to be nature. That's what humans are.

Doug: Chelsi, that's great stuff. I love your enthusiasm. I knew if I moved to fungi that you would really, really get thrilled, because we've talked about it so many other times.

Chelsi: Of course.

Doug: Always great to talk to you. I look forward to the next time that we can explore a topic together. I need to spend a little time forest bathing.

Chelsi: As long as you're outside, and you're spending some time in the sun with some green things, I think you're doing a good job.

Doug: All right. Thanks, Chelsi.

Chelsi: Of course. Thank you for having me.

Doug: I just love talking with Chelsi. I'm sure you can hear that happiness in her voice. She's certainly inspired me to spend some quiet time in nature, and I hope she's encouraged you to do the same. Now, tune in every Thursday to the Talking Trees podcast, from the Davey Tree Expert Company. I am your host, Doug Oster. Do me a favor. Subscribe to the podcast so you'll never miss an episode. Have an idea for a show or maybe a comment? Send us an email at podcasts@davey.com. That's P-O-D-C-A-S-T-S@D-A-V-E-Y.com. As always, we'd like to remind you, on the Talking Trees podcast, trees are the answer.

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