🎙 The Healing Power of Nature: Horticultural Therapy Part 2 Ep207

Have you ever felt the calm embrace of a forest or the quiet joy of tending to a garden? Dr. Trey Wilson guides us through the lush terrain of forest therapy, a practice accessible to all, therapist or not, and shares his latest triumphs in integrating nature into a major medical center's approach to wellness. With every anecdote and insight, you're bound to find a green spark that could illuminate your own path to well-being. 

In part 2 of this series, we also venture into therapeutic landscapes and gardens, where even those with a fear of plants can find their place in the green. Dr. Wilson's experiences in crafting these sanctuaries, particularly for those on the front lines of healthcare, serve as powerful narratives on the symbiotic relationship between humans and the environment. We confront the challenge of reconnecting our youth with nature and discuss the potential growth for children with learning disabilities through gardening. It's not just about getting our hands dirty; it's about sowing the seeds for a healthier, more harmonious existence.

• Part 1 Release Date June 5, 2024 
• Part 2 Release Date June 12, 2024

Learn more about Dr. Trey Wilson and his services at https://www.treysgardens.com/
Follow Trey Wilson on Instagram and Facebook: @treygardens; LinkedIn at Edward Wilson, DDS HT 

Recording Date: May 13, 2024

Be a part of advancing science by participating in clinical research.

Have a question for Dr. Koren? Email him at askDrKoren@MedEvidence.com

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Music: Storyblocks - Corporate Inspired

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Transcript

00:00:00:22 - 00:00:16:16
Narrator
Welcome to MedEvidence, where we help you navigate the truth behind medical research with unbiased evidence. Proven facts powered by ENCORE Research Group and hosted by cardiologist and top medical researcher Dr. Michael Koren.

00:00:16:18 - 00:00:41:23
Dr. Koren
Hello, I'm Dr. Michael Koren, and I'm really excited about this session that I just had with Dr. Trey Wilson, who's sitting beside me here. Dr.  Trey Wilson is a dentist who practiced for 37 years in New York City and got very interested in horticultural therapy, and he's been educating me and hopefully our listenership to what it means to do horticultural therapy and how it helps people.

00:00:42:01 - 00:01:00:01
Dr. Koren
So let's continue our conversation because, you know, I learned a lot about the intrinsic value of getting your hands into the dirt and, how it affects people and some of the positive experiences that you've been able to help people achieve. So I'm going to get into a little bit more detail now with you. So we talked a little bit about that.

00:01:00:01 - 00:01:16:08
Dr. Koren
There's different elements of getting back to nature, getting back to gardening. So explain to us a little bit better about trees versus plants versus all the different ways we can access nature and which niches may be fulfilled. When you look at health care and wellness.

00:01:16:10 - 00:01:44:10
Dr. Wilson
So I think it really depends on the comfort level of the client. I have a client. I'm also a landscape designer who is terrified of plants, and she is really afraid of the animals, and, and rashes and all types of things that she thinks in her mind, plants are going to create for herself. But so we started with her taking care of a house plant indoors.

00:01:44:10 - 00:02:16:01
Dr. Wilson
That was her horticultural therapy experience. But for other people then the forest is available. And so all of this is works because of what Edmundo Wilson, the famous Harvard anthropologist, says we all have this biophilic response, biophilic -love of nature. What is it about when we're in the presence of nature that happens for us? Why do we sigh at sunsets?

00:02:16:02 - 00:02:48:03
Dr. Wilson
Why, when we look at a mountaintop, you know, our heart rate goes down, our minds dropped racing. What's actually happening here? And so forest therapy is derivative of the Japanese practice of forest bathing, which began in the 1980s, when the Japanese medical community noticed a change in the levels of obesity, depression, heart disease. As the Japanese workforce moved from an outdoor environment to an indoor one.

00:02:48:03 - 00:03:18:17
Dr. Wilson
And so in Japan, for instance, covered by insurance, a doctor can write a prescription for ten forest therapy sessions. Interesting. So that patient, you know, obviously you have to be comfortable being with the great outdoors. So wherever you are, if it's if it's caring for a houseplant, if it's planting seeds with your grandchildren and watching your the delight that your grandchild sees and growing something from seed.

00:03:18:19 - 00:03:21:17
Dr. Wilson
Nature has a solution because that's how we're designed.

00:03:21:18 - 00:03:49:18
Dr. Koren
Interesting, fascinating. So tell me a little bit about like, your cognitive process when you're analyzing a specific situation. So for example, I know you've been hired by a major medical centers, by nursing homes, other health care organizations, and they have a sense that getting their customers, their clients, their patients closer to nature may be of some value.

