\u201cWhen we walk,\u201d wrote Henry David Thoreau, \u201cwe naturally go to the fields and woods: what would become of us if we walked only in a garden or mall?\u201d<\/p>\n
It would have gone without saying in the 18th<\/sup> and 19th<\/sup> centuries. There were no indoor shopping malls or fitness centers with gyms or, worse still, the ubiquitous treadmill. But Thoreau had more in mind than being surrounded by walls or ceilings; he wanted walkers enveloped in nature, including all kinds of landscapes in all kinds of seasons and weather.<\/p>\n So today I\u2019m thinking about the beauty of trees. Maybe because it\u2019s fall, and some of the red oaks on my daily walk are bursting with color. Just wish there were more of them. We visited West Virginian last month and got a taste of how fall foliage is supposed to look.<\/p>\n But did you know trees do more than just wow us with their beauty? Annabel Streets (52 Ways to Walk<\/em>) says the Japanese call it \u201cforest bathing.\u201d That is, walking where there are plentiful trees. She says that Japanese physiologists discovered that walking in woodland \u201clowered blood pressure, heart rate, and stress levels,\u201d while also \u201creducing inflammation and improving immunity.\u201d The scientific theory is that it has something to do with terpenes, which are highly aromatic compounds that determine the smell of many plants and herbs, such as rosemary and lavender.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not sure the mesquite trees and scrub cedars on my walks have any terpenes, but I suppose one can always hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cWhen we walk,\u201d wrote Henry David Thoreau, \u201cwe naturally go to the fields and woods: what would become of us if we walked only in a garden or mall?\u201d It would have gone without saying in the 18th and 19th centuries. There were no indoor shopping malls or fitness centers with gyms or, worse still, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3358"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3364,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3358\/revisions\/3364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}