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Forest Bathing and the Power of Nature Connection with Ana Ka’ahanui, Capital Nature (Ep 69 Part 2) · Virginia Outdoor Adventures: Hiking, Camping, Kayaking, Local Travel and more!

• 0:00
  Unknown: From the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay, Virginia is a mecca for outdoor travel and adventure. Virginia outdoor adventures Podcast is your local guide for hiking, camping, kayaking, travel and so much more. Get the information and the inspiration to plan your own adventure right here in Virginia, I'm your host. Jessica Bowser, immerse yourself in nature's healing embrace with the transformative power of forest bathing. Ana ka AHA Nui, co founder of capital nature, uncovers the secrets behind this mindfulness practice rooted in Japanese culture more than just a walk among the trees, Anna shares how forest bathing can lower blood pressure, enhance creativity and offer a sanctuary for mental and physical well being in our fast paced world, we dive into the principles, benefits and practices of forest bathing, emphasizing its ability to help individuals reconnect to nature in everyday settings and the joy it brings through mindful sensory experiences.
• 1:03
  Unknown: This is part two of forest bathing and the power of nature connection. Let's go Virginia.
• 1:14
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• 1:45
  Unknown: Download the digital trail guide at breaks park.com, or click on breaks Interstate Park in the show notes of your listening app.
• 1:57
  Unknown: Anna, are there any unlikely places where you've led a forest bathing walk. I did mention we can do it anywhere, but probably one of the most interesting places that I've done it in a city setting is the DC mall, the National Mall. I was with some of my colleagues, other guides.
• 2:10
  Unknown: We were asked to lead a walk for an urban forest Summit.
• 2:16
  Unknown: Basically, we were on a corner where there was a little community garden, and there are about four or five trees on this little plot next to the garden, and we were able to execute and lead a regular forest bathing walk experience for our group.
• 2:28
  Unknown: And even though we may have had a little bit of more urban noise than we normally have, for example, during one of our sort of quieter breathing exercises, I have the distinct memory of a car stopping in front of us at a stop sign blaring, Pat benatars Hit me with your best shot. And so while we all have our eyes closed and we're trying to get Zan and into the moment, we have Pat Benatar screaming in the background, and I'm a Pat Benatar fan, so I was, I was pretty happy about it. I thought it was pretty funny. I would have been dancing, yes, you can, you can that. That's probably the most urban setting that I've done it in. That was definitely one to remember. Yeah, interesting. So you really can't do it anywhere. Yes, yes. Have you had any particularly memorable or transformative experiences with forest bathing that you'd be willing to share?
• 3:12
  Unknown: I have a couple. Actually, I led a walk a few years ago for the staff of a nonprofit in DC called Ward eight woods. And Ward eight Woods is a service organization that goes into the parks. You know, Ward eight has many parks, and they pull out trash and invasives, and so it's hard work. They're going in and just trudging and pulling out car tires and taking down vines and things like that. Some of the team that make up that crew are returning citizens, you know, previously incarcerated folks, and so this is their kind of, their their connection to the community and getting reintroduced. And so I'm friends with their executive director, Nathan Harrington, and he said, you know, Anna, I'd love you to give my team a forest bathing walk. I think that would, you know, be really into this, because they spend so much time, you know, pulling trash and things out of the parks. And so we had this walk, I think it was maybe two years ago now. I took this really great group of guys, you know, down. We were down at oxen run Park, and I took them down to the stream, and we were doing an exercise where we listened to water. I call it deer ears, where you put your hands up to your ears to kind of amplify the sound of the water.
• 4:19
  Unknown: And one of the gentlemen was so moved when he heard the water that he actually dropped to his knees because he thought it was so beautiful. And he said, You know, I've been working and pulling trash out of this out of this water. I've never stopped to think that it would make this beautiful sound, and that it was so beautiful. And so, yeah, it was kind of very, kind of a really pivotal moment for him, like he just really got into it.
• 4:44
  Unknown: And so that was beautiful.
• 4:46
  Unknown: Another story, what I like to share is I sometimes donate my walks to causes in the area. And there's one group that I work with every year called everyone home DC. They work with the unhoused and so they have an auction every year. And so I.
