Decades of studies have shown that spending time in the forest is good for your health. It can boost your immune system, lower blood pressure and help with depression. It can also reduce the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline and turn down the dial on your body's fight-or-flight response.
Li shares simple, research-backed ways you can reap these health benefits.
🌲 Find a location where you're surrounded by trees. The ideal place to forest bathe is in a forest. But if you live far away from one or don't have the means to get there, any place that has a lot of trees and quiet spaces will do.
"You can also get beneficial effects from a city park," says Li, but they won't be as significant as walking in the deep woods. A 2022 study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that walking in a forest park had a greater impact on cardiovascular function than doing so in an urban park.
🧘 Aim to reduce your heart rate. Your forest bathing session is a good time to sit or walk or do some gentle yoga or tai chi. It's not the time to squeeze in your hardcore cardio for the week. Forest bathing is about calming your nervous system and reducing your heart rate and blood pressure.
If you overexert yourself, your "tiredness will reduce the effect of forest bathing," says Li. Your body will produce more stress hormones such as adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol, which studies have shown that forest bathing can help decrease.
⏲️ Set aside a good chunk of time. To reap the ultimate rewards, plan to spend two to six hours in the woods, says Li. His research showed that forest bathing for about that time helped boost immunity. One study found that participants who walked in the forest for two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon saw an increase in anti-cancer proteins and immune cells that kill tumors, with the effects lasting for at least seven days after.
Daylight saving time officially ends this Sunday at 2 a.m. local time. With the clocks falling back, you’ll gain an extra hour of sleep but lose some daylight. Here’s how to prepare for the darker days ahead.
☀️ Make sure you’re getting enough natural light: Shorter days mean fewer opportunities to get outside before nighttime hits. But it’s important to prioritize getting outside — even if it’s only for a short walk or to take the dog out. Experts say at least 20 minutes of natural light in the early to mid-morning hours can help you adjust to the time change and improve your sleep.
🥩 Stock up on foods that nourish. Our moods can take a turn south during the cold dark months, and we tend to eat more too. Think about adding protein sources as a way to increase your satisfaction. "There definitely seems to be more fullness associated with protein," Janet Polivy of the University of Toronto at Mississauga told us in 2011.
🎳 Join a club or group activity. Winter can bring social isolation. "Some people tend to hibernate," says Sanam Hafeez, an adjunct assistant professor of psychology at Columbia University. So try to stay socially engaged. Join a book club or find people with a shared hobby. Group exercise classes are also effective at combating the winter blues.
What do you do if you’re giving a speech in front of an audience and you get tongue-tied? In our episode on public speaking, speech coach Eva Margarita says to pause, take a deep breath and go back to the beginning of a sentence or restate the word you stumbled on.
Don't worry, people don't notice those pauses as much as you think they do, says speechwriter Lauren Dominguez Chan. "Even if someone does notice, that's OK too." Read the story and listen to the episode here.
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🍲 Make a great soup.Soup can be a flexible, cozy meal that allows you to experiment in the kitchen. But to make a delicious one, you need to get some fundamentals down first. Chef Sohla El-Waylly offers her best tips on everything from creating a yummy broth to ensuring you get your cook time right. Listen to the episode here.
⚕️ Decide on your health insurance plan. Picking health insurance takes a lot of work. It's not a one-size-fits-all type of situation, and there are a lot of confusing terms that come up every year. You also need to consider your general health and finances. So how can you make sense of it all? Read the story here.
How to save a life with CPR. Every year, more than 350,000 people go into cardiac arrest outside of a hospital setting in the United States. CPR, or cardiopulmonary resuscitation, can help double or triple survival rates. In this episode, we'll explain the basics of this emergency procedure so you can feel empowered to help in a life-or-death situation. Listen to the episode here.
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