The Science Behind Touching Trees
In early 2025, I lost my job. I was in the middle of a divorce. Most of my community and friendships disappeared. And I had just signed a mortgage for my very first home.
Everything I thought was stable suddenly wasn't. The early months of unemployment were dark. I was working so hard to stay positive through all of it, but my body couldn't hold up anymore.
I remember one especially dark day on a Saturday in January. I was panicking. I'd used every tool I'd built in years of therapy. I'd called every one of my few remaining support people. And still — I could not pull myself out of that heavy darkness. In a desperate, last-resort kind of plea, I asked myself a question: Where can you go to feel love? I'd spent so much of my healing process wandering through parks. So I went to the trees.
The trees saved me that day. I wrote a poem about it.
The trees saved me.
When I had no one to hug,
I wrapped my arms around them
and they held me.
When I had no one to hear my cry,
I placed my head upon them
and they listened.
When I felt so dark and hollow,
I stood amongst them
and they filled me with their light.
When I pressed my heart against their bark
they whispered:
Wait one more day;
one more week.
You are so close to all you seek.
The trees saved me.
When I no longer had the will,
they gave me life.
Touching trees has been part of my spiritual practice for a couple of years now. I find wisdom there. Answers I can’t find on my own and comfort I don’t even know I need.
BUT.
I sometimes struggle with being known as a treehugger and it has made me curious. Is there something real here, or is this just me finding comfort in the woo?
Turns out — it's not just a nature loving, treehugger, hippie affair. It's physiology.
So What's Actually Happening When you Touch Trees?
Your nervous system calms down on contact. Doctors have pointed to a 2024 study that found people who touched real grass showed decreased anxiety, lower blood pressure, and less inflammation compared to people who touched artificial turf instead. Their bodies responded before their minds even had time to decide it was working.
Time in the forest resets your stress response. The New York State DEC has a great plain-language breakdown of what happens when we spend real time around trees: lower blood pressure, reduced stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, and even a boost to immune cell activity that can last for weeks afterward.
And doctors are starting to say it out loud. Dr. Chiti Parikh, Executive Director of the Integrative Health and Wellbeing Program at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, put it plainly: “As humans, our physiology is influenced by our environment. Data shows that increasing exposure to green spaces is one of the most powerful ways we can reset our nervous system.”
This isn't just us hippies going around barefoot and touching trees anymore. Science has backed up what my nervous system already knew.
Try Touching Trees
I'm not a scientist, but I am a human like you. And what I do know, is that something happens in your body when you are outside in nature, and even more so, when you are touching nature. Next time you walk past a tree — stop. Put your palm flat against the bark. Just be there.
Notice what you see behind closed eyes. Notice your breath. Notice the energy flowing from the ground, through your body, and into the tree and then notice the energy flowing from the tree through your body to the ground.
It’s a magical experience. And if you get lucky, the tree may even talk to you.
