Can You Hug Any Tree? Safety and Respect in Forest Therapy
Forest therapy is a nature-based wellbeing practice that can include mindful contact with trees, sensory attention and slow walking. Today, you can join forest therapy workshops in many parts of France and beyond.
Many people find gentle contact with a healthy tree comforting. But what about a damaged, diseased or dead tree? The answer is less about mysterious ‘good’ or ‘bad’ energy and more about safety, ecology and respect.
Can physical contact with the tree be unsafe?
Might the emotional experience feel different?
Could touching a fragile tree cause further damage?
These questions come up regularly during the forest therapy walks and training sessions I lead, so I wanted to answer them clearly here on the Telomere Project blog.
Enjoy the read!
CONTENTS
You may encounter sick or damaged trees during forest therapy
Let’s begin with what it means to approach a visibly damaged or unhealthy tree and what to consider for both your safety and the tree’s condition.
Will the emotional experience be different?
There is no scientific basis for predicting a particular emotional response simply because a tree is sick. Each person and each encounter is unique.
Two participants can stand beside the same tree and feel completely different things.
What you feel may, however, be influenced by visible cues such as:
the appearance of a damaged tree,
or your awareness of its vulnerability, which may evoke feelings such as compassion, sadness or protectiveness.
Forest therapy is not limited to tree hugging. It includes many ways of relating to nature and the plant world.
These experiences often involve the five senses—sight, smell, hearing, touch and occasionally taste when identification and safