SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
Doctors spend years studying the biology and chemistry of our bodies and then learning how to fix them. Their training rarely includes what's known as nature-based medicine. A doctor in Boston wants to change that. From member station WBUR, Martha Bebinger reports.
MARTHA BEBINGER, BYLINE: On a bright but chilly spring afternoon, 11 young doctors and medical students in blue scrubs or sweats stand in a circle beneath towering fir, spruce and pine trees. They've rushed to complete patient charts and brief colleagues at the hospital across the street...
(SOUNDBITE OF SIRENS WAILING)
BEBINGER: ...So they can be here in Boston's Arnold Arboretum to experience forest therapy.
SUSAN ABOOKIRE: Now, imagine that your body has roots and begin to watch those roots tunnel down into the Earth.
BEBINGER: Dr. Susan Abookire spent more than 20 years in hospital leadership roles before becoming a certified forest therapy guide. It's a more structured version of the Japanese practice called forest bathing. Today, Abookire aims to steer these stressed physicians away from test results and beeping monitors to the breeze moving across their skin, the smell of tree oils that boost immunity and sounds that relieve anxiety - all elements that hundreds of studies link to better health.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS CHIRPING)
BEBINGER: Her larger goal is to turn this mix of nature lovers and nature skeptics into forest therapy ambassadors who will spread it to colleagues and patients.
ABOOKIRE: And when you're ready to share, what are you noticing?
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS CHIRPING)
CAT NEWMAN: I associate being outdoors and, like, enjoying the environment with vacation, so I feel like I immediately just relaxed.
BEBINGER: Dr. Cat Newman's (ph) shoulders drop as she speaks. Dr. Eli Schwamm flashes a sly grin.
ELI SCHWAMM: I found it very comforting to hear the sirens of ambulances and have that, like, not be our problem for a moment.
BEBINGER: Schwamm and the others will spend two hours wandering the woods with instructions like watch something that moves to help them find the deep peaks that can improve cardiovascular health, brain function, sleep and a dozen other health conditions. Abookire calls them back each time with a howl.
ABOOKIRE: (Howling) Ow, ow, ow.
BEBINGER: Dr. Lexis DeShazor returns from 15 minutes of exploring textures, feeling liberated.
LEXIS DESHAZOR: I spend a lot of my day very careful where my hands are. So it was kind of, like, nice to just touch things and explore how they felt without thinking I was going to, like, break it or mess it up.
BEBINGER: Dr. Michael Pang worried some plants might be poisonous.
MICHAEL PANG: There were a lot of things that I wanted to touch, but I wasn't sure if it was safe to touch.
(LAUGHTER)
PANG: So I held off, but I felt pretty safe grabbing this branch.
BEBINGER: No longer wary, Pang shows off his slender length of pine.
PANG: I'm very impressed by it. I thought it was going to be really stiff, but when I was, like, bending it, like, it's not giving.
BEBINGER: There's a different kind of bonding underway as colleagues describe what they touched - soft dandelions, smooth pine cones and plastic trash. Here's Dr. Michael Rosamilia.
MICHAEL ROSAMILIA: Sometimes the only context in which I know people is the stress noises that they make...
(LAUGHTER)
ROSAMILIA: ...Intermittently throughout the day. This was a nice change.
BEBINGER: Forest bathing might seem like a stark contrast to the high-tech care delivered across the street. But Abookire argues they fit together.
ABOOKIRE: This kind of thing - what we're doing here today - is systemic. And I think, in an ideal world, we need to combine these two. We need to set that into this context of our whole health.
BEBINGER: Abookire is among just a handful of doctors nationwide adding forest therapy or forest bathing to medical training - baby steps they hope will build a movement. For NPR News, I'm Martha Bebinger in Boston.
(SOUNDBITE OF POST MALONE SONG, "CHEMICAL") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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