Why 'biophilia' needs to be part of your next holiday

Engaging with nature on vacation can not only make you feel more rested and restored, it can also enhance wellbeing when you're back home.

It's a cool but sunny spring morning as I step over rocks and past mountain laurel bushes into a wooded Connecticut land preserve. Only the trill of titmice and robins overhead and the crunch of dead oak leaves underfoot punctuate the still air. "We're folding into the forest," says Regan Stacy, a forest therapist who's guiding me. Our agenda: forest bathing – something that increasing numbers of resorts and hotels, even museums, are offering their guests. As the world gets more tech-filled, noisy and distracting, nature's call becomes louder. I can't help but listen.

I've always felt calm and at peace in nature but never stopped to consider why. The reason is what's known as biophilia: the innate love for and connection we feel to the natural world. This desire to interact with all forms of life was popularised by the naturalist Edward O Wilson in his 1984 book Biophilia. The theory is that since we evolved as a species in nature, it's where we feel most at home and connected.

While I love jogging in the park or a strenuous mountain hike, this outing in the woods is different. "Often when we're exercising, our minds are not exactly where we are. We have a particular destination or we're trying to keep a particular pace," says Stacy. "It's not necessarily about being right where you are." Forest bathing, however, is. It slows you down, allowing you to focus on your surroundings and notice how – and what – you're feeling. "You're opening your senses to what is around you, being called in whatever direction you feel called to go."

Following Stacy's instructions – or "invitations" as she calls them – I veer off the trail to touch hard wood and soft moss, smell hemlock branches and earthy humus, and let my eyes wash over the rolling and rocky landscape. The different textures and temperatures, the details I wouldn't normally take the time to observe, like fungi on fallen limbs, curling like seashells, or the echoing drill of a woodpecker, feel comforting to my heart.

These peaceful feelings have real impact. Numerous studies, including environmental psychologist Rita Berto's The Role of Nature in Coping with Psycho-Physiological Stress, show biophilia reduces anxiety, restores mental capacity and supports emotional wellbeing, all of which can affect physical health.

"The parasympathetic nervous system, also called the 'relax and renew' system, has the function of returning [you] to a condition of homeostatic equilibrium following a stressful situation," explains Berto, who is also the research leader at the Laboratory of Affective Ecology (GREEN LEAF) at Italy's University of Valle d'Aosta.

This is what happens when a person takes a walk in nature, for example. It's the opposite of when the sympathetic, or "fight-or-flight" system, is aroused as it is in response to busy or stressful places. Not only is a fight-or-flight response fatiguing, but "if it remains engaged for prolonged periods it can lead to chronic cardiovascular and endocrine responses that adversely affect health", Berto adds.

There is a growing body of evidence that suggests spending time in nature can be good for us. One large study by scientists at the University of Exeter in the UK suggested that exposing ourselves to nature for 120 minutes a week left people reporting that they felt healthier and happier. But the evidence can be quite mixed. While many studies of forest bathing, for example, appear to show a benefit to physical and mental health, they are often small and of insuffi