00:03:49:22 - 00:03:53:19
Dr. Koren
So walk me through that process a little bit. How you would analyze that.

00:03:53:21 - 00:04:30:05
Dr. Wilson
So it would be who are the clients? Are the clients physicians, clinicians themselves? is it caregivers and the patients. So and just ultimately deciding what the goals are. So for one of the hospitals that I did work, it was, a therapeutic garden for clinicians struggling with COVID burnout. and so we wanted to increase socialization. We wanted to give them a place where they could just get out from underneath paperwork and be still just to be still.

00:04:30:07 - 00:04:58:17
Dr. Wilson
So we created these meandering pathways through a natural habitat of plants. and provided the opportunity invitational of course to engage in a very specific way. So it might be, for instance, having a stream of running water where you could sit in a little enclave; a stream of running water going by. And there would be different sized rocks.

00:04:58:19 - 00:05:33:19
Dr. Wilson
and the activity was notice what happens to the sound of water when you impede it in different ways? It's just very, very simple things. But it gets people again out of the out of the prefrontal cortex into the place where we experience things like awe and wonder. Right. So kind of just knowing who your patient basis, if it's, you know, if it's, people who are, acute trauma, trauma patients, they're going to I'm going to design a garden, an activity entirely different because their needs are different.

00:05:33:19 - 00:05:41:09
Dr. Wilson
Right? So again, it's the nature. It's the nature's generous and adaptive mechanism. Why it works.

00:05:41:11 - 00:05:56:08
Dr. Koren
So from the therapeutic area, is there something fundamentally different for from growing things compared to just experiencing nature. Just kind of curious about that. You would think that there may be some difference.

00:05:56:10 - 00:06:13:19
Dr. Wilson
I think it's of subjective differences. I know that people who are comfortable gardening and really like the experience of learning all there is to know about plants that they like the hands-on experience.

00:06:13:21 - 00:06:30:22
Dr. Koren
Or kids with learning disabilities, for example, I would think, I know this is just an association at this point, but them getting involved in gardening, which a lot of kids in cities don't have that opportunity, and seeing how things are created and grow may have some fundamental benefits.

00:06:30:23 - 00:07:03:03
Dr. Wilson
Yes. I read an article about the, in a very, very well written book called The Lost Child in the Woods. It's about the nature deficit syndrome, and that 39% of American children between the ages of six and 12, view nature as they're either apathetic or they're fearful about being in the wild. So what does this mean for this generation of kids?

00:07:03:04 - 00:07:24:05
Dr. Wilson
who maybe didn't have parents, who took them out to look at the rain puddle at the end of the street to say, I wonder what's going on there? That was part of our formation. Right, right. And kids now are just really not having the same experiences and being introduced in a playful way, because it's all about play for kids, right?

00:07:24:05 - 00:07:25:04
Dr. Koren
For sure.

00:07:25:06 - 00:07:50:12
Dr. Wilson
So if you're not making it a playful experience, there's no delight there. And so, of course, you know, their brains are as the great predictors, predicting it is an unsafe place. And so, yeah. So with, you know, kids with learning disabilities, you know, it depends on what the learning disability is, what kind of activity I would prescribe for that particular group.

00:07:50:12 - 00:08:18:01
Dr. Wilson
And, and sometimes it's just getting a, you know, a critical mass of clients, with the same challenge, to create the activity because you're not going to put maybe in an intergenerational activity where you've got grandparents, you know, who are on the spectrum with Alzheimer's disease, and you've got kids maybe with behavioral disorders, and you're doing an intergenerational event.

00:08:18:05 - 00:08:21:18
Dr. Wilson
Yeah, that would be one activity. Yeah. Something that's a very powerful.

00:08:21:23 - 00:08:43:19
Dr. Koren
Yeah, I love that. That's it's a beautiful idea actually. way connecting people in that that's actually a problem for a lot of people. You know, we all want to engage our kids and our grandkids. It's sometimes difficult to know how to do that. So you can go out for dinner only a certain number of times. Obviously, eating is something we share, but working in a garden can be something that we share, or growing something is something we can share.

00:08:43:19 - 00:08:45:07
Dr. Koren
So that's really powerful. I like that.

00:08:45:07 - 00:09:06:12
Dr. Wilson
And it's also a great it's a really fun way to educate young people. I mean, to your point earlier is that how many kids, when they're, they're holding an orange, do they know that it was taken from a tree when they're holding an eggplant? Do they know it's a fruit from a vine. You know they don't know.

00:09:06:12 - 00:09:16:19
Dr. Wilson
And so you start creating these sense of connections for them at a young age which helps them be critical thinkers I think.

