NIRS, Forests and Well-Being: Body-Territory as Public Health Policy

A BrainLatam2026 reading on forest bathing, Shinrin-yoku, APUS, Jiwasa, Zone 2, fNIRS and territorial health

Before talking about the forest, we need to talk about breathing.

The forest is not just a set of trees.
It is temperature, smell, shade, light, texture, silence, humidity, soil, slope, wind, microorganisms, volatile compounds, water, trail and time.

When we enter a forest, the body does not merely “observe” the landscape. The body changes rhythm. Attention opens. Breathing slows down. The gaze stops searching only for threat or task. The skin feels the environment. The step finds another kind of time.

That is why the volume “Foreste e benessere: Evidenze scientifiche e potenzialità per lo sviluppo territoriale”, edited by Alessandra Landi, Sandra Notaro and Sandro Sacchelli, published by FrancoAngeli in 2026, is so important for BrainLatam2026.

This work brings together scientific evidence, territorial analyses and studies on forest bathing, Shinrin-yoku, psychophysical well-being and local development. The central question can be stated as:

How can forests stop being understood only as natural resources or tourist landscapes and become recognized as living infrastructures of health, belonging and territorial development?

This question is strong because it moves the forest away from the place of “beautiful scenery” and into the field of public policy. The forest becomes an environment that can reduce stress, support mental recovery, improve connection with nature and open new possibilities for care, environmental education and local development.

What the volume investigated

The volume works across different fronts.

First, it reviews scientific evidence on forest-based practices aimed at human well-being. This literature points to important mechanisms: reduction of noise and pollution, reduction of stress, mental and physiological recovery, strengthening of the immune system, increased physical activity and improvement of social contact.

Second, it discusses forest characteristics that may influence well-being: forest type, luminosity, green index, season, tree density, canopy cover, species composition and the sensory quality of the environment.

Third, it presents studies linked to the FOR.WELL project, including analysis of forest areas, use of 360° videos, evaluation of environmental stimuli, discussions with stakeholders and a Shinrin-yoku experience at the Parco del Respiro, in Fai della Paganella, Trentino.

The strength of the volume lies in not separating nature, health and territory. It shows that forest bathing and forest therapy are not only individual experiences. They depend on forest management, accessibility, qualified guides, public policies, local communities, science and socioeconomic development.

Recognition of the scientific question and territorial design

The merit of this volume is significant.

The authors were able to bring together different dimensions of the same issue: health, forest, subjective experience, scientific evidence, territorial management, slow tourism, inland areas, local communities and well-being policies.

This is especially valuable because discussions about nature often become trapped between two extremes: on one side, a vague romanticization of the forest; on the other, a purely economic view of land as a productive resource.

The volume does something better: it treats the forest as a sociocultural ecosystem service, as an environment of care, as a space of regeneration and as a concrete possibility for territorial development.

The question is excellent because it emerges from a contemporary urgency: urbanized societies are experiencing more stress, more isolation, more acceleration and more illness. If forests can participate in psychophysical and relational recovery, then they need to be studied seriously, measured rigorously and incorporated into public health strategies.

Equipment, measures and technical architecture used in the volume

Here it is important to make an honest distinction.

This volume does not present, as its main data collection, an experiment using NIRS/fNIRS to directly measure participants’ cortical oxygenation. The text itself points to neurological assessment through EEG, fNIRS, fMRI and similar methods as a promising research line to be further developed in the field of well-being in forest environments.

In the empirical sections described, other instruments and measures appear. In the FOR.WELL project, 360° spherical videos were used, captured with an Insta360 camera equipped with two 180° lenses, under homogeneous weather conditions. Stimuli were recorded in alpine, Apennine and Mediterranean areas, considering pure and mixed forests, low and high density, winter and summer seasons.

Green indices were also analyzed using RGB components from the videos, such as Excess Green, Green Red Vegetation Index and Vegetative Index. In the Shinrin-yoku experience, subjective data were collected through questionnaires, including validated scales such as the Nature Relatedness Scale, Restorative Outcomes Scale and Connectedness to Nature Scale. Data collection was conducted through the EUSurvey platform, organized in Microsoft Excel and analyzed in R.

Breath samples were also collected before and after the experience, although the results of that analysis were not included in the presented work.