• 5:00
  Unknown: Usually donate a nature walk or a forest bathing walk. And so the woman, Samantha, that won the walk, you know, she invited a bunch of her girlfriends to go on a walk, and we did this over in Maryland. And at the beginning of the walk, when we were doing introductions, one of the women wanted to make it clear that she was not a nature person and that she didn't like to be outside, and she wasn't sure. She was pretty anxious.
• 5:21
  Unknown: She wasn't sure how this was going to go for her. And so I, you know, I basically said, you know, thank you for sharing that. You know, just, you just go do whatever's comfortable for you. You know, just, I want you to feel safe in this environment. At the end of the walk, we did an invitation, which is a sit spot with a tree, where I invite people to go and find a tree and hang out with it for a while and just be and then when we shared after that tree sit spot, this lovely lady, she said, I found a group of three trees that were together, and I stood with them, and I sang to them, and I sang to them, because I'm in an acapella group, and when I came across these trees that were standing all together, I felt like they were my acapella group. And so I sang to them for me, that was so amazing, because two hours prior, she had been talking about how she wasn't an outside person, the fact that she was at the end of the walk, singing to the trees and then sharing it with us was I just thought, I thought was pretty amazing.
• 6:13
  Unknown: Those are two examples that pretty much stick out for me right now. That's really lovely.
• 6:15
  Unknown: And forest bathing isn't woo woo at all. Right? It's not Woo, woo, yeah. I wish people would just not think that that it's woo, woo. But yeah, yeah, definitely. Oh, that's really lovely. Other than forest bathing, can you recommend other ways to connect with nature? Oh, yeah, there's so many different so many different ways people can do things like nature journaling. People could do birding. There's actually a word for mindful birding. It's called Orna therapy. My friend Holly Merker has co written a book called Orna therapy. I think her website is ornatherapy.com basically, studies have shown that the same kinds of mental benefits that people get from forest bathing, you get from experiencing when you're birding, when you're paying attention to the bird sound and the movement, and they're visually seeing them. And so I am a birder, and I know you're a birder too. The fact that Holly, she's actually a certified guide to the same organization that I am, you know, she leads sort of like combo locks, where it's a combination of forest bathing and birding, which I think is just awesome. One of the things that I'm most passionate about, well, first of all, my passion, just in general, is connecting people to nature. And so the ways that I do that are through forest bathing, but also through citizen science. It's also called community or participatory science. Now the name seems to be changing, but in my opinion, as long as you say it or do it, it doesn't matter what it's called, but let's call it participatory science right now. And what that means is, you know, scientists are out there doing studies and collecting data, and they just can't get all the data by themselves. They need people like us, lay people that aren't necessarily scientists, but that can collect data. And they've developed all kinds of tools, both manual tools and digital tools. And there's an app that I use called iNaturalist. It has a companion app called seek, but basically this app is a way for people to take pictures and upload them to the app, and then millions of people are using this app and can help crowdsource identification if you don't know what kind of bee that is or what kind of Daisy that is, there are people on iNaturalist that do know. And people can chime in and say, I think this is a fleabane, or I think this is a that Daisy or Philadelphia fleabane or whatever. And then if two out of three people agree on what the identification is, it becomes what is known as research grade.
• 8:31
  Unknown: So when I learned a couple actually, probably close to 10 years now, that my photos, because I am a photographer, that my photos of nature could contribute to scientific research, I was sold. I'm thinking, everyone's using their phones all the time. Everyone's outdoors. They're taking pictures of that butterfly.
• 8:45
  Unknown: They're taking pictures of that caterpillar or that pretty flower. If everybody knew that, you know, Hey, did you know that if you just upload those pictures to this app, you're contributing to science. And you might ask like, Well, where does the data go? Well, when it becomes research grade, there's a website called G Biff, the global biodiversity Information Facility. It's this massive clearinghouse of data. And so all of these data points go up into G Biff, and then people can use those for research papers.