00:09:16:20 - 00:09:39:02
Dr. Koren
Yeah. Interesting. So changing the subject a little bit. Yeah. I'm a research guy, as you know, and you and I had a little bit of a conversation about research, and you mentioned just earlier that the Japanese government or health care organizations that pay for, health care will actually pay for some of these type of therapies. So talk to us a little bit about the evidence and the research.

00:09:39:04 - 00:09:47:11
Dr. Koren
that is a little bit more scientific and objective, since that's part of what we'd like to discuss here, is how we know that things actually work.

00:09:47:13 - 00:09:58:09
Dr. Wilson
Well, unlike the medical or the dental profession, where there's, you know, a compendium of different journals that one could read, there's one in therapeutic horticulture.

00:09:58:09 - 00:09:59:03
Dr. Koren
Okay. Well, that's an.

00:09:59:03 - 00:10:00:13
Dr. Wilson
Interesting journal of therapeutic or.

00:10:00:18 - 00:10:01:17
Dr. Koren
At least there is one.

00:10:01:19 - 00:10:22:09
Dr. Wilson
There is one. And so, again, these are articles, but they're not going to read in a scientific way. They're very, very subjective. so that's one of our challenges as a profession is trying to legitimize our, value. because it is so difficult to test. Right?

00:10:22:11 - 00:10:33:23
Dr. Koren
and but, I think I read one of the articles that you provided and there are observational studies. So maybe talk to us a little bit about the results of some of those observational studies.

00:10:34:01 - 00:11:01:02
Dr. Wilson
Yeah, I mean, I mentioned in earlier that about, hospital design and the way hospitals are being designed now that has nature in mind. And this whole biophilic response that I talked about and that, you know, the the healing times, where more rapid and more complete and in rooms and had a view to the outdoors.

00:11:01:04 - 00:11:22:00
Dr. Wilson
but, you know, there's articles about treating heart disease, kids on the behavioral spectrum. And how do we use these tests to actually improve their health over a long period of time? It's challenging, but they're out there and you just have to dig deep to find them. And so when I'm.

00:11:22:02 - 00:11:34:22
Dr. Koren
Yeah. And I think they there was some mention of the fact that there were some scales used to evaluate Alzheimer's patients that were exposed to horticultural therapy, and they saw some positive changes. Is that accurate?

00:11:35:00 - 00:11:45:17
Dr. Wilson
I can say from my own experience, particularly our conversation earlier when we're doing olfactory experience. Yeah. That's where the time.

00:11:45:18 - 00:11:46:04
Dr. Koren
Interesting.

00:11:46:04 - 00:11:48:02
Dr. Wilson
Yeah. Because that's the oldest part of our brain.

00:11:48:02 - 00:11:48:17
Dr. Koren
Right.

00:11:48:19 - 00:12:17:17
Dr. Wilson
And I've had you know, I've had you know nurses say, you know, good luck with Mrs. Jones. And she hasn't spoken in months. Really. You know, and we would do a garden and I was doing an activity. We were making satchels with dried herbs and dried flower petals for the ladies, to put in their drawers and I asked her, you know, to, to breathe, you know, to smell this particular herb.

00:12:17:17 - 00:12:34:20
Dr. Wilson
And she just kept on talking, really. So there it's. And the nurses were, you know, just gobsmacked. To see her talking. So there is something that it's mysterious and part. And when you see it you can't unsee it when you see.

00:12:35:00 - 00:12:45:22
Dr. Koren
Right. Oh wow. Love that. That's so cool. Yeah. Yeah. So you know this is now my clinical trial brain. I know if that's if that's, prefrontal cortex or if this is the primitive part of my.



00:12:46:14 - 00:13:12:18
Dr. Koren
Or somewhere in between. But something like this can actually lead to a randomized study where you have, sort of, say, a dementia unit and every other room gets a series of plants, and the other part of the other rooms would get something that's mechanical, for example, and see if you notice any difference in outcomes between these patients.

00:13:12:18 - 00:13:33:04
Dr. Koren
And obviously, if you create a scale and then look at changes in certain functions, whether it's how much they speak or, if they're able to solve simple questions or equations and see how that progresses over time, it actually could lend itself to a randomized study. Now.

00:13:33:06 - 00:13:39:05
Dr. Wilson
I'm immediately, immediately volunteering. You for the for the journal here?

00:13:39:06 - 00:14:02:22
Dr. Koren
Well, I can definitely help you with the design. Yeah. And I can ask and I can write it up, but, I certainly can deal with the logistics, but and the truth is, would be hard to do a blinded study because your staff would, would obviously know. But from the patient perspective, it could be done in a way that gets an institutional IRB approval rather than a patient level IRB approval.

