Forest Bathing: What Does the Research Really Tell Us About Shinrin-Yoku?

Forest bathing, or shinrin-yoku, has become increasingly popular as a way of reducing stress and improving wellbeing. But what is forest bathing, what are the supposed benefits, and how strong is the research behind it? It's a subject I've become particularly interested in through my work in nature-based therapy, but my own relationship with forests hasn't always been a positive one.

As a child, forests seemed like slightly scary places to me. I don't remember there being one particular reason for it. There was just something about them that felt dark, enclosed and a little unsettling.

Later, I moved to Shetland, somewhere that isn't exactly known for its forests. I remember some people who had moved there complaining about the lack of trees, but it never really bothered me. I didn't have that sense that something important was missing from the landscape.

After leaving Shetland, I even worked for the Forestry Commission for a while. But despite being surrounded by people who were obviously very interested in trees and forests, I still don't think I really "got" forests.

That changed a few years ago when I was going through a particularly difficult period in my life.

There was a local park estate with beautiful, mature trees that I found myself increasingly drawn to. I started going there regularly. It wasn't a conscious decision that spending time amongst trees would be good for me. I just kept wanting to go back.

Over time, I became aware of a very strong sense of comfort when I was there. The best way I can describe it is that it felt as though the forest was giving me a hug. Being surrounded by those huge trees felt comforting and reassuring in a way I hadn't experienced before.

What interested me afterwards was how completely different that was from my childhood experience of forests. The environment that had once felt dark and slightly frightening now felt incredibly comforting.

And that raises one of the questions I find most interesting about forest bathing and nature-based therapy: what is it about particular environments that affects us, and why might the same environment affect us differently at different points in our lives?

It was around this time that I became increasingly interested in outdoor therapy and in the relationship between our surroundings, attention and internal experience.

Eventually, that interest led me to the Japanese practice of forest bathing, or shinrin-yoku — and to the research investigating what actually happens when we spend time amongst trees.

What Is Forest Bathing?

The term shinrin-yoku was introduced in Japan in 1982 by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. It is usually translated into English as forest bathing, although there is no actual bathing involved.

The idea is closer to taking in, or immersing yourself in, the atmosphere of a forest.

And it isn't necessarily about hiking or strenuous exercise.

Forest bathing typically involves spending time relatively slowly and attentively within a forest environment. Walking may be involved, but so might sitting, pausing, noticing sounds, observing light and colour, smelling the environment and becoming more consciously aware of physical and sensory experience.

This sensory element is important.

Rather than simply using a forest as a pleasant backdrop for another activity, shinrin-yoku involves deliberately engaging with the environment.

Why Did Forest Bathing Develop in Japan?

There is sometimes an assumption that shinrin-yoku is an ancient Japanese tradition which has recently been discovered by the West.

In fact, the term itself is modern.

Shinrin-yoku was introduced in Japan in 1982 as part of an initiative encouraging people to spend time in the country's forests. In the decades that followed, Japanese researchers began investigating whether spending time in forest environments might have measurable psychological and physiological effects.

Since then, interest in forest bathing has spread far beyond Japan. Shinrin-yoku has become internationally recognised, appearing in books, retreats, guided experiences and the wider wellness world, while researchers have continued to investigate what effects it might actually have.

Studies have explored everything from mood and anxiety to heart rate, blood pressure, cortisol and immune function.

And that's where things become particularly interesting.

Search for the benefits of forest bathing and you'll find some very confident claims about what spending time amongst trees can do for our physical and mental health.

But, as is often the case when an appealing idea becomes popular, the claims can become considerably stronger than the evidence behind them.

So what does the research actually tell us?

What Are the Benefits of Forest Bathing?

There is good reason to be interested in the possible psychological benefits of forest environments.

A systematic review and meta-analysis by Kotera and colleagues examined shinrin-yoku and nature therapy and found evidence suggesting that forest bathing may reduce mental health symptoms in the short term, with particularly promising findings around anxiety.

But the researchers also highlighted important limitations, including the need for more rigorous studies and longer-term follow-up.

A later systematic review and meta-analysis examining 36 studies involving 3,554 participants also reported improvements in depression and anxiety following forest-based interventions, although findings relating to physiological outcomes were less consistent.

So there is certainly something worth paying attention to.

