Melanie Choukas-Bradley gestured towards an Aspen tree with the snow-capped Colorado Rockies on the horizon. 

“These trees have stories,” Choukas-Bradley said admiringly. “Part of the story of this tree is the bear claws on it. Do you see that? A bear climbed up there.”

A naturalist from Washington, DC, Choukas-Bradley typically guides contemplative forest-bathing walks for the Smithsonian Institution and the US Botanic Garden. On this particular day, however, she was shepherding a walk for the Aspen Ideas Festival, a gathering that drew heads of state, CEOs, young visionaries and nonprofit pioneers from around the globe.

On this walk, there was a woman advocating for human rights in El Salvador and a scientist spearheading research on youth addiction at Harvard University. These were global influencers repairing fractured systems, re-building democracy, examining the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence and facilitating polarized conversations around immigration, global health and climate change.

Yet, this morning, before their panel discussions and strategy sessions began, two dozen attendees gathered for a forest bathing experience guided by Choukas-Bradley on Aspen Institute’s campus.

Forest bathing, contrary to its name, does not involve any bathing; rather, it’s a kind of deliberate meditative walk through nature. Its roots date back to ancient Japanese Shinto and Buddhist beliefs that spirits called kami inhabit natural elements like trees, rocks and waterfalls. Today, the practice is offered around the world and could serve as an antidote to those tackling global crises. 

The term forest bathing, or shinrin-yoku, was coined more recently by Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries  in response to a rapidly industrializing country.

“There’s even a Japanese phrase, ‘death by work,’ and so they wanted to encourage people to go out into the forest,” Choukas-Bradley shared. “They call the sounds in nature pink noise.”

In other words, it was a government initiative to help stressed out salarymen in Tokyo. The benefits were two-fold: Shinrin-yoku improved preventative healthcare in Japan and it engendered a deeper public connection to the country’s forests, resulting in environmental sustainability and stewardship.

Choukas-Bradley traveled to Japan in recent years, to become a certified forest bathing guide, where there are currently 65 designated shinrin-yoku forests. Upon entering the healing forests, there is a station where the staff checks your vitals, pulse, blood pressure, salivary amylase — all of which can indicate levels of stress.

“Lo and behold, on every forest bathing walk I’ve been on, my blood pressure has gone down,” Choukas-Bradley said.

While forests can help people refocus, they can also be places of healing and processing grief. For instance, in Colorado, there are swaths of forests blackened by recurring wildfires caused by climate change, and forests are also a place that people seek out when they’re grieving.

Choukas-Bradley said that back in Washington DC, she would often take walks through Rock Creek Park with Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland. In January 2021, he had just lost his son to suicide and, the same week, rioters had violently stormed the Capitol Building. To help cope, the congressman took to the hiking trails nearby. 

“I think for people who do such important, complicated, difficult work, spending time in nature is very therapeutic,” Choukas-Bradley said. 

“[The congressman’s] connection with nature in Rock Creek Park has been a salvation for him.”

Choukas-Bradley added that nature is often a space for people who may have become less religious over time, but are still seeking a spiritual connection. 

“Some people are recovering from strict or severe religious backgrounds, and this is a very gentle way to open yourself up to the mysteries of the unknown,” she explained.

Nature also serves as a place for younger generations, like Gen Z, who are trying to make sense of a complex world. 

Back on the trail in Colorado, the running water from the Roaring Fork River sounded quiet from a distance. But when Choukas-Bradley instructed her group to cup their ears with their backs to the water, suddenly the river was amplified. White cottonwood seeds flurried around, blanketing the ground and making it appear like it had been snowing in the summer.

 Choukas-Bradley went on to explain that a forest isn’t necessary for forest-bathing: Adopting a favorite neighborhood tree or even a desktop plant can help. But to feel the full benefits of shinrin-yoku, it should be a slow and intentional walk through nature.

Jennifer Lemire works for the global health organization Partners In Health, which brings medical care to places like Haiti and West Africa. The White House cuts to USAID have made her job more challenging.

“Probably my first reaction was anger and despair,” Lemire said. “And then just, sort of, a disbelief that it was all happening, unfolding so fast and seemingly so callously.”

She joined one of Choukas-Bradley’s forest bathing walks, which provided a much-needed break and some perspective.

She mentioned a young public health student she met earlier who had questions about entering the field.

“We had this very real conversation. ‘What is Global Health 3.0 going to look like?’ She gets to be the generation that rebuilds what’s next … that leaves me with a lot of hope.”

At the end of the walk, the group leans on a stone slab on the Aspen Institute’s campus, and takes in the sunny Colorado morning. Choukas-Bradley asks for a volunteer to read a poem:

The Peace of Wild Things
By Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Afterward, the group set off to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems with a renewed sense of resolve.