Hugging trees is good for us! – Wild Tree Adventures

... ALL OTHER SCRIPTS MUST BE PLACED BELOW Hugging trees is good for us! – Wild Tree Adventures

Hugging trees is good for our us!

In Iceland, the forestry service really love their trees. Thinking how best to help people overcome the sense of isolation brought about by the coronavirus measures, in late March they started clearing snow to let people visit the trees to give them hugs!

The Icelandic Forest Service, mindful of all the benefits of being around trees, is recommending Icelanders to go out into nature, whilst being very careful to observe social distancing, to give a tree a hug. Forest Ranger Þór Þorfinnsson in a news interview with the Icelandic Broadcasting Service RÚV spoke of having “…such a wonderful feeling of relaxation and then you’re ready for a new day and new challenges.”

Looking after our physical and mental well-being is super important at this time when we are all cooped up, staying inside to keep us safe to help the incredible NHS. Trees have been shown to be good for us in so many ways (see our blog on Wellness) and for us, going to the trees is of top importance as a way to watch the changing of the seasons, marking time, as patient sentries at the stations of our years.

I admire ace Forest Manager Trausti Johansson’s hugging of this young spruce (right) – I think it will have been a prickly experience!

We can agree how good it feels so here’s to lots of ground-based Tree Time – so suggest you try a smooth-stemmed silver birch or beech, or the soft red, fibrous bark of a redwood. Listen, what can you hear? And smell? One of my favourite scents of all time is the warm, rich resin of a Scot’s pine forest.

Check out the Icelandic Forestry Service’s suggestions of ways to hug a tree: cheek to trunk, using all their limbs, going horizontal, and having a face full of tree!

Reported in the Iceland Review a week ago, it has been reposted by many including TreeHugger and the Arborists Association.

Hugging trees is good for our health

The negative consequences of a separation from nature has been termed “nature-deficit disorder” (Richard Louv: The Last Child in the Woods) where our disconnect from nature leads to negative consequences in terms of mental and physical health. It should therefore come as no surprise that studies show a wide range of positive effects on our health from the presence of trees and green spaces (e.g. see here and here). We also know that being in the forest has a measurable physiological effect on the body’s immune system (e.g. see A forest bathing trip increases human natural killer cell activity and expression of anti-cancer proteins in female subjects). Does this meant that hugging a tree is good for us?

“Hugging a tree increases levels of hormone oxytocin. This hormone is responsible for feeling calm and emotional bonding. When hugging a tree, the hormones serotonin and dopamine make you feel happier.”

In this day and age of fake news and mis-information, I want to check-up on this bold statement and the the claim that Hugging Trees is Good for your Health. So, just what it is about tree hugging that can make us more healthy? How can interacting with a tree actually produces a measurable and positive effect to our hormone levels? The hormone Oxytocin and its measurement and the significance of its presence is complex (see here and here and here). While this is the case, studies have clearly shown that hugging your partner boosts the production of oxytocin. So the act of hugging may be the stimulant for hormone production: does hugging a tree simulate that feeling of a loved one or ‘mother’ figure thereby increasing the hormone production?

Climbing trees is my livelihood and passion and I am always so busy getting myself and others up there I don’t slow down enough to give them a hug. I miss climbing and being in trees so much at the moment so it was time for me to hug a tree and see how it made me feel.

After a short walk I decided on the tall Silver birch at the end of the garden. Pressing my cheek to its smooth bark I wrapped my arms around it, and I smiled. It really was soothing and I quickly felt calmer, the act of stopping and breathing with my eyes shut making my other senses become more awake. The world became my near surroundings: the singing of a robin, the lambs in the field next door, the rooks in the tree tops across the stream, and the warm touch of the sun on my face.

After a few delicious moments I opened my eyes and carried on my day, happier and lighter in my step. I will have to do it again soon.

“I put my cheek on the tree and feel the warmth”

Here in the UK, David Knott, Curator of the Living Collection at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is on a mission to hug 350 trees!

Raising funds to help save the incredible Sequoia Avenue at Benmore Botanic Garden, David has set up a Just Giving Page and is a good way through his challenge to hug 350 trees. David describes the avenue as: “…one of the finest entrances to a botanical garden anywhere in the world…” In desperate need of innovative and substantial works, hopefully these beautiful trees will be protected for many generations to come.

David Knot hugging a tree as part of his 350 Tree Hug fundraiser.

Hug and protect!

To ensure that we continue to gain these positive health benefits from trees we must protect them and plant them! With inspirational people like David Knott around I am pledging to do the same and hug 365 trees, one for every day of the year!

So please hug a tree with me (you don’t have to hug 365 I promise!), and take some time to absorb the good feelings! And in exchange for the positive health benefits gifted to you, why not look out for that tree and others, protect it from damage, plant a tree, and perhaps most importantly spread the word and let’s all be #ShamelessTreeHuggers.

This is a fantastic adventure for kids and adults. We climbed a massive oak tree (myself and my two boys 11 and 16) … You climb the tree in your own time I went up once and sat and admired the view for a while but my youngest boy managed to go up and down three times. The price of the ticket included access to Bowhill grounds which as the sun was shining was great to walk around and there is also a courtyard coffee shop. All Highly recommended.

Ben