But there is an important difference between saying:

Research suggests that forest bathing may have beneficial effects on psychological wellbeing.

and saying:

Forest bathing has been proven to treat anxiety and depression.

Those aren't interchangeable claims.

And that distinction becomes particularly important when an interesting area of research becomes part of a much larger wellness industry.

What Does Forest Bathing Research Actually Tell Us?

A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis looked specifically at the short-term cardiovascular and mental health responses to shinrin-yoku.

The researchers initially identified 718 records, but only 11 studies ultimately met the criteria for inclusion.

Their analysis found reductions in several measures following forest bathing, including heart rate, tension-anxiety and depression-despondency.

At first glance, that sounds extremely impressive.

But there is another part of the research that's equally important.

The researchers assessed the certainty of the evidence.

They rated it very low.

The studies had problems including risk of bias, inconsistency and imprecision, and there was considerable variation between some of the findings.

The researchers therefore reached a much more cautious conclusion than many of the headlines about forest bathing might suggest. They proposed that shinrin-yoku could potentially be considered a complementary health-promotion practice, rather than a standalone intervention for preventing or treating cardiovascular or mental health disorders.

It's a useful reminder of why we need to be careful with phrases such as "research shows".

Research can show us something interesting while still leaving us with a great deal that we don't know.

Why Might Forest Bathing Affect Us?

This is perhaps the part I find most interesting.

If people do experience psychological benefits from forest bathing, what is actually producing them?

There probably isn't one simple answer.

When somebody spends time immersed in a forest, many things change simultaneously.

They may be walking rather than sitting.

Their visual environment changes.

They experience different sounds, smells and textures.

Their attention may be drawn towards movement, patterns, light and colour.

They may be spending less time looking at screens.

They may temporarily be away from work, traffic, household demands and other sources of stress.

There may also be something about the experience of being physically surrounded by trees.

That was certainly an important part of my own experience. But I also know from my childhood that being surrounded by trees doesn't inevitably feel comforting.

Expectations may matter too. If somebody deliberately sets aside time for an activity they believe will be restorative, that context could potentially contribute to their experience.

All of this creates an obvious challenge for researchers.

If someone feels better after an hour of forest bathing, was it the forest?

Was it the walking?

Was it the reduction in everyday demands?

Was it sensory engagement?

Was it focused attention?

Was it the experience of being somewhere they associated with safety or restoration?

Was it social connection if they participated with other people?

Or was it some combination of all of these?

This doesn't mean the effect isn't real.

It means we need to be careful about how we explain it.

What About Forest Bathing and the Immune System?

One of the most widely repeated claims about the benefits of forest bathing concerns phytoncides.

Phytoncides are volatile organic compounds released by plants and trees. Researchers have investigated whether exposure to these substances could contribute to some of the physiological effects associated with spending time in forests.

There is some intriguing research here, including studies looking at natural killer (NK) cell activity and other aspects of immune functioning.

A recent systematic review and meta-analysis found favourable immunological outcomes associated with phytoncide exposure, including changes in NK cell activity.

But there was a considerable limitation: the review included only six studies involving a total of 79 participants, and the quality of the evidence was rated low.

That's rather different from the confident claim sometimes encountered online that simply breathing in phytoncides "boosts your immune system".

There may be something genuinely interesting happening.

We simply don't yet have enough high-quality evidence to support some of the stronger claims that have grown up around it.

Forest Bathing Isn't Simply About Relaxation

One of the things I find particularly interesting about forest bathing from a therapeutic perspective is its emphasis on sensory experience.

When we're working indoors, particularly when therapy is heavily conversational, the therapeutic process can easily become centred almost entirely around words.

A forest provides a very different attentional environment.

There are sounds which appear and disappear.

Movement occurs at different distances.

Light changes.

Temperature and air movement can be noticed physically.

The ground changes beneath someone's feet.

There are textures, smells, patterns and spaces.

And somebody doesn't necessarily need to create an internal image of a peaceful forest because they're already having a direct sensory experience of the environment around them.

That doesn't automatically make the experience therapeutic.

But it does give us something interesting to think about.

What Can Forest Bathing Teach Us About Nature Therapy?

Perhaps we don't need to become forest-bathing practitioners to learn something useful from shinrin-yoku.

One of its most interesting lessons for nature therapy is simply that environment matters.

But I'd add an important qualification to that.

Environment matters because of the relationship the individual has with it.

