Timothy R. Olsen ’09, ’18 MBA

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A whistle cuts through the morning air. one by one, figures emerge from beneath cottonwood trees lining a shaded trail. For several minutes — absent phones, electronic devices, and even the conversation of others — they have wandered alone.Now, though, it is time to return. 

A simple question is asked. “What did you notice?” The answers come … slowly. 

One person describes the sounds of water from the nearby stream. Another admits they hadn’t realized how tense they’d been feeling. A third simply points upward and says, “The clouds.” 

For Utah State University professor Jesse Jones, moments like these are the reason he teaches outdoor leadership. He is the director of the Outdoor Adventure Leadership program in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Science in the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, and has spent much of his life helping people experience the outdoors. 

Jones began his career leading river and backpacking expeditions across Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho. While earning a master’s degree from Ohio University and a Ph.D. in recreation, sport, and tourism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign his work expanded across the nation. Since joining the Utah State faculty in 2019, he has continued leading outdoor and educational experiences internationally, including programs in Japan and Croatia. Across these settings, Jones has guided people through alpine meadows, forested mountains, remote canyons, and whitewater rivers, where hours — or even days — pass without modern distractions. 

In early 2024, after years of leading people through wild places and then teaching his students to do the same, he found himself wrestling with a question that technical outdoor skills couldn’t answer: What is it about the mountains and forests that change people? 

“For most of my career, I have worked in outdoor recreation, adventure education, and experiential learning. I believe deeply in the power of adventure,” Jones explains. “At the same time, I have become increasingly aware that our relationship with the outdoors can become centered on achievement, performance, and consumption. 

“We climb the mountain and take the picture, then move on to our next experience. It is possible to spend an entire day outside without ever really becoming present to where we are. I began looking for practices that could help people slow down and experience the natural world differently.” 

The Japanese Art of Forest Bathing

The modern concept of forest bathing emerged in Japan in the early 1980s, during a period marked by rapid economic growth, urbanization, demanding work schedules, and increasing concern about chronic stress. Long working hours and deaths associated with overwork were drawing greater public attention. Against this backdrop, Japan’s Forestry Agency introduced the term and practice of Shinrin-Yoku in 1982 as a preventive healthcare initiative, encouraging people to slow down and experience the forest’s restorative power through their senses. 

Over the following decades, researchers studied the physical and psychological effects, helping the practice evolve from a form of forest-based recreation into an evidence-informed approach to preventive health. Unlike hiking or other goal-oriented outdoor activities, forest bathing emphasizes being present without needing to reach a destination or accomplish a competitive goal. 

For Jones, however, the value of forest bathing extends beyond stress reduction. The practice invites people to reconsider their relationship with the natural world. It is not simply a setting for recreation, but a living community in which humans are participants. 

Determined to better understand and incorporate the practice into his own teaching, Jones completed a training program and certification through the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy Guides. The training included six months of online learning and collaboration followed by four days of intensive field experience in Japan. Once complete, Jones was certified to guide Shinrin-Yoku sessions for the public. 

Although forest bathing can initially sound — as Jones jokingly describes it — “a little crunchy,” the practice itself is simple. 

“At its heart, it is about slowing down and paying attention,” Jones explains. 

A forest bathing session typically lasts one to three hours and develops through three relationships: a person’s relationship with themselves, with others, and with what practitioners call the “more than-human world.” The guide offers simple sensory invitations that create opportunities for reflection, but participants decide for themselves what the experience means. 

Throughout the experience, the guide works in partnership with the landscape, adapting each invitation to the people, place, and conditions. Yet nature remains at the center of the experience. As forest therapy practitioners often explain, “The forest is the therapist; the guide opens the doors.” 

A Classroom Without Walls 

Since his training, Jones has incorporated the principles of Shinrin-Yoku into the Outdoor Adventure Leadership curriculum at Utah State. 

“My goal is not to simply teach students how to lead a forest therapy session. I want them to become more thoughtful and intentional designers of human experiences,” he insists. “I want them to understand that leadership doesn’t always mean standing at the front and directing everything. Sometimes leadership means creating the conditions for people to slow down, notice, listen, and make their own meaning.”

Among the students who have experienced forest bathing firsthand is Jayden Beach, who graduated from Utah State in Spring 2026 with a bachelor’s degree in recreation administration and a minor in outdoor adventure leadership. Today, she is a recreation coordinator for Nibley City, where she oversees youth sports programs and community events. 

“When I participated in Shinrin-Yoku with Jesse, it felt like an escape,” Beach recalls. “In the midst of school and clubs, working two jobs, and maintaining relationships and other responsibilities, my life could get very overwhelming. In Jesse’s classes, we took time to disconnect from everything else going on and focus on being present. Every time I left his class, I wished I could stay longer.” 

She says one class in particular — Outdoor Recreation Management — was one of the most impactful courses she took. After discussing book chapters in class, the students would visit places around campus listening, feeling, breathing, and connecting with the world around them. 

“I think a lot of people shy away from forest bathing when they first hear about it because it seems strange,” Beach smiles. “I’d love to incorporate it into a hiking or outdoor adventure program to help people experience it alongside activities they are already familiar with. Ultimately, I think that is what all recreation is about — getting us disconnected from the stress and chaos of daily life and reconnected to ourselves and the outdoors in a positive way.” 

The Outdoor ‘Prescription’ 

For people who want to experience the benefits of forest bathing outside of a formal Shinrin-Yoku session, Jones’s advice is surprisingly practical and easy. 

“Every six months we need about four days in the outdoors away from society, away from technology, where we can begin to rest and recuperate. Then we need about an hour a week,” he says. 

“It’s about being fully immersed. When I’m with my own family on the Salmon River in Idaho, we’re traveling almost 100 miles over four or five days, and we can’t be on our phones. Time is suddenly on our side. I’ve watched my kids lying on the side of the raft just staring up at the sky. It seems like they’re bored, but they’re actually looking at the clouds, finally seeing them. All of this is part of the forest bathing experience where we can reconnect to the natural world and reenergize.” 

For families, Jones’s advice is refreshingly uncomplicated. He recommends just getting into the woods and leaving all the technology behind. He says there’s a detox period, but it passes and the experience becomes freeing and healing for the entire family. 

“The outdoors fundamentally changes people,” he exclaims. “Humans flourish when they are connected with the land. I hope people leave feeling more connected than when they arrived. That’s my goal.”