Photo credit: Samai Suwanthong
By Kirsten McEwan, Dararat Simpattanawong, and Qing Li.
In Thailand, many people suffer from heart disease and mental health issues like depression, affecting nearly 10% of adults and a third of teenagers. Forest bathing, a practice that involves taking slow, mindful walks in nature, has become popular worldwide as a way to improve health and wellbeing. This study is the first of its kind in Thailand, comparing the effects of forest bathing with a similar activity: mindful walking in an urban setting.
We invited 30 participants to join us for one-hour sessions of both forest bathing and mindful urban walking. We measured their heart rates, blood pressure, and mood before and after each session. We found that both activities helped lower heart rates and blood pressure, with the urban walk having a slightly stronger effect. However, forest bathing stood out in reducing negative feelings, while the urban walk actually increased them.
These results suggest that both forest bathing and urban walking can be good for your heart health, but forest bathing might offer extra benefits for mental health. While there were some unexpected findings, like the greater impact of urban walking on heart rate, this study provides early evidence that forest bathing is not only accepted by Thai people but can also be beneficial.
As Thailand continues to face health challenges, including rising rates of heart disease and mental health problems, simple, low-cost activities like forest bathing could be part of the solution. Further research is needed to confirm these findings and to explore how forest bathing could be more widely used to improve health and wellbeing across the country.
Relational Thinking 