Boost Your Bookings: Why Forest Bathing Is the Missing Link in Your Wellbeing Business
Are you a flower essence practitioner, equine therapist, sound healer or Qi Gong instructor? You already help clients connect deeply with themselves through nature-based and holistic techniques.
In 2026, the demand for nature-based healing is set to skyrocket. Adding a Forest Bathing Guide certification to your toolkit is a diversification strategy that offers several benefits for both your customers and your business by deepening your therapeutic relationship with the natural world.
Let’s look at 3 ways learning to run your own Forest Bathing events can enhance customer experience.
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Run Your Own Forest Bathing Events as a “Pre-Treatment” Calming Effect
Your existing clients often struggle with stress and overwhelm and are seeking out deep states of relaxation. They also tend to value nature’s influence and prefer natural remedies where possible.
Forest Bathing (or Shinrin Yoku, in Japan, where it originated) is the perfect complementary service:
- For Flower Essence and Herbal Practitioners: Forest Bathing harmonises perfectly with remedies derived from trees and plants. The practice creates a quiet, receptive and intuitive state, allowing clients to establish a deeper energetic connection with the plants and essences you recommend, amplifying the healing effect. You can also include foraging during the Forest Bathing session and even complete the experience with a Japanese tea ceremony.
- For Equine Therapists: The success of equine-assisted therapy hinges on the client’s ability to achieve deep presence, non-verbal communication and self-regulation. Forest Bathing acts as a perfect grounding practice, rooting your client in deep sensory awareness and stillness before they interact with the horse, enhancing the therapeutic bond and the effectiveness of the session.
- For Massage and Reiki: A guided forest bathing session acts as a powerful pre-treatment, gently easing clients out of their overactive sympathetic nervous system (fight-or-flight) and into the parasympathetic state (rest-and-digest). By the time they arrive for their hands-on session with you, they are already deeply relaxed, making your primary work far more effective. This could work well as a retreat offering, with a morning group Forest Bathing session, followed by some 1-1 treatments in the afternoon.
- For Sound Healing and Meditation: The quiet, sensory invitations of Forest Bathing – focusing on scent, texture and sound – prime the mind and body for deeper immersion in sound or mindfulness work. It is “grounding 101.” Learning to run your own Forest Bathing events would mean you could run a group Forest Bathing session then a group sound bath and then finish with some chanting or other form of group meditation. What a brilliant retreat day that would be!
- For Movement Practitioners (Qigong, Outdoor Yoga, Tai Chi, Nordic Walking): Forest Bathing provides the perfect deep grounding and present moment awareness needed before physical or meditative practice, enhancing the quality of movement and mind-body connection.
- For Hot/Cold Therapy (Wild Swimming, Saunas): Forest Bathing offers a beautiful counterbalance to intense temperature work, providing gentle, sustained calm and a slower, sustained connection to the elements before or after a shock to the system.
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High-Value Group Experiences
While your core offerings may be 1-to-1, Forest Bathing excels as a high-value group service. You can run seasonal workshops that:
- Increase Revenue Per Hour: Group walks allow you to serve multiple clients simultaneously.
- Natural Client Appeal: Since clients seeking modalities like Reiki or flower essences are already tuned into holistic, nature-inspired healing, Forest Bathing feels like a natural and essential extension of the self-care they already value. It directly meets their existing worldview.
- Cross-Promote Services: The Forest Bathing session acts as a gentle, low-pressure introduction to your other therapies. A client who experiences deep calm in the woods may be more likely to book your massage or healing session later as you’ve had the opportunity to build the ‘know, like, trust’ connection.
- Zero Infrastructure: Unlike a dedicated sauna, treatment room or healing space, your “studio” is the forest. Your overheads are drastically reduced.
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Meet the Demand for “Authentic” Nature and Run Your Own Forest Bathing Events
In 2026, clients are moving beyond simple “walks in the park.” They are seeking guided Forest Therapy and Nature Connection experiences by certified guides that bring the measurable health benefits caused by the inhalation of phytoncides, such as reduced cortisol and boosted immunity through the increase in white blood cells.
Becoming a certified Forest Bathing Guide gives you the authority and structured methodology to deliver this transformative, verifiable healing practice, setting you apart from general wellness practitioners.
The time to grow your practice outwards, into the calming embrace of the natural world, is now.
Start your training course in 2026 and run your own Forest Bathing events before the end of the year.
It’s the ultimate upgrade for your holistic offerings and your customers will thank you.
Find out more here: https://adoreyouroutdoors.co.uk/forestbathingguidetraining/
