Nature’s Healing Power: Forest Therapy with Clemens Arvay (veg advocate), Part 1 of 4

One of the pioneers of forest therapy is Austrian biologist and author Clemens G. Arvay. His work centers on the relationship between humans and nature. Devoted to forest medicine, Clemens Arvay examines the health effects of the forest on our bodies as well as our minds. Today we are very honored to have Clemens Arvay on Supreme Master Television, as he shares how his relationship with nature began.

“Forest medicine, or forest therapy, is an approach where one integrates, very deliberately, an experience of nature with a therapeutic concept to treat both physical and psychological problems. Because the forest is full of bioactive substances. You could say it is an outright pharmacy of active substances. And we do know this: These substances that come from the trees, from the humus, from the roots, from other plants, also from soil organisms; they are very important for our immune function, for our heart health, for our nervous system, and for many other parts of the body. Even at the cellular level, they actually have a regenerative and healing effect. There are studies that show, for example, that people who are clinically diagnosed with depression, benefit greatly from walking in the forest.”

“In my opinion, the combination of water and forest is especially successful, because the depth of the lake – for example, the peace and quiet that the lake radiates – combines with the effect of nature’s greenery. There is also a study that shows that, for example, children suffering from asthma, up to four months of age, experience a significant improvement in their symptoms when they have been able to take a short or two-week curative stay at a waterfall.”

“The immune defense of the trees also seems to be known to our immune system. It also reacts to the terpenes of the forest by strengthening its immune defenses. Actually, we also breathe in the soil microbes, because they are stirred up and we swallow them down, and they become part of our intestinal ecosystem. They also have proven to have a significant effect on our immune system. They train our immune system, they improve it.”