For Brain Support and BrainLatam, this point is strategic: when an article or volume does not directly use NIRS/fNIRS, we should not pretend that it did. The correct reading is different: the work opens a clear experimental opportunity for future studies using NIRS/fNIRS, EEG, HRV/RMSSD, respiration, GSR, ECG, eye-tracking and environmental measures.

NIRS/fNIRS and the next experimental question

The title of this blog includes NIRS because the next experimental frontier is precisely there.

If forests improve calmness, relaxation, mental clarity, connection with nature and sense of belonging, then a BrainLatam2026 question can be:

How does immersion in forest environments modulate the prefrontal cortex, breathing, autonomic regulation and the experience of body-territory?

This question calls for a multimodal experimental design.

fNIRS/NIRS could measure hemodynamic changes in the prefrontal cortex during slow walking, contemplation, guided silence, breathing, environmental listening and interaction with forest elements.

EEG could capture attentional rhythms, transitions from vigilance to relaxation, sustained attention markers and changes in resting states.

HRV/RMSSD could indicate autonomic regulation, parasympathetic opening and bodily safety.

Respiration could show slowing, regularity, amplitude and synchrony with the step.

GSR could measure sympathetic activation and emotional salience.

Eye-tracking could show whether the gaze stops being fixed on points of threat and begins to explore depth, canopy, light, soil, water and horizon.

Environmental sensors could measure temperature, humidity, luminosity, noise, volatile compounds, vegetation density and trail characteristics.

In this way, the forest would stop being only a “natural environment” and become understood as a measurable field of bodily regulation.

APUS: the forest as body-territory

This volume speaks deeply to APUS, understood as body-territory and extended proprioception.

In the forest, the body perceives more than trees. It perceives depth, soil irregularity, shade, smell, humidity, distant sounds, water presence, trail texture and shelter.

The body measures whether it can rest.
The body feels whether it can trust.
The body perceives whether there is openness or threat.
The body regulates the step.
The body rediscovers a non-industrial scale of time.

This is APUS: the territory participating in the organization of the body.

In a hostile city, APUS may narrow. The person contracts, accelerates, watches, protects. In a well-cared, accessible and safe forest, APUS may expand. The person breathes, perceives, walks, touches, listens, slows down and feels part of something larger.

This is one of the most important contributions to Decolonial Neuroscience: mental health does not happen only inside the head. It happens in the encounter between body, territory, time, community and the possibility of enjoyment.

Damasian Mind, Zone 2 and regeneration

In the Damasian Mind, consciousness is not separated from the body. It emerges from the integration of interoception, proprioception, emotion, memory and action.

The forest experience may favor precisely this reintegration.

When a person leaves an accelerated urban environment and enters a forest, a state transition may occur. The body stops operating only through task, vigilance and attentional consumption. Attention may reorganize into a more open, sensory and restorative mode.

In BrainLatam2026 language, the forest may support a transition from Zone 1 to Zone 2.

Zone 1 is the state of action, task and functional tension. It is necessary. We work, solve, respond, drive, calculate and decide.

But when life becomes trapped in this state for too long, without returning to enjoyment and metacognition, the body becomes tired, reactive and less creative.

Zone 2 is the state in which the person can feel the body, reorganize attention, perceive the territory, update beliefs, recover clarity and open space for creativity.

Forest bathing, when well conducted, can be a Zone 2 technology. Not a digital technology, but an ecological, bodily and territorial technology.

Jiwasa: the forest that restores “we”

The volume also speaks to Jiwasa.

The forest is not only a place of individual introspection. It can be a place for reconstructing “we.”

A guided trail, a collective experience of silence, a sharing circle, a practice of listening to nature or a community forest therapy program can create a sense of belonging that does not depend on consumption, competition or performance.

The person does not need to defeat the forest.
Does not need to consume the forest.
Does not need to dominate the forest.

The person can participate.

This point is central for BrainLatam2026. In societies where the body is often pushed toward loneliness, productivity, screens and anxiety, the forest can function as an environment that reorganizes the bond between person, community and territory.

This is where forest bathing stops being only an individual well-being practice and becomes a possibility for collective health.

From the volume’s question to a BrainLatam2026 experimental design

The volume asks:

How can forests and forest bathing practices contribute to human well-being and territorial development?

To answer this, it brings together:

literature review, analysis of forest characteristics, 360° videos, environmental indicators, psychometric questionnaires, a study with participants in a guided Shinrin-yoku practice and stakeholder analysis.