• 9:12
  Unknown: So a lot of things are cited. So iNaturalist as an organization, they can say, every year, like our data from you guys, you the citizen scientists, the community scientists contributed to X number of reports because of the data that you found.
• 9:25
  Unknown: Another really compelling reason I think that people should be using something like iNaturalist is it helps land managers make decisions. And so, for example, if a certain Park is getting a lot of hits, a lot of observations on a certain type of invasive plant, the land managers, I can speak specifically have one the Arlington County Natural Resources Manager, Alonzo Abu goddess, also known as the capital naturalist. He's actually on the advisory board of my my capital nature nonprofit that I co founded, because he's a resources Natural Resources Manager. They look at that data, and then they can see like, oh, X Park looks like they have a lot more wineberry.
• 10:00
  Unknown: Like, we better get people out there to to pick that stuff up.
• 10:03
  Unknown: And so I just think that's a really, you know, that's it's a win win. It's a win win. People are out anyway. They're paying attention to things they're learning iNaturalist is also a social platform. I have made so many naturalist friends through the platform based on interactions that I've had about identifying a certain type of mushroom or a slime mold or something like that. You're like, you just make connections.
• 10:24
  Unknown: And what's really great is, I think one of my favorite memories is I was at Wolf Trap Park, natural park, leading a forest bathing walk, and there was a woman that I had connected with on iNaturalist, and she happened to be there on a volunteer day pulling weeds at Wolf Trap, and she heard that I was there in the park, and she waited around in the parking lot, and then introduced herself to me, and she said, Hey, I'm Isabella. I'm Isabella from iNaturalist, and it was so cool to like meet her in person. You know that practice of going out and being in nature and gathering this information is just, I just, I think it's just a wonderful thing. Adventure seekers will find endless opportunities in Grayson County, where many of Virginia's iconic trails and landmarks excite hikers, cyclists, paddlers and happy campers alike. Imagine this.
• 11:09
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• 12:30
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• 12:58
  Unknown: The biggest community science event that happens in the area is an annual event called the city nature challenge, and it's going to be happening April 25 to through the 28th it's four days. And basically the goal is to see how many people we can get outdoors, see how many people can make observations using the app iNaturalist, and how many species we can identify collectively as a group. This year, there will be over 600 cities around the world participating, and DC, for the last eight or nine years, has always been in the top 10 cities. We have a very engaged group of community scientists.
• 13:32
  Unknown: We have a website city nature challenge dc.org which will be listing different trainings for how to use the app online. And then also, will have a map and a list of all the events that will be happening over those four days if you wanted to go out and join a group, or instructions on how you can do it yourself. So the city nature challenges with the bio Blitz. It's basically a census of nature. Things need to be wild like so it's not going to be your potted plant, it's not going to be your pet cat.
• 13:58
  Unknown: But I love to tell kids that it could be evidence of nature. So it can be footprints, it could be poop, it could be bones, it could be skin, you know, it could be a feather, it could be anything that that points to an organism or something living.
• 14:12
  Unknown: And if it's identifiable, then it's, it's fair game as an observation. And so that's really fun. Like, I think last year I was a bull run after the rain, and I got my first possum prints I never got. I thought I had gotten raccoon prints, but another naturalist pointed out, Anna, you have two sets of prints in your photos, and the other one is an opossum. I had no idea. So anyway, I encourage everyone to get out. And what's great is it's some family friendly so it's multi generational. You know, kids are low to the ground. They can see stuff. They see stuff that their parents don't see Mom and Dad.
• 14:41
  Unknown: You have to be 13 or older to have an iNaturalist account. Mom or Dad might have their phone with the account or their device. Grandma can hold that pine cone while they're taking a picture. So it's families can do it. School groups can do it.
• 14:53
  Unknown: Churches can do anybody can do it. So we highly recommend people get out for the city nature challenge. Oh, that sounds like a lot of fun. I.
• 15:00
  Unknown: Will link it in the show notes, circling back to different ways that people connect with nature.
• 15:03
  Unknown: You talked about journaling and birding and this community or participatory science. How much time does someone need to actually spend, like doing these activities to see results? You know, the studies have shown recently that two hours per week is kind of the sweet spot for seeing results, for seeing these physical and mental benefits.
