When I Need to Feel Better, I Go Outside
Updated: 3 days ago
On forest bathing, morning walks and the daily habit that resets my mood
Most mornings, somewhere between seven and nine, the dog and I head out the door for a walk along the Humber River. It’s my favourite spot. The paths are quiet, the day hasn’t started making demands yet, and for a little while my corner of the world feels like mine.
I’ve learned this about myself over the years: when I’m anxious, blue or overwhelmed, I need to get outside. Not to hit a step count or tick a wellness box, but because I can feel my body and mind respond almost the moment I do. There’s that first deep inhale and slow exhale, and my shoulders come down from around my ears. My mood shifts, sometimes almost instantly.
A walk doesn’t solve whatever is bothering me. But worries that feel enormous inside the house tend to shrink to a more manageable size once I’ve walked with them for half an hour. I come back with perspective, some exercise, and time spent with myself.
Maggie is a great motivator. She needs her walk whether I’m in the mood or not, and there are mornings when she’s the only reason I lace up. But somewhere along the way her walk became mine too. I’m honestly not sure which of us needs it more.
Worries that feel enormous inside the house shrink once I’ve walked with them for half an hour.
A few weeks ago, I was staying at a cottage near Parry Sound and took Maggie to Stubb’s Falls in Arrowhead Provincial Park.
Arrowhead had been on my list for years, though I’d always pictured it in winter, when the park attendants ices a trail through the forest so you can skate between the trees. I never quite made it. The stories about crowds, limited parking and needing to arrive at dawn deterred me. Late September, it turns out, is a very good consolation prize.
You can park right next to the falls. I didn’t. I left the car just inside the park and walked the kilometre in, because the whole point was to be in the forest, not simply to arrive at something in it.
The trail was quiet. A canopy overhead, a few leaves already turning, Maggie out in front, and that particular smell of the woods. We heard the falls long before we saw them.
At the falls, the quiet ended. People were scrambling over the rocks and lining up photos, and a few brave souls were swimming, in Ontario, in late September. I admired them from dry land and got my pictures. It didn’t matter how busy it was. The walk in had already done what I came for.
There’s a word for this
I lived in Japan for two years, the Japanese are great admirers of the outdoors. Shinrin-yoku (森林浴), a term coined in Japan in 1982, pairs shinrin (forest) with yoku (bathing). It means soaking in the atmosphere of the woods. It isn’t hiking for distance or exercising toward a goal. It’s slowing down and taking the forest in through your senses: what you see, hear, smell and feel.
Research suggests time in forests may ease stress and lift mood. I don’t really need evidence through a study, I know how I feel before I go out, and I know how I feel when I come back.
No bad weather
I don’t save this for perfect September afternoons. I get outside every day, and even in the depths of a Canadian winter. I give myself at least thirty minutes of fresh air on my skin and whatever light I can find. I walk in the rain, too. The Swedes have it right.
Det finns inget dåligt väder, bara dåliga kläder. There’s no bad weather, only bad clothing.
So I dress for it. Rain drumming on my hood, cheeks stinging after a January walk, that wide-awake feeling when I come back through the door. Nature doesn’t have to be pretty or cooperative to work on me. Sometimes I just need to feel the elements.
Living well, simply
Wellness has become a very busy industry: another supplement (I take my fair share), another routine, another thing to track. I’m interested in plenty of it. But at this stage of my life, I do also value the things that ask almost nothing of me and give back far more than they should.
Getting outside is at the top of that list. Most days it isn’t Arrowhead. It’s my neighbourhood, a familiar path, and often a short second walk after dinner. It doesn’t need to be a forest, and you don’t need to call it forest bathing. You just need to go.
The moment still arrives every time: the deep inhale, the long exhale, the shoulders dropping. And by the time I get home, whatever I was carrying feels a little lighter.
— RobbieLane
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