I’m taking a pause in our regularly scheduled programming to send you some summer ​love. I don’t know about you, but every time those warm summer months roll around, I feel like checking out of the everyday and replugging in nature. There is something so rejuvenating about breaking your routine, heading out to the beach, hitting the trails in some magnificent forest, or sitting around a campfire. (Can you smell the s’mores?!)

Nature just feeds my soul. Little did I know that this magical power of nature is the inspiration for the art of Shinrin-yoku or “forest bathing”. The premise is that the simple act of walking in nature – slowly and with awareness – will naturally bring your stress level down, boost your immune system and improve your mood. Nice, right?

Here is a little peek at a hike I did in the Santa Cruz Mountains not too long ago. As Robert Louis Stevenson said, “It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air, that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.” Whether you find yourself canoeing in a lake or strolling through the redwoods, may you soak in all nature has to offer.

You deserve to chill out, my friend, and Mother Earth can’t wait for you to appreciate her beauty.