• 15:26
  Unknown: That's where they are right now, about about two hours a week.
• 15:29
  Unknown: And that doesn't have to be two hours all at one time. It could be spread out over the week. So even small bursts or doses going out, like you do to look at your garden, all of that adds up, you know, all of it adds up to the two hours. Yeah, at least the middle ones. Also, there is a gentleman named Tim Beatley from the University of Virginia. He is with the Biophilic Cities Network. You know, Biophilia means love of life, love of nature. And the Biophilic Cities Network is the sort of consortium of cities that basically are walking the walk and sharing the fact that they have nature. They have an infrastructure for nature connection for people in some of the trainings that we've attended, that he's done, he has a colleague at University of Virginia who has made something called the nature pyramid. And so it's the bottom pyramid is kind of like the daily dosage of nature, just kind of like, if you're going out and checking your mail or something like that, then there's the weekly, then there's the monthly, then there's the yearly. And so it kind of goes up in a pyramid. So the in terms of frequency, so the daily is the biggest one at the bottom, and then weekly, maybe you venture out a little bit further, and then the monthly, you know, maybe you visit another state, or something like that. And then the the yearly, maybe once a year you go out, go out of the country. And so I kind of like looking at it sort of as a nutrition pyramid, but for nature, I think it was a really nice way for them to come up with explaining that to people.
• 16:46
  Unknown: I've seen that pyramid before, and it makes a lot of sense, because in your day to day, like most people are not going out and hiking every single day, like they're not getting in their car and driving someplace far out and going out now, if you live somewhere near trails and you're, say, walking your dog every day, maybe. But that's that's a little bit different, right? So it's like the daily activities versus the like actually planning a trip and going somewhere. I wanted to mention a couple other things in terms of nature connection. One of the things that I actually haven't personally practiced, but I want to try, is the grounding or earthing you take your shoes off in your bare foot, because, you know, we gather all these, we gather all this electricity onto us, personally as humans, which is positive energy. And then I learned that the Earth is actually has negative energy. So by making that connection, you're you're neutralizing it, and you're rebalancing yourself.
• 17:32
  Unknown: And so I want to, I want to try that more. I mean, I've done walks. I've done some walks.
• 17:37
  Unknown: Actually, I had a walk once during COVID. I was supposed to be doing a forest bathing walk for a wedding during COVID, and it was canceled, unfortunately.
• 17:44
  Unknown: But the the arboretum let the wedding couple, the day of the supposed wedding, bring six people to the closed Arboretum and have it for four hours to themselves. And so they invited me to come anyway, and we did sort of a forest bathing walk just for them, but we did it. We all did it barefoot. So we literally were running around the arboretum for a couple hours in bare feet, and that was just, it's just an amazing feeling.
• 18:07
  Unknown: And so I haven't done that as much, but it's something that I want to learn more about, and I want to do myself. And I'm sure, you know, lots of people out there do it, so that's grounding. The other thing is, you mentioned your garden, just being outside and, you know, putting your hands in the dirt and touching all the touching all the leaves of the flowers like that's, I mean, that is an amazing nature connection, you know, and you're actually making a physical impact on what's going on with your native plants and things like that. So gardening is another way just simple walks where you're just not doing anything and grounding. One more thing I wanted to mention, if you can't connect your house, go to YouTube and look up nature sounds videos, nature videos, because even just having the sounds on in the background and watching the imagery, it doesn't matter if it's like, you know, from Hawaii, or if it's from Virginia or whatever, having that on in the background is very therapeutic. And so that could be just sort of like your gateway, like, hey, just or if you're like, wanting to get into birding, put it on one of those videos that just has bird sounds so that you can hear it and just be listening to it. Maybe you'll start recognizing some of the species, or something like that.
• 19:13
  Unknown: So that's a very easy way to kind of slow down and calm yourself. Is to is to just pull up some of these videos and have them going on in the background, which I highly recommend, even when I'm working. So I told you that the origin of forest bathing was of Shinran Yoko was in Japan, and I had the such luck and opportunity to go to Japan back in October on a sort of cultural exchange with their guides. And so about 20 of us international guides from all over that went and met up with the Japanese guides and went to three of the different forests where they practice forest bathing, including the one where the term forest bathing was was formed. You know, was was invented, if you will. And we got to do forest bathing there.
