{"id":252862,"date":"2025-10-31T18:30:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T18:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/252862\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T18:30:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T18:30:08","slug":"forest-bathing-at-evergreen-brick-works-helps-torontonians-reduce-stress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/252862\/","title":{"rendered":"Forest bathing at Evergreen Brick Works helps Torontonians reduce stress"},"content":{"rendered":"

One group in Leaside-Bennington is helping Torontonians pause, breathe and reconnect with nature through the practice of forest bathing.<\/p>\n

The Toronto Foundation\u2019s 2024 Vital Signs report<\/a> found that 26 per cent of adults in Toronto reported moderate symptoms of depression, and 17 per cent reported moderate symptoms of anxiety.<\/p>\n

Toby Davine, manager of communications and PR at Evergreen<\/a>, a national nonprofit focused on public spaces, says that having an organized way of connecting with nature helps in overall well-being.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of us live in tiny apartments downtown, so access to nature is so important. We know that green spaces help alleviate chronic health conditions, improve our mental health and even social cohesion, and that\u2019s really important to us at Evergreen. We\u2019re really trying to transform our public spaces in cities for the health of people and planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2023, Evergreen Brick Works launched the Forest Bathing Club<\/a>, a guided nature therapy session, inspired by the Japanese art of \u201cShinrin-yoku<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Participants immerse themselves into nature using all five senses \u2014 sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. A 2020 Canadian review<\/a> in the Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education found that this form of nature therapy helps to reduce stress and improve mental health.<\/p>\n

The club has had over 300 participants to date.<\/p>\n

Emily Pleasance, a nature and forest therapy guide, leads the Forest Bathing Club at Evergreen Brick Works. She says, \u201cTrees emit these things called phytoncides, which are just like oils, and they are anti-microbial, anti-fungal, anti-bacterial \u2014 all things that [trees] produce to protect themselves, and we absorb them in our skin and inhale them in our breath, and that has a direct correlation with a boost in our immune system. So there\u2019s tons of science behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She adds it\u2019s also about the feeling of being connected to others, which brings hope.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need hope in these times, and hope doesn\u2019t happen in isolation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Janet Restrup, who\u2019s been a participant at the Forest Bathing Club since May 2024, says, \u201cLast month, when I came to Forest Bathing, I had found out the day before that my mom had a heart attack, and I was out of town and I couldn\u2019t be with her right away. So that\u2019s what I brought to the group that day. I said, \u2018Listen, my mom just had a heart attack.\u2019 I came into the group with a lot of apprehension and a lot of grief, and what I left with was a sense of calm and a sense of hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

Restrup shares, \u201cwhen I went to her the next day to visit, I was emotional as I would be, but my emotional regulation was so much stronger because I had come [to Forest Bathing], I had gotten it out, and then I went and I visited. And it was like night and day, really. It\u2019s not control over emotions, it\u2019s resilience, it teaches you resilience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Forest Bathing Club hopes to expand its reach to younger Torontonians by partnering with schools to help children better understand nature and use it to regulate their emotions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One group in Leaside-Bennington is helping Torontonians pause, breathe and reconnect with nature through the practice of forest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-252862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}