{"id":636709,"date":"2026-05-11T14:35:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T14:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/636709\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T14:35:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T14:35:12","slug":"in-boston-doctors-try-a-dose-of-nature-as-medicine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/636709\/","title":{"rendered":"In Boston, doctors try a dose of nature as medicine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Doctors spend years becoming experts in how the body works, how it can break down and how to recognize and treat various illnesses. Their training rarely involves what\u2019s known as \u201cnature-based medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Susan Abookire has made it her mission to change that. She\u2019s developed an unusual addition<\/a> to the courses taught in most medical schools, a voluntary two-hour session that challenges doctors and medical students to embrace the health benefits of spending time outdoors.<\/p>\n

On a bright but chilly spring afternoon, she asked 11 doctors and medical students to get comfortable on the grass, beneath towering fir, spruce and pine trees, and close their eyes. These young clinicians had rushed to complete patient charts and brief colleagues at Brigham and Women\u2019s Faulkner Hospital in Boston so they could cross the street to Harvard\u2019s Arnold Arboretum to experience forest therapy.<\/p>\n

Abookire took her students into a state of deep relaxation to begin their session.<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine that your body has roots,\u201d Abookire told them. \u201cBegin to watch those roots tunnel down into the earth, deeper and deeper.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forest therapy is a more structured version of forest bathing, a practice that emerged from Japan in the 1980s. Abookire spent more than 20 years in hospital leadership roles before becoming a forest therapy guide in 2020.<\/p>\n

Her objective today is to steer these stressed physicians away from test results and beeping monitors to the deep breathing<\/a> that research has shown to reduce stress, the smell of pine tree oils linked to boosting the immune system<\/a> and the bird song that may lower blood pressure<\/a>. Abookire watched shoulders drop and breathing slow \u2014 and asked what the participants were noticing.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.Dr. Michael Rosamilia takes in the smells and textures of trees during a forest therapy session. (Jesse Costa\/WBUR)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe feeling of wind is just really lovely,\u201d said Harvard medical student Selena Lee. \u201cIt reminds me of childhood and having the time to experience these things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore medical school I used to be a birder,\u201d said fellow student Arnav Lal, \u201cand I\u2019ve missed it tremendously.\u201d<\/p>\n

The wail of ambulances speeding toward the hospital interrupted the reverie, but Dr. Eli Schwamm resisted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find it very comforting to hear the sirens and ambulances and have that not be our problem,\u201d he said, \u201cfor a moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the next two hours, Abookire sent the group into the woods with a series of suggestions to contemplate motion, textures, smells or a line of poetry. She tried to help them find the deep peace that research shows can improve cardiovascular health<\/a>, brain function<\/a>, sleep<\/a>, depression<\/a> and other health conditions.<\/p>\n

She hopes they adopt forest therapy for themselves, and spread the practice to their colleagues and patients.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.Dr. Eli Schwamm walks through the trees while Dr. Michael Pang meditates on a tree stump in the Arnold Arboretum during a forest therapy session. (Jesse Costa\/WBUR)<\/p>\n

Abookire is one of just a handful of doctors nationwide who offer forest therapy during medical training and as a continuing medical education<\/a> course for doctors, nurses and physician assistants. Such courses are still so unusual no one keeps track of how many exist.<\/p>\n

Dr. John La Puma, author of the book “Indoor Epidemic,” organized a course on nature and medicine for UCLA in 2025. It included topics such as forest bathing, exercise in green spaces and gardening therapy. He said learning the techniques could be critical for doctors and other healthcare providers.<\/p>\n

\u201cClinicians really need this,\u201d he said. \u201cThe boundaries between work and rest have dissolved for many of them. Forest bathing acts as attention restoration therapy and allows them to shift out of the almost constant fight or flight mindset into more of a recovery mode.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI find it very comforting to hear the sirens and ambulances and have that not be our problem \u2014 for a moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Eli Schwamm<\/p>\n

