We’ve all heard of tree hugging, but how many of us have actually, physically gone out and hugged a tree? The Icelandic Forest Service has an unusual piece of advice for Icelanders struggling with coronavirus restrictions – since you can’t hug people, try hugging trees instead.
What started as a status on an employee’s Facebook page became a company-wide initiative, and now park rangers, their families and friends have posed for a tree-hugging collage on the service’s website.
"A walk in the woods is good for you, and it’s good for your morale during difficult times," Throstur Eysteinsson, director of the Icelandic Forest Service, told Insider, "you don’t have to literally hug a tree, but the trees don’t mind."
So-called ‘forest bathing’ has been all the rage in Japan for decades, and has grown in popularity recently in Europe too.
Nature therapies have helped human health for the whole of history and studies have shown that living near a forest reduces stress, while the link between greenery and wellbeing has been proven time and again.
With a population of around 364,000, Iceland has resisted total lockdown, though social distancing protocols and bans on public gatherings are in place. Schools and businesses are closed, but woodland is not, and rangers have been hard at work shovelling snow to ensure that paths remain clear.
Coronavirus can survive on trees for several days, so the Forest Service recommends picking trees off the beaten track that won’t have been embraced too recently.