With this, it shows:

that the forest can be understood as an environment of psychological regeneration, connection with nature, territorial care and local development, as long as there is evidence, management, accessibility, qualified guides and community participation.

From this contribution, BrainLatam2026 can ask:

How do Latin American forest environments — Atlantic Forest, Araucaria forests, Amazon, Cerrado, urban forests and Indigenous territories — modulate brain, body, breathing, belonging and collective health?

This question requires a situated experimental design, combining:

fNIRS/NIRS + EEG + HRV/RMSSD + respiration + GSR + eye-tracking + environmental sensors + restoration and belonging scales + qualitative interviews.

This design would allow us to study not only whether the forest “does good,” but which forest, for which body, in which territory, with which history, under which social condition and through which practice.

A generous decolonial critique

The volume is excellent and very important. It offers a solid foundation for thinking about forest bathing in the European context, especially the Italian and alpine context.

The decolonial expansion does not diminish this contribution. On the contrary: it begins from it to ask what changes when we bring this discussion to Latin America.

Here, forest is not only well-being.
Forest is also memory, conflict, Indigenous territory, economic dispute, agribusiness, mining, speculation, spirituality, sovereignty, climate and survival.

In Latin America, talking about forest therapy without talking about Indigenous peoples, body-territory, environmental racism, unequal access to nature and destruction of biomes would be insufficient.

The decolonial question is:

Who has the right to the forest as health?

A wealthy person can pay for a forest bathing retreat. But what about the peripheral worker who lives without trees, without a nearby park, without dignified transportation, without free time and without safety?

If the forest regulates the body, access to the forest cannot be a luxury.
If shade heals, shade must become public policy.
If territory organizes the mind, territory must become collective care.

Bridge with DREX Cidadão and public health policies

The connection with DREX Cidadão appears when we understand health as social metabolism.

It is not enough to tell people “walk in the forest” if they do not have time, income, transportation, safety, parks, green areas or care policies.

DREX Cidadão, as a minimum economic metabolism distributed to the social body, can create conditions so that people do not live only in survival. It can return time, presence and the possibility of care.

Within this view, forests, urban parks, accessible trails, preserved Atlantic Forest, Araucaria areas, therapeutic gardens, schools in contact with nature and territorial health programs can be part of a public policy of Zone 2.

Could public health systems prescribe walking in green areas?
Could schools develop body-territory practices in parks?
Could municipalities map forest areas for mental health?
Could researchers use fNIRS, EEG, HRV and respiration to evaluate the psychophysiological effects of these practices?
Could city governments treat urban forest as care infrastructure?

This is the shift: the forest stops being landscape and becomes health, education and belonging policy.

Limits and cautions

It is important to maintain rigor.

Forest bathing and forest therapy do not replace medical, psychological or psychiatric treatment when such treatment is necessary. What the volume helps sustain is the idea that practices in forest environments can work as complementary strategies for well-being, prevention, environmental education and health promotion.

It is also necessary to avoid turning the forest into an empty product. If the practice becomes only well-being tourism for a few, it loses public power. Forest therapy needs to respect territory, local community, biodiversity, accessibility and ecological limits.

The forest cannot become another “thing for the rich.”
It needs to become shared body-territory.

Closing

The volume by Landi, Notaro, Sacchelli and collaborators reminds us that the forest is not only landscape.

It is an environment of regulation.
It is a living technology of breathing.
It is a space of belonging.
It is ecological health infrastructure.
It is APUS in an expanded state.
It is Jiwasa among humans, trees, soil, water and time.

BrainLatam2026 looks at this work and asks: how can we measure this experience better? How can we use NIRS/fNIRS, EEG, HRV, respiration, GSR and environmental measures to show that territory participates in mental and bodily health?

Perhaps one of the great tasks of Decolonial Neuroscience is this: to help prove, with science and sensitivity, that the body needs living territory so it does not become ill in silence.

Because a society that destroys its forests also destroys its possibilities for breathing, belonging and future.

Reference

Landi, A., Notaro, S., & Sacchelli, S. (Eds.). (2026). Foreste e benessere: Evidenze scientifiche e potenzialità per lo sviluppo territoriale. Milano: FrancoAngeli. ISBN ebook: 9788835192640.