This is the fourth story in a Healing With Nature series that focuses on Forest Preserve District visitors who benefit physically and mentally from being in nature.

Most of us yearn for retirement and the freedom it promises, but sometimes there can be a stressful side to this stage of life. 

You can lose camaraderie and a sense of purpose, said Barbara Collins, 63, of Bolingbrook who has been experiencing some of these emotions after retiring in 2023 to care for her husband, Curt, while he underwent knee surgery. 

After her husband healed, Collins said she had to adjust to this new chapter in her life. 

“Finding my purpose has been a struggle, but it’s also been a process,” she said. “I missed the work, and I liked what I did. I missed the people that I worked with. You’re building relationships with your coworkers that are harder to maintain. Everything is different.”

Collins said she also missed the routine of getting up at the same time every day and heading off to work. 

“It’s a regulation to the day that I liked that you don’t have when you retire,” she said. 

Being here

For Collins, part of the retirement transition process involved signing up for a forest bathing/forest therapy program last summer at the Morton Arboretum that kindled something in her. The group took a hike, but it was different from hikes she had taken before. That’s when Collins said she learned about the beauty of forest bathing. 

“You may walk a half mile, but take three hours to do it,” she explained. “You have to be quiet and observant and to use all your senses. The goal is not getting there – it’s being here. I’ve walked in the woods all my life, and this was a different way of looking at things.” 

She knew she wanted to learn more, so she bought some books and studied forest bathing and forest therapy in depth. Last fall, she offered to take a group of fellow parishioners at Friendship United Methodist Church in Bolingbrook on a forest bathing hike at Hidden Oaks Preserve in Bolingbrook. 

The outing was successful, so she led another hike in the spring and she hopes to lead more in the seasons to come. 

Listen to the trees

Collins has always been drawn to nature, even though she grew up on the north side of Chicago. Her first career goal as a teen was to be a forest ranger because she loved camping and the trees in her Lakeview neighborhood. 

“I feel more comfortable the greener things are,” she said. 

But the Chicago colleges she was considering did not offer that major. A school counselor at Joliet Junior College advised her there were few forest ranger jobs and there was a lot of competition for them. He suggested she look at horticulture instead. 

So, she earned a horticultural degree and worked in the field for 42 years in nursery ownership, landscaping and retail before she retired. Now she is experiencing plants in a different way. For instance, as part of the forest bathing experience, Collins has learned how to listen to trees. 

“You take a flat rock about the size of your ear, and you calm yourself, calm your breath and put that rock to your ear to listen to the tree,” she said. “You can hear the inner workings of a tree, and it sounds almost like a distant train. What you are hearing is movement and fluid. There are fluids that come up from the ground and go out to the leaves. And the leaves produce the food and bring it back down.”

Listening to trees and seeking out nature is one way to heal the stress and have a better quality of life, but you don’t necessarily need to find a forest, Collins added. 

“This could be in your backyard,” she said. “This could be on a city street or wherever you find trees. Trees are an important part of it. The more trees the better, but you may only have one tree in your backyard and that’s the tree you’re going to commune with.”

Destressing for health

To fully reap the benefits of forest bathing and being in nature, you need to let go of your normal fast-paced style of movement, Collins explained. 

“You have to calm your breathing,” she said. “The four-seven-eight breathing is good for that. You spend four seconds breathing in, hold for seven counts and breathe out for eight counts. They use it for anxiety or panic attacks, too. It calms your … everything.” 

Even though she has embraced forest bathing and nature for their healing effects now that she has the time to do so, there is still work to be done, Collins said.  Collins hopes to take classes in forest bathing and forest therapy. And she also plans to help with a community gardens project in the City of Chicago’s Austin neighborhood where there are food deserts and fresh food is hard to find.

It’s all part of her quest to find a purpose. 

“I’m just still trying to figure it out,” she said. “It’s been about a year and a half now and where is my place in this next (stage) of my life. I want to keep my hand in horticulture in some way whether it’s photography, writing, consulting or whatever it may be. I just want to do that. I enjoy horticulture, I enjoy plants and that is where I am most comfortable.”

Nature calms

Collins is hoping to share her love of nature with others via her forest bathing excursions and community garden work in the years to come to have a more rewarding retirement and to improve the lives of others. She wants people to know plants can teach us a lesson about prioritizing our health.

“When a plant is stressed out, and it doesn’t have the right water, sun or food, that is when insects and disease move into that plant," she said. "Insects and disease can sense when a plant is weaker, and they move in. That is a well-known fact.”

The same is true for people, she added. If you are stressed out, you’re more likely to get sick. Collins recommends letting nature in to maintain your physical and mental health through even the toughest times in your life. 

“When you are out in nature it can have a calming effect on you if you pay attention to it and if you absorb it,” she said.