When your world feels out of control, can forest therapy help?
LOS ANGELES -- It was a particularly chaotic time. As the war in the Middle East raged on, sparking relentless and horrific news headlines, a family member unexpectedly landed in the hospital here in California. Visits to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, doomscrolling and sleepless nights left me drained.
Perhaps that’s why an invitation to Forest Therapy — something I might have previously dismissed as silly — piqued my curiosity. I’d have tried anything to slow the incessant whirl of concerns in my head.
So on a recent Saturday, I found myself laying in a cool, dewy patch of grass, early in the morning, in a lush palm grove at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. The San Marino gardens weren’t yet open to the public and the grounds were eerily quiet but for the whooshing of leaves in the wind and the intermittent trilling of wild parrots.
