Dr. Susan Abookire, a former hospital leader, introduces forest therapy as a structured version of forest bathing, which emerged from Japan in the 1980s. She leads 11 doctors and medical students through a session that encourages relaxation and mindfulness in a forest environment.
Dr Susan Abookire begins the forest therapy session asking residents and medical student to relax in any way they wish. Doctors spend years becoming experts in how the body works, how it can break down and how to recognize and treat various illnesses.
Their training rarely involves what’s known as “nature-based medicine. ”to the courses taught in most medical schools, a voluntary two-hour session that challenges doctors and medical students to embrace the health benefits of spending time outdoors. On a bright but chilly spring afternoon, she asked 11 doctors and medical students to get comfortable on the grass, beneath towering fir, spruce and pine trees, and close their eyes.
These young clinicians had rushed to complete patient charts and brief colleagues at Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital in Boston so they could cross the street to Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum to experience forest therapy.
“Imagine that your body has roots,” Abookire told them. “Begin to watch those roots tunnel down into the earth, deeper and deeper. ” Forest therapy is a more structured version of forest bathing, a practice that emerged from Japan in the 1980s. Abookire spent more than 20 years in hospital leadership roles before becoming a forest therapy guide in 2020.
Dr. Michael Rosamilia takes in the smells and textures of trees during a forest therapy session. “The feeling of wind is just really lovely,” said Harvard medical student Selena Lee.
“It reminds me of childhood and having the time to experience these things. ” “Before medical school I used to be a birder,” said fellow student Arnav Lal, “and I’ve missed it tremendously. ” The wail of ambulances speeding toward the hospital interrupted the reverie, but Dr. Eli Schwamm resisted.
“I find it very comforting to hear the sirens and ambulances and have that not be our problem,” he said, “for a moment. ” During the next two hours, Abookire sent the group into the woods with a series of suggestions to contemplate motion, textures, smells or a line of poetry.
She tried to help them find the deep peace that research shows can improve She hopes they adopt forest therapy for themselves, and spread the practice to their colleagues and patients. Dr. Eli Schwamm walks through the trees while Dr. Michael Pang meditates on a tree stump in the Arnold Arboretum during a forest therapy session.
Abookire is one of just a handful of doctors nationwide who offer forest therapy during medical training and as acourse for doctors, nurses and physician assistants. Such courses are still so unusual no one keeps track of how many exist. Dr. John La Puma, author of the book"Indoor Epidemic," organized a course on nature and medicine for UCLA in 2025. It included topics such as forest bathing, exercise in green spaces and gardening therapy.
He said learning the techniques could be critical for doctors and other healthcare providers.
“Clinicians really need this,” he said. “The boundaries between work and rest have dissolved for many of them. Forest bathing acts as attention restoration therapy and allows them to shift out of the almost constant fight or flight mindset into more of a recovery mode. ” “I find it very comforting to hear the sirens and ambulances and have that not be our problem — for a moment.
”Urging patients to get outdoors might be easier for these physicians than fitting forest therapy into their own lives. It would almost certainly be cheaper than most of the treatments physicians prescribe, and it might be a lot more fun.
“It doesn’t have to be a full forest therapy session or prescription,” Abookire said after the session. “Sometimes it's as simple as suggesting people go outside three times a week for 20 minutes. ” In the Arboretum, there were a few challenges for these scrub-clad, hyper-hygiene focused physicians, who have put much of their lives on hold while they bounce between home and hospital, blurring night and day.
“I mustered up the courage to touch the floor —well, the ground,” said medical student Pooja Suganthan, a self-described germaphobe, “but there was a bundle of fluff, I just looked at that. ”“I held off. What if they’re poisonous? ,” he said, laughing along with others.
“But I felt pretty safe grabbing this branch. ”“I’m very impressed,” he said.
“I thought it was going to be really stiff but when I’m bending it, it’s not giving,” or not snapping. “I spend a lot of my day being very careful where my hands are,” she said. “So it was nice to just touch things and explore how they felt without thinking I was going to break it or mess it up.
” Forest therapy has many broad mental and physical benefits, but it also can feel a little bit like individual therapy, with those prickly, uncomfortable moments that might or might not lead to breakthroughs. Towards the end of the session at the Arboretum, everyone chose a tiny scroll with a message. Dr. Koby Amankwah’s read: “At this moment you have everything you need. ” He wasn’t so sure.
He was pretty nervous about his next rotation: cardiology.
“But this was a nice reminder,” Amankwah said. “As difficult as the transition may be, everything will be OK. ”Second year medical student Daniela Limbania relaxes on a fallen tree looking across Harvard's Arnold Arboretum during a forest therapy session. “That training for medicine is a lot like learning to rest while running,” she said.
But when, Lee wonders, is she “just resting as we were able to do today? ” Some of these doctors already know each other well but there’s a different kind of bonding underway as they focus on dandelions, birds and trees.
“I appreciate the opportunity to do this, in nature, with beautiful weather, but also with all of you,” said Dr. Michael Rosamilia. “Sometimes the only context in which I know people is the stress noises that they make intermittently throughout the day. This was a nice change. ” Forest therapy might seem like a stark contrast to the high tech care delivered at the hospital across the street, but Abookire argues they fit together.
“What we’re doing here today is systemic, it helps the entire body,” she said. “So in an ideal world, as medicine grows even more sophisticated, we need to combine these two. We need to set forest therapy into this context of our whole health. ” Abookire has a ready partner in the Arboretum’s director, Ned Friedman.
They’re planning forest therapy sessions for area residents, and Friedman is throwing open the gates to the Arboretum’s other healthcare neighbors — a massive state Department of Public Health lab and a rehabilitation center.
“Even if you’re just walking through, we’re helping to keep you out of the hospital,” Friedman said. “The Arnold Arboretum is part of the healthcare system in Greater Boston. ” Dr Susan Abookire serves birch tea to close a forest therapy session at Harvard's Arnold Arboretum.
Amankwah, the doctor nervous about his cardiology rotation, left Abookshire’s class at the Arboretum hoping to remain relaxed, at least until he got back to the hospital, where he expected the chaos would consume him again. He said he lives close to Jamaica Pond and would try to find 30 minutes a week for a visit. That seemed like the maximum amount of time he could imagine for rest.
Residents from Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital and Harvard Medical School students pass cups of birch tea around a circle to conclude a forest therapy session at the Arnold Arboretum. Boston's climate action plan includes more trees and fewer gas stoves
Forest Therapy Natural Medicine Mindfulness Forest Bathing Medical Students Doctors Harvard Medical School Arnold Arboretum Brigham And Women's Hospital Nature-Based Medicine Forest Relaxation Practice Roots Tunnels Earth Smalls Arrows
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