A scientist in Japan found that simply walking through a forest can literally supercharge your body for up to a month, but no one's even talking about it for some reason. Dr. Qing Li has spent the past 30 years studying the Japanese tradition of forest bathing, and his conclusion is that its effects are almost magical. In one of his earlier studies, he took 12 people slowly walking through a forest for three days and discovered that their body's natural killer cells, the ones that fight cancer and infections, surged by almost 50%. Even crazier, this boost was found to last for up to 30 days afterward. And since Dr. Qing Li's control group, which walked the same amount through a city, actually showed no change at all, he began to wonder what it is about a forest that's so powerful.He later realized that trees like pine, cedar, and cypress release airborne compounds called phytoncides to protect themselves from insects and bacteria. And when humans breathe them in, they may have a similar protective effect. Throughout his decades of research, he's found that forest bathing may not only have the power to counter illnesses like cancer, strokes, and ulcers, but it can also help significantly reduce depression, anxiety, and stress, and even lower blood pressure and improve sleep.And because these phytoncides can remain in the body for up to 30 days, Dr. Li estimates that even a walk in the woods once a month may be enough to keep those defenses elevated year-round. But he does emphasize that it's important not to be on your phone while walking, since that can actually reduce the benefits.
Maybe it was hanging out with other people and not the forrest that caused the changes he observed.
YupThat along with ikigai, kintsugi and learning how to save up has really helped.I would also mention shu-ha-ri, though that can vary..
>>25049709>>25049680A girl in Japan was banned from her school for having the wrong hair color. In April 2015, a 15-year-old enrolled at Kaifukan, a prefectural high school in Habikino, on the southeastern rim of Osaka. Her hair was naturally light brown, but the school had a rule that students must not dye their hair.For context, most Japanese people have naturally black hair. Her mother told the school this before her first day, asking them to make an allowance because the girl's hair was brown by birth. On the morning of her student ID photo, a teacher told her she could not come to school with hair that color.Despite it all, the school decided that her natural hair was, in fact, black. So, she dyed it black. Then she dyed it again because the black was never quite black enough for the school. At its peak, teachers were inspecting and correcting her hair as often as once every four days. She was pulled out of the regular classroom and made to study in a separate room. She was told she would not be joining the school festival with everyone else.Finally, the choice was put to her in plain words: "Dye it black or leave." So, in September 2016, halfway through her second year, she stopped coming. She sued the prefecture for 2.2 million yen and won 330,000 yen, roughly 15% of what she had asked for, and none of it was for the hair dyeing. The small sum she actually received was awarded only because, after she stopped attending, the school removed her desk and struck her name from the seating chart and the register.For erasing a student, the prefecture owed her. For the dyeing that drove her out, it owed nothing. The Osaka District Court held that the rule banning dyed hair fell within the school's discretion. The Osaka High Court agreed and dismissed her appeal. Whatever shade she began with, the school would not consider the possibility that a Japanese girl's hair might not be black, and nobody with the power to rule otherwise thought this was unreasonable.
