Want to spend a whole 3 hours reconnecting with nature and letting the beauty and calm of a magical SSSI* woodland melt away all your troubles and infuse your whole being with peace and joy? Join us on the third Saturday of every month 10am til 1.15pm at Wolford Wood on the edge of the Cotswolds for these soul-nourishing Forest Bathing sessions (no nudity or water immersion involved, it's not that kind of bathing!).
Forest Bathing (aka Shinrin-Yoku) is a set of mindfulness practices and meditative activities designed to calm the nervous system, awaken the senses, and bring us into meaningful relationship with the web of life.
It has been scientifically proven to give rise to a range of health benefits such as:
- reduced blood pressure
- reduction in stress hormones
- improved sleep
- increases in anti-cancer proteins
- reduced levels of anxiety, depression, anger and confusion
You'll be guided through a sequence of "invitations" to help you explore the forest and each of your senses in a state of heightened awareness, expanding your usual range of perception and discovering wonders and mysteries as you encounter familiar things in new ways.
With regular practice, the enhanced feelings of wellbeing, wonder and peace that Forest Bathing draws out of us can gradually start to infuse and enrich our everyday lives beyond the forest.
You'll be invited to slow right down to experience existence at the speed of a tree – known as “Forest Time”, which will shift you into a different brainwave state. So often in this modern world, we're locked into the “beta” wave state of constant action and planning and busy-busy-busy. Forest Bathing helps us get into “alpha” state, associated with calm, creativity, intuition and “flow”.
Doing it with a group allows you to switch off and just let yourself be guided, while the sharing circle at the end gives us an opportunity to be enriched by each other's unique ways of seeing and being.
*Please note, the session may be cancelled or an alternative offered, if there are too few bookings.