BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Forest, all right, forest, all right, forest,

this is a pod talk to accompany the first episode of Forest 404.

The idea is we'll be riffing off some of the themes that have inspired the story.

If you haven't heard the first episode yet, have a listen, then come back my way. I'm Pearl Mackey and I play Pan.

Pan's never been in a forest. She's never even seen a tree. So when she discovers some

audio of the jungle, she's completely beguiled by it.

In this first pod talk, you're about to hear an amazing man called Alex Smalley talk about the physical and mental health effects we feel when spending time in nature.

He's doing a PhD around this stuff.

Turns out we should all listen to trees more.

I want you to imagine yourself in paradise.

Think about what you can see. What sounds can you hear? What do you feel?

The idea that's spending time in nature can be good for our well-being isn't new.

It's actually an idea that goes back for thousands of years.

The word paradise comes from the ancient Persian term for park or orchard, which is paradisa.

And I think if you ask most people to imagine paradise,

people would think about a white sand beach with waves lapping or with a woodland maybe that's alive with

birdsong, they're probably likely to imagine a feeling of serenity and relaxation.

And that's the kind of feeling that medics began to try and promote in the UK as early as the

1750s. We had doctors

travelling around the country trying to work out what it was like spending time near the sea

and whether that's something that could almost be prescribed. And we had sea bathing hospitals

...