It takes just 3 minutes, in nature, for the brain waves to start swinging differently. A dance of decelerations and resonances that is activated in the presence of a landscape, in front of a river or in the presence of the blue mist that rises in the early morning from a wood. The neuroscientist Andrea Bariselli measured the variations in alpha, delta and theta waves with wireless electroencephalographs. With the Thalea project by Thimus, a company based in Franciacorta and San Francisco specializing in applied neuroscience, he conducted 5 camps in Val Camonica from which he drew a first result: “The observation of a natural landscape leads to a profound state of quiet . The slowing down of the brain waves causes a state of alertness and cognitive receptivity ».
The implications of the tests, once the laboratories in the Gran Paradiso and Abruzzo Parks have been completed, range from the identification of life paths to the creation of beneficial contexts in urban parks. A nature therapy already developed by the American David Strayer. In his tent camps in the canyons of Utah, the psychologist developed the theory of 3-days effect, the time it takes for the effects of biophilia, the empathic affiliation with wilderness, to stabilize.
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Further confirmations come from the CNR which, with the CAI, has conducted forest therapy workshops in Fai della Paganella, on Monte Duro in the Reggiano Apennines, in the Teso Forest of the Pistoiese Apennines, in the Abetina Reale of the Tuscan Apennine National Park. -Emiliano and in the Model Forest of the Florentine Mountains, “mixed forests with beech, chestnut, Scots pine and silver fir, holm oak and mastic – notes Francesco Meneguzzo, project manager – mainly in the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines which contain the genetic heritage of conifers Europeans who took refuge here in glaciation times “. The results of the questionnaires showed a decrease in the indices of anxiety, hostility, fatigue and confusion, and an increase in vigor. The study also identified 120 Cai shelters from which to leave for forest therapy walks accompanied by yoga, meditation and Qi-Gong in an enhancement of the mountain economy included in the National Forest Strategy which should be approved within the year.
The first mapping in Italy
In the woods, the CNR also measured the concentration of monoterpenes, the volatile components that make up the immune system of plants contained in resins and essential oils. In 2004, studies of the Nippon Medical School of Tokyo on the forest bath had already shown the effectiveness of inhalation of monoterpenes, preferably 2 hours after sunrise and in the early afternoon, on the activation of the immune system and the regulation of hormones. mood and stress. The Japanese protocol indicates “treatments” of 10-12 hours, to be divided into sessions of about 3 hours, for an effect that lasts over 4 weeks. In Italy, you need to look for chestnut trees and beeches with large foliage, the most common species in the country, when the branches have leaves, from May to October. In winter, cork and holm oak woods exposed to the sun and coniferous woods with Scots and domestic pines, white and red firs are beneficial.
A powerful tool for recovering well-being, monoterpenes are one of the study topics of Marco Mencagli, the agronomist who is working on the definition of the Pefc certification standard for the healthy use of forests. Mencagli is also responsible for mapping the most suitable places for bathing in the forests in the Sibillini National Park, the first in Italy: «among the 19 areas identified are the beech woods under Monte Bove, in the Val di Panico. The holm oak woods of the Lame Rosse are also spectacular, in an area of gullies and bare rocks. Old beech woods and meadows with a view of Monte Vettore and Castelluccio da Norcia alternate in Arquata del Tronto ».