Korean scientists have confirmed that walking through forest areas improved older women’s blood pressure, lung capacity and elasticity in their arteries.  Walking in an urban park with trees, or an arboretum, or a rural forest reduces blood pressure, improves cardiac-pulmonary parameters, bolsters mental health, reduces negative thoughts, lifts people’s moods, and restores our brain’s ability to focus – all findings of recent studies.  Park RX America (PRA), a nonprofit founded in 2017 by the public health pediatrician Dr. Robert Zarr, has established a large network of health care professionals who use nature prescriptions as part of their health care treatment for patients. A sample prescription: “walk along a trail near a pond or in a park with a friend, without earbuds, for ½ hour, twice a week.” 

As I began this piece on trees in forests, woods and parks, a friend asked, why in January in New England?  Why didn’t I wait until the deciduous trees were a palette of new spring green crowning the stark brown trunks and branches of winter?  The next day, January 7, nature provided the answer: a 10” snowstorm.  Trees after a winter snowstorm – their upstretched dark deciduous branches shouldered with snow and their downreaching […]