00:14:02:23 - 00:14:11:18
Dr. Koren
There shouldn't be any downside to having a plant in a in a patient's room. That would cause any concerns for patient safety. And that would be a neat study.

00:14:11:20 - 00:14:21:00
Dr. Wilson
That would be a very neat study. Yeah, it would be a very neat study. And one that I think is, you know, easily rendered.

00:14:21:02 - 00:14:25:01
Dr. Koren
Well, hopefully somebody's in a position to fund that study, will be listening to our podcast.

00:14:25:01 - 00:14:29:11
Dr. Wilson
That's it. That's the thing is funding. Yeah. You're exactly right. It's all about funding.

00:14:29:11 - 00:14:52:22
Dr. Koren
So I can imagine that there may be some parties interested in it. Yeah. Obviously, a lot of these things that get funded are based on self-interest. As a clinical researcher, always, impartial to the results. you know, when I get paid for being in clinical trials, it's because I'm just providing the data. I don't have any vested interest whether or not something works.

00:14:53:00 - 00:15:12:00
Dr. Koren
But I would imagine there are people in the horticultural business that might be really interested in a a major scientific paper came out, or even a minor scientific paper came out showing that certain plants in rooms can help behavioral issues in dementia patients. That could be a home run, quite frankly.

00:15:12:00 - 00:15:36:19
Dr. Wilson
Yes. And it's kind of a double edged sword because, you know, even in departments of integrative medicine, which are trying to expand obviously, the protocols and the and the quality and, and types of care that are being available for their patients is that they're looking for reasons they want research. And so it's I'm challenged, I'm really challenged.

00:15:36:19 - 00:15:38:21
Dr. Wilson
So I can't wait to.

00:15:38:23 - 00:15:58:06
Dr. Koren
Well the discussion will continue. Yeah. So finally, you're you have a fascinating story. And let's let our audience know how they can access your services. So tell us a little bit about your business and who to call and, and how to get you on a case and, and the kind of questions you can specifically answer.

00:15:58:08 - 00:16:27:06
Dr. Wilson
Thank you. I'd be happy to. So I can be reached on my website, which is www.treysgardens.com  And so I have the ability to contact me for either horticultural therapy for us therapy guiding or landscape design. And you can follow me also on social media at Trey Gardens.

00:16:27:06 - 00:16:27:15
Dr. Wilson
Cool.

00:16:27:21 - 00:16:54:09
Dr. Koren
And the type of, clients you have will be listed there, whether it's, intergenerational concept or a healthcare facility looking for creating an environment that's going to be more conducive to healing or some specific area where people are looking for alternatives that aren't crazy expensive but can nonetheless be fruitfull; pun intended to their clients.

00:16:54:10 - 00:16:56:09
Dr. Koren
You're the guy that we can talk to him.

00:16:56:11 - 00:17:00:20
Dr. Wilson
I am the guy that you can talk to. And I'd be delighted to thank you so much for having me.

00:17:00:20 - 00:17:21:14
Dr. Koren
This has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much. I've learned a tremendous amount, and you got my clinical trial brain working, and, I'm there and available. If we can figure out somebody that may want to fund this type of program where we can really learn in an evidence based way how these concepts of horticultural therapy can actually make a big difference in people's lives.

00:17:21:14 - 00:17:31:07
Dr. Wilson
Well, and I hope so. and I also for the planet, because, you know, we're in a reciprocal dance with creation, and you know, we have a planet in peril.

00:17:31:10 - 00:17:31:18
Dr. Koren
Yeah.

00:17:31:18 - 00:17:43:12
Dr. Wilson
And the more sensitive and aware we are for the ways that nature is wanting to meet us and our needs, hopefully we respond in kind with gratitude by taking better care of her.

00:17:43:14 - 00:18:14:03
Dr. Koren
Absolutely. It's a great point. It's a different point. And we may have to bring you back for another podcast. We talk about not what we're doing for individuals and for wellness, but more from an environmental standpoint, because I think they're actually different questions. And I always wonder about, some of the concepts of using plant matter to help us with some of our environmental issues and whether or not we need a better public policy measures in place to make a difference in that area.

00:18:14:05 - 00:18:21:18
Dr. Koren
But, in terms of helping individuals and humans, your information has been incredibly insightful. Thank you for being part of that evidence.

00:18:21:18 - 00:18:23:19
Dr. Wilson
Thank you very much. It's been my pleasure.

00:18:23:21 - 00:18:32:07
Narrator
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