• 19:54
  Unknown: And so be leading up to my trip, I just played nothing on YouTube, but like nature of Japan video.
• 20:00
  Unknown: Those like in the background, just so that I can kind of prep myself for when I actually got to go there. So highly recommend. It's funny that you mentioned grounding, because I just did an episode. The guest name is Alejandra, from girls who hike Virginia, and we hiked old rag together, and when we got up there, she took her shoes off. And mind you, this was like, in winter, so it was freezing, but she's up there walking on the rocks in her bare feet. And I was like, what do you do? What are you doing? And she told me that she had heard about this thing called grounding, that she had learned about, and that she wanted to try it. And then after she tried it, she really, really enjoyed it. Now she does it as part of her regular practice. So whenever she gets to the summit, she takes off her shoes and she walks around and just connects to the earth, and she's like, you know, scrambling up boulders and stuff too, and her bare feet, which I think is impressive, and she said it just changes the experience for her.
• 20:48
  Unknown: But that also afterwards, her feet just feel really good, like they've just been massaged when she puts them back in her boots.
• 20:56
  Unknown: Yeah, I definitely, I mean, I definitely want to do it more. I want to do it more. It's funny, like, I think for me on a walk, like, usually when I go on a walk, and we try to be remind people that they need to, like, be mindful of ticks. If it's tick season, you know, so you have socks and things on and so, you know, the pulling all that stuff off and then putting it back on and putting, you know, back and forth. So logistically for me during my walks, it just doesn't work for me right now.
• 21:19
  Unknown: But you never know, I might be in a different scenario. You know, where it's totally appropriate for Hey, just like it was at that one time the arboretum, like, hey, let's just throw our shoes off and go around. Yeah, right.
• 21:31
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• 22:10
  Unknown: Are there any other resources that you recommend that you haven't already mentioned? Well, I have a lot of books that I like to recommend, recommend to people, so I will share that with you. One of my favorite books about nature connection is called the nature fix by Florence Williams. She's a friend of mine. She's a forest bathing guide. She's a science writer. It's all about the science of nature connection. So like, if you're kind of like a science nerd or or just want to know about how it literally is all working out all this connection to our senses. She traveled all around the world for this and worked with all different types of researchers and doctors. And I just think that's really fast. Think that's really fascinating. I mentioned I'm a dendrophile, so I love trees. So I have all kinds of tree books that I love. There's a book that one of my favorite books that I've read recently is called Night Magic, and it's all about exploring nature at night.
• 22:56
  Unknown: And so each chapter is dedicated to a different sort of grouping of species. So for example, it's bats, or it's glow worms, or it's moths. She kind of takes you on this journey of, like, what it's like to be out at night. You know, people kind of have a preconceived notion that, like darkness is is scary and evil, and she wants to make it so that, you know, people will appreciate going out in the dark. We, as we evolved, you know, we were in the dark, and so when we were meant to see in the dark and experience things in the dark. And so it's a really, if you're if you're interested in learning about that kind of thing, it's a definite read. So I will definitely give you a list of I have a couple slides and presentations that I do that have clickable links to all the Amazon books that I like to recommend to people. Yeah, that would be great, because you've got a long list of books, and I am proud to say that I have read a lot of them, but there's a lot more that I was like, Oh, this one's gonna be good. And so you haven't been one to me that I just downloaded the bad naturalist. That's right, bad naturalist that just came out this month. I think in the publisher sent me a copy before it was available to the public.
• 23:58
  Unknown: So I'm still I'm very close to the end of it, but I'm really enjoying that one. And that author is from Virginia, so it feels very much like home, like when she's talking about the different places in the book, I'm like, Oh yeah, I know where that is. So, like, there's that homegrown connection. I guess I can't wait to get into it. I've already downloaded I listened to my books on audible, so I can't wait to listen to it. Okay, Anna, I think we're gonna have to land this plane pretty soon.
