About four years ago, I wrote an article similar to this one. However, some things have changed since then. It was during the 2020 pandemic and we were all supposedly house-bound. However, our little mountain town of Pinetop-Lakeside and the surrounding areas were bustling with hundreds of people wanting to get outdoors. You might say, 

“we were discovered” and it really hasn’t slowed down much.

The threat of house arrest created panic among the dwellers of major cities and the focus was getting outdoors — and what’s better than fresh air and strolling through a canopy of towering ponderosa, aspen, juniper pine, Gamble oaks, wildflowers and grassy meadows. Most people in the United States live in overstimulating, stressful urban or suburban environments. So, it makes sense — considering our evolutionary history of living in nature — that there is a strong urge to escape to the woods. And, with the pandemic fear in the back of our minds, it’s no wonder that getting back to nature is like a psychological and physiological homecoming. 

There are some of us, however, that don’t need a pandemic to get us outdoors. We are addicted to the primordial environment capable of injecting us with bountiful energy and the freedom from four walls — while freely subjecting ourselves to the beauty of nature. The added health benefits gained from the benevolence of trees and other plants is a gift of great magnitude and very much appreciated by us humble mountain wayfarers. For years, research has found that even a casual urban walk — for a mere 15 minutes! — can help drop blood pressure, reduce stress levels and improve concentration and mental clarity. Every study revealed a reduction in stress, anger, anxiety, depression and sleeplessness. Getting out amongst the trees is even better.

The American Cancer Society study found that those walking/hiking seven or more hours per week had a 14% lower risk of breast cancer than those who walked three or less hours. Another research article from health.harvard.edu, states these surprising benefits of walking: that it can reduce arthritis-related pain and that “walking five to six miles a week can even prevent arthritis from forming in the first place.” In the same article, they claim that walking/hiking can boost your immune system and help protect you from the flu season. 

According to an article written by Greg Seaman for eartheasy.com, Yoshifumi Miyazaki, Japan’s leading scholar on forest medicine, states that, “walking in the woods can boost the body’s immune system by increasing anti-cancer proteins and enhancing the activity of certain cancer-fighting cells.” The research suggests that “humans benefit from breathing in phytoncides, the volatile organic compounds plants emit to protect themselves from bacteria, fungi and insects.” This research on the healing properties of forests has led to the development of 44 accredited Shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) forests in Japan and has spread throughout the world.

(The Healing Power of a Walk in the Woods by Greg Seaman - eartheasy.com)

I’ve always known that a tree is a superhuman hero. They have the ability to provide us humans — and every living, breathing creature on our planet — a life-giving essential, oxygen, and “the power to remove harmful gases like carbon dioxide making the air we breathe healthier.”

It’s a basic biology lesson that we learned in elementary school: Through a process called photosynthesis, leaves pull in carbon dioxide and water and use the energy of the sun to convert this into chemical compounds such as sugars that feed the tree. As a by-product of that chemical reaction, oxygen is produced and released. “It is proposed that one large tree can provide a day’s supply of oxygen for up to four people.”

Trees also store carbon dioxide in their fibers helping to clean the air and reduce the negative effects that this CO2 could have had on our environment. According to the Arbor Day Foundation, “In one year, a mature tree will absorb more than 48 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release oxygen in exchange.”

(The Power of One Tree — The Very Air We Breathe by Joanna Mounce Stancil, U.S. Forest Service).

Based on the research (that is being disputed) of Suzanne Simard, professor of Forest Ecology, University of British Columbia, and Ferris Jabr’s article, “The Social Life of Forests,” trees appear to communicate and cooperate through subterranean networks of fungi. What are they sharing with one another?” The article states that “an old growth forest is neither an assemblage of stoic organisms tolerating one another’s presence nor a merciless battle royale. It’s a vast, ancient and intricate society.” 

Simard believes that “these trees are very perceptive.” She says, “Very perceptive of who’s growing around them.” And she is really interested in whether they perceive us. Simard explains that “trees sense nearby plants and animals and alter their behavior accordingly, such as plant roots growing toward the sound of running water and flowers increasing the sweetness of their nectar when they detect a bee’s wing beat.” 

Simard studies the way trees exchange carbon, water and nutrients through underground networks of fungi (wood-wide web hypothesis). “There is conflict in a forest but there is also negotiation, reciprocity and perhaps even selflessness. The trees, understory plants, fungi and microbes in a forest are so thoroughly connected, communicative and codependent that some scientists have described them as super organisms.” In the book “The Secret Lives of Trees,” author Peter Wohlleben writes that “trees optimally divide nutrients and water among themselves, that they probably enjoy the feeling of fungi merging with their roots and that they even possess ‘maternal instincts.’”

Simard is in search of “mother trees.” Large, older trees that help keep other small younger trees healthy. Her research on mycorrhizal networks (subterranean networks of fungi) is changing the way we think about forests and forestry. “Everything is connected. Absolutely everything,” she says. 

Recently, however, Simard’s findings have been disputed by other Scientists such as Dr. Flynn, biology professor at Baldwin Wallace University. 

“Most experts,” Dr. Flinn wrote, “believe that groups of organisms whose members sacrifice their own interests on behalf of the community rarely evolve, a result of the powerful force of natural selection among competing individuals.” Instead, she suspects, fungi most likely distribute carbon according to their own interests, not those of trees. 

However, according the the U.S. Forest Service, there is proof that fungi play an important role in the lives of trees and plants by forming a mutualistic symbioses with host plant roots, increasing plant water and nutrient uptake in exchange for carbon. They can reduce or eliminate plant species and cause gaps in the forest canopy that may increase plant species diversity, and they recycle carbon, minerals and nutrients for use by other organisms, and contribute to the soil matrix physical properties. Not to mention being a wildlife food source. I still like to believe that even though fungi may be competitive, it ends up benefitting the forest as a whole.

https://apps.fs.usda.gov/

“Trees have always been a symbol of connection,” writes Jabr. However, there is now a material reality. “Wherever living things emerge, they find one another, mingle and meld,” he writes. And in one of the best lines I have heard in a great while, Jabr expresses at the end of his excellent article (New York Times): “There are no individuals. There aren’t even separate species. Everything in the forest is the forest.”

So, the next time you head to the woods for a psychological and physiological healing stroll through the woods, make sure you are in a present mindset. Look around and take in all of the benefits that nature, and especially trees, have to offer. 

As I am re-writing this, I am recovering from an acquired flu-like illness — of the many that are lurking around town. Hopefully, the year 2024 will be the year of healing and I can’t think of a better way to heal than to breathe in a breath of fresh air while absorbing all of the magnificence of our beautiful mountains and our resplendent trees.

"And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul. — John Muir