This is episode 1,192.

Welcome to your daily guided meditation and welcome to a brand new series this week.

This week, I'm excited to share with you

one of my very favorite rituals,

and that is forest bathing.

It doesn't require a swimming suit.

It only requires you being present. And this is a practice that's very popular in Japan. In fact, they kind of packaged it and made it accessible and exciting for people to do this.

They call it Shinery Y Yoku and what it means is horse baby. It was developed there in

Japan in the 1980s and now today it has become a cornerstone

of their preventative health care, especially in dealing with modern day stress.

So this is going to be a series for you to spend as much time as you possibly can out in nature, especially if you could do so among trees.

And you are encouraged, very much so, to actually do this entire series outside among trees.

But I know that sometimes that's not possible.

So in that case, visualize yourself among trees, among the forest.

And when you spend time, forest bathing or immersing yourself within the forest,

it's considered a form of medicine. And in Japan there was a study conducted

on just what forest bathing can do to support your health.

And what they found was that when you spend time in forests, especially forests with older, tall trees,

it helps to reduce your blood pressure. But not only that, trees release compounds into the forest air and in the study it was thought that these compounds can be

beneficial for you. Some of these compounds were very distinctive and they especially revealed that the scent of cedar was beneficial.

And inhaling these compounds derived from the trees. It's known as Phytonsides. I hope I'm

pronouncing that correctly Phytonsidesides and these help reduce concentrations of stress hormones in both men and

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