• 24:23
  Unknown: How can listeners connect with you? Well, my nonprofit that I co founded with Stella Tarney eight years ago is capital nature, and that's capital with an Al so capital nature.org, and basically we, we formed because we really wanted to connect people to the unique nature opportunities in the DC metro area. You know, there were the there's the tree people and the bird people and the bug people, but we wanted to kind of be a, maybe a one stop shop where people could kind of go to our website, look at our event calendar, where we've cultivated and curated a list from some of our favorite partners in the area of like, what they're doing, speaking of nature events.
• 25:00
  Unknown: Our friend Matt felperin, the Nova parks, roving naturalist.
• 25:03
  Unknown: We love to promote his events.
• 25:03
  Unknown: So we like to put all different types of things. If you wanted to do a tree walk, a mushroom foray, pulling weeds, stewardship activities, we try to get people to go, you know, we encourage people to go to our website to check that out. So, capital nature.org, we're also on Facebook and Instagram, perfect. I actually mentioned Matt in my last little episode, and I put a link to all of his really cool educational outdoor programming, but I will drop it in this one as well. And can I tell you a little secret?
• 25:30
  Unknown: Actually, you might already know this, but nobody else knows this. Matt and I are going up to Minnesota next week to go birding like up near Duluth, and I am so excited I can't even sleep at night. You guys. I you guys did mention that when we were out birding together this past weekend, and I'm gonna be honest, I'm jealous. I would love to go with you guys, because I know you're gonna see the great gray owls. Probably right, yes, oh my god, that is the one bird that I want to see so badly. Like that, your nemesis bird? Well, no, because I've never been in the right, the right area to look for it.
• 26:03
  Unknown: So I can't say that I've been, like, out looking for it, never found it, which is really what a nemesis bird is, but is it is the bird that i is top of my list that I want to see so badly. I told Matt, I'm like, be ready for it. I'm probably just gonna start sobbing, yes, yes. I can't wait to hear about it.
• 26:19
  Unknown: I'm, you know, take pictures while you're there, obviously.
• 26:22
  Unknown: So I can't wait to see, yeah, that's it's. I just love when you get together with people that share your passion. It just kind of really enhances it, right? You know, it's like, when everybody's like, so into the birds, or so into the trees and so into the mushrooms, you know, that type of thing. Yeah, it's really exciting. And we've been talking every night about what species we're going to see, and you know, what kind of mammals are going to be up there, and what the weather's going to be like, and how to get ready for it. And it's just, it's like two kids in a candy shop, or just, you're going to have to tell Matt to remind him, from me that please make some iNaturalist observations while you guys are up there. Oh, I don't need to remind him. You know, he's all over that.
• 27:01
  Unknown: All right. Well, thank you, Anna. I am so grateful to you for coming on Virginia outdoor adventures to share your love and passion for forest bathing and connecting with nature. I do hope the listeners get a lot out of this, and I hope they check out the links that I'll drop in the show notes with all of his wonderful resources, including some of your own walks. So maybe you'll see some listeners on your walks coming up in the near future. I hope so. This was so great. I mean, I could talk about forest bathing and love for nature connection all day.
• 27:28
  Unknown: So I'm so glad that you had me on to just kind of go on on what some of the things that I love and that I'm passionate about.
• 27:33
  Unknown: So I really hope I see some of your listeners on my walks.
• 27:35
  Unknown: Thanks so much. Awesome. Thanks.
• 27:35
  Unknown: On adventure, on adventure. On Virginia, outdoor adventures is inspired by and supported by listeners like you, which is why your messages and feedback mean so much to me. You can text me directly by clicking on Send Jessica a text message in your show notes, I answer questions, respond to comments and share your feedback on the show. Never miss a new episode. Sign up for my email newsletter and receive my listener resource guide with the top podcast episodes, a Virginia outdoor bucket list and exclusive brand discounts for my listeners. Click on newsletter.
• 28:13
  Unknown: Sign up in your show notes or visit Virginia outdoor adventures.com.
• 28:20
  Unknown: Thanks for listening until next time. Adventure on you.