My childhood experience of forests and my adult experience of that park estate were almost opposites.

Someone else might hate forests altogether.

One person might feel safer looking across a huge open landscape. Another might experience that same openness as exposed and uncomfortable.

The sea might feel incredibly calming to one person and frightening to somebody else.

A woodland path might encourage one person to slow down and notice what's around them, while leaving somebody else preoccupied with mud, insects, uneven ground or where the path is leading.

There is no reason to assume that "natural" automatically means "better".

And that's an important consideration when we're thinking about forest therapy, nature therapy or taking other forms of therapy outdoors.

The useful question isn't:

Which natural environments are therapeutic?

It's:

What does this environment make possible for this particular person, at this particular time?

Forest Bathing, Attention and Hypnosis

There are also some interesting parallels between forest bathing and hypnosis.

That doesn't mean forest bathing is hypnosis.

But both can involve changes in how attention is directed.

During forest bathing, somebody might become absorbed in the movement of leaves, the repetitive rhythm of walking, the sound of water or the sensation of air against their skin.

Things that were previously peripheral to awareness can move into the foreground.

Attention may narrow at some moments and broaden at others.

Someone may become absorbed in a particular sensory experience.

Time may be experienced differently when they're deeply engaged with what's happening around them.

These are experiences that should sound familiar to hypnotherapists.

Hypnosis doesn't require somebody to shut their eyes, remain perfectly still or withdraw their attention from the outside world.

The environment itself can become part of what we utilise.

A sound doesn't necessarily need to be ignored.

Movement doesn't necessarily need to stop.

A sensation doesn't necessarily need to be replaced by an imagined one.

What's already happening can become part of the hypnotic experience.

From Forest Bathing to Nature-Based Therapy

This is where forest bathing becomes particularly interesting from a therapeutic perspective.

The important question isn't simply whether being in a forest is good for us.

It's what happens when we begin thinking deliberately about the relationship between environment, attention, sensory experience and therapeutic process.

A therapist working outdoors has access to things that simply aren't available in quite the same way inside a consulting room.

Movement can become part of therapy.

Changes in terrain can become experiential.

Natural objects can provide spontaneous metaphor.

Sensory experiences can become anchors for attention.

The therapist can utilise what's actually happening rather than continually asking the client to imagine something else.

None of this requires us to make exaggerated claims about the healing power of nature.

In fact, I think it becomes considerably more interesting when we don't.

The research into forest bathing is promising, particularly around short-term psychological wellbeing, but there are still significant limitations in the evidence. Reviews continue to highlight methodological weaknesses and the need for better-quality and longer-term research.

But shinrin-yoku also raises a bigger question about how we think about therapy.

Psychological experience doesn't happen independently of the world around us.

We respond to spaces, sounds, movement, temperature, light, openness, enclosure and countless other aspects of our surroundings.

And those responses aren't fixed.

For me, forests went from being somewhere that felt slightly frightening as a child, to something I barely thought about, to a place I found myself returning to again and again during a difficult period of my life.

Eventually, being amongst those trees felt like being given a hug.

Perhaps that's one of the most useful lessons we can take from forest bathing.

Not that forests are inherently healing.

But that our relationship with our environment can be powerful, personal and capable of changing.

And for therapists, that's something worth paying attention to.

Discover more about outdoor hypnotherapy training and Hypnosis Through Nature® here.

References

Andrade, A. M., Durães, S. F., Franco Netto, L. C. R., Fenner, A. L. D., Carvalho, M. A. B., & Franco Netto, G. (2026). Short-term cardiovascular and mental health responses to Shinrin-Yoku (forest bathing): A systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 17, 1707829.

Kotera, Y., Richardson, M., & Sheffield, D. (2022). Effects of Shinrin-Yoku (forest bathing) and nature therapy on mental health: A systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 20, 337–361.

Park, B. J., Tsunetsugu, Y., Kasetani, T., Kagawa, T., & Miyazaki, Y. (2010). The physiological effects of Shinrin-yoku (taking in the forest atmosphere or forest bathing): Evidence from field experiments in 24 forests across Japan. Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine, 15, 18–26.

Wen, Y., Yan, Q., Pan, Y., Gu, X., & Liu, Y. (2019). Medical empirical research on forest bathing (Shinrin-yoku): A systematic review. Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine, 24, 70.