Urging patients to get outdoors might be easier for these physicians than fitting forest therapy into their own lives. It would almost certainly be cheaper than most of the treatments physicians prescribe, and it might be a lot more fun.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be a full forest therapy session or prescription,\u201d Abookire said after the session. \u201cSometimes it’s as simple as suggesting people go outside three times a week for 20 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Arboretum, there were a few challenges for these scrub-clad, hyper-hygiene focused physicians, who have put much of their lives on hold while they bounce between home and hospital, blurring night and day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mustered up the courage to touch the floor \u2014well, the ground,\u201d said medical student Pooja Suganthan, a self-described germaphobe, \u201cbut there was a bundle of fluff, I just looked at that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Michael Pang considered making contact with a few flowers and weeds.<\/p>\n

\u201cI held off. What if they\u2019re poisonous?,\u201d he said, laughing along with others. \u201cBut I felt pretty safe grabbing this branch.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s some wonder on Pang\u2019s face as he twists a slender length of pine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very impressed,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought it was going to be really stiff but when I\u2019m bending it, it\u2019s not giving,\u201d or not snapping.<\/p>\n

For Dr. Lexis Deshazor, the exercise was liberating.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spend a lot of my day being very careful where my hands are,\u201d she said. \u201cSo it was nice to just touch things and explore how they felt without thinking I was going to break it or mess it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forest therapy has many broad mental and physical benefits, but it also can feel a little bit like individual therapy, with those prickly, uncomfortable moments that might or might not lead to breakthroughs. Towards the end of the session at the Arboretum, everyone chose a tiny scroll with a message.<\/p>\n

Dr. Koby Amankwah\u2019s read: \u201cAt this moment you have everything you need.\u201d He wasn\u2019t so sure. He was pretty nervous about his next rotation: cardiology.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut this was a nice reminder,\u201d Amankwah said. \u201cAs difficult as the transition may be, everything will be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

Med student Lee reflected on advice she got at the beginning of medical school.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"SecondSecond year medical student Daniela Limbania relaxes on a fallen tree looking across Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum during a forest therapy session. (Jesse Costa\/WBUR)<\/p>\n

\u201cThat training for medicine is a lot like learning to rest while running,\u201d she said. But when, Lee wonders, is she \u201cjust resting as we were able to do today?\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of these doctors already know each other well but there\u2019s a different kind of bonding underway as they focus on dandelions, birds and trees.<\/p>\n

\u201cI appreciate the opportunity to do this, in nature, with beautiful weather, but also with all of you,\u201d said Dr. Michael Rosamilia. \u201cSometimes the only context in which I know people is the stress noises that they make intermittently throughout the day. This was a nice change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forest therapy might seem like a stark contrast to the high tech care delivered at the hospital across the street, but Abookire argues they fit together.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re doing here today is systemic, it helps the entire body,\u201d she said. \u201cSo in an ideal world, as medicine grows even more sophisticated, we need to combine these two. We need to set forest therapy into this context of our whole health.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abookire has a ready partner in the Arboretum\u2019s director, Ned Friedman. They\u2019re planning forest therapy sessions for area residents, and Friedman is throwing open the gates to the Arboretum\u2019s other healthcare neighbors \u2014 a massive state Department of Public Health lab and a rehabilitation center.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if you\u2019re just walking through, we\u2019re helping to keep you out of the hospital,\u201d Friedman said. \u201cThe Arnold Arboretum is part of the healthcare system in Greater Boston.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DrDr Susan Abookire serves birch tea to close a forest therapy session at Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum. (Jesse Costa\/WBUR)<\/p>\n

Amankwah, the doctor nervous about his cardiology rotation, left Abookshire\u2019s class at the Arboretum hoping to remain relaxed, at least until he got back to the hospital, where he expected the chaos would consume him again. He said he lives close to Jamaica Pond and would try to find 30 minutes a week for a visit. That seemed like the maximum amount of time he could imagine for rest.<\/p>\n

\"ResidentsResidents from Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital and Harvard Medical School students pass cups of birch tea around a circle to conclude a forest therapy session at the Arnold Arboretum. (Jesse Costa\/WBUR)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll see,\u201d he said, laughing. \u201cMaybe I can try to carve out a little more time. Baby steps.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Doctors spend years becoming experts in how the body works, how it can break down and how to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[97,243],"class_list":["post-636709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-health","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=636709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}