![\"\"](\"http:\/\/katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/7\/tree.jpg\" "\\"Tree\\"")
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The other day I was at a stoplight, spacing, thinking about the sound of waves and the heat of summer or the whooshing of air though the open car windows \u2013 or whatever it is I think of when I\u2019m not really thinking at all. Anyway, there was a woman on the corner, she had waist-length hair and wore a prairie skirt. Her arms were stretched around a tree in a bear hug. I use \u201ctree\u201d loosely, it was really more of a tall shrub, an evergreen column. Her head was turned, cheek to scrub.<\/p>\n
Now, there is a woman who really loves trees, I thought, good for her.<\/p>\n
Then the light changed and as I pulled away, she stepped back and moved her walking cane from one hand to the other and tapped her way across the street. How awesome is it that she has a perfectly acceptable excuse to hug trees all day? I\u2019m a bit jealous. \u00a0<\/p>\n
I love trees and have been kind of captivated by their health benefits since I first read about this Japanese study that found men who walked in the forest for 2 hours for 2 days had a 50% spike in natural killer cells<\/a> (cells that destroy abnormal cancer cells).\u00a0And the study found that women showed a spike in immune system function<\/a> that lasted for over a week.<\/p>\n In January a similar study was released. 140 people were instructed to walk though a forest for a few hours while another 140 people were instructed to walk though a city for a few hours. The second day they changed places. The study found that being among plants produced \u201clower concentrations of cortisol, lower pulse rate, and lower blood pressure,\u201d<\/a> among other things.<\/p>\n It makes me want to try harder to find places to plant trees in my already full yard. Maybe I\u2019ll find a few more places. Maybe I\u2019ll put in a bat house or two. Maybe the barn swallows will like it too. Maybe they\u2019ll eat all our insects. Maybe they\u2019ll all help us live longer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The other day I was at a stoplight, spacing, thinking about the sound of waves and the heat of summer or the whooshing of air though the open car windows \u2013 or whatever it is I think of when I\u2019m not really thinking at all. Anyway, there was a woman on the corner, she had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hmn-reports","category-popular"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":682,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661\/revisions\/682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.katherinemalmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}