I spent my birthday a few weeks ago at my friend’s house in a small suburban city an hour above Manhattan. His house is plentiful with big glass windows and doors and all you see when you look out of them are trees, and sometimes critters like deer, rabbits and turkeys.

Being surrounded by trees (no animals required) is called forest-bathing. Really. There’s a name for being around tons of trees – and it’s healthy. Of course it is. I always knew, city kid that I am, that visiting my Aunt in Maryland eons ago, when we finally drove off the turnpike and the landscape became green, and I was enveloped by trees, I breathed differently. Deeper. It made me more relaxed, more restful. It made me calmer and happier. Actually, it made me more in touch with myself.

I know there are people who feel this way on the beach, but I’m a tree-girl. If you want to read more about forest bathing and the real phenomena that it is, click here.

Leave it to the Japanese to actually name it. Now I’m sure they’re working on a way to miniaturize it and have it delivered by a robot.