It's not just your gut feeling: science agrees that immersing yourself in the forest is good for your health. Designated spa and healing forests are particularly effective for this.

Mindfully, your gaze wanders around: an anthill here, some wild flowers there and bushes, leaves and trees all around. The green light for health! Earthy fragrance in the air, a handful of wild raspberries on the tongue. Engine noise or the clattering of machinery? No chance. At most, the silence is interrupted only by the twittering of birds or the occasional crack of a branch underfoot. Ahh, relaxation is that simple! However, it's hardly news that the forest is good for people. 200 years ago, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote: "I walked in the forest all by myself, to seek nothing. This was my intention." However, this sense of not searching, of instead seeing the forest experience as a natural means of recharging one's batteries, has since been somewhat forgotten. Now, more and more people are rediscovering it – or discovering it for the first time.


Effective stress relief

Woman standing barefoot in a stream in the Rhön Biosphere Reserve, surrounded by green forest. Ehrenberg: Woman bathing in the forest in the Rhön biosphere reserve ©DZT (Florian Trykowski)

Forest bathing has gained popularity following a number of studies that confirmed that listening to the rustling of leaves and touching bark or moss from time to time is actually good for your health. Why exactly is that? Health experts cite terpenes in particular – secondary plant substances that are also contained in essential oils and of which over 8,000 are known today. It has long been proven that the human immune system reacts to these messenger substances by strengthening the body's defences. For example, according to employees of the 'Forest Medicine' research branch established in Japan in 2012, a two- to three-hour walk in the forest increases the number and activity of natural killer cells by 40%. Further bonus points are awarded for lower blood sugar levels and blood pressure, less susceptibility to depression and a generally better sense of wellbeing.


Natural therapy centres

If you want to experience the effects on your own body, just head to your nearest forest. The effect is certainly greater with therapeutic guidance, as is the case in designated spa forests, which are premium areas anyway with mostly ancient woodland. The focus here is on various measures to promote health and prevent illness, including particularly decelerating methods such as body-mind exercises or mindfulness practice.

The Bavarian Spas Association, for example, has awarded the Forest and Health seal to spa forests in 13 municipalities, three of which – Bad Füssing, Bad Wörishofen and Bad Kötzting – have also been recognised as healing forests. This award marks the next level, as it were, by guaranteeing health-promoting measures that are intended to prevent, delay or alleviate the further progression of a disease. You can also find these in Bad Lippspringe in North Rhine-Westphalia, for example, where there is not only talk of the "Europe-wide unique interplay of a species-rich forest with a calming, low-irritation low mountain climate", but also of a wide range of therapeutic services in this 'medical centre for health'. Meanwhile, Germany's first healing forest was created in Heringsdorf on Usedom in 2016, and in 2021 a section was even declared Europe's first children's healing forest – including a sensory forest, exercise area and a creative zone. The 240-hectare spa and healing forest in Lahnstein, the first in Rhineland-Palatinate, also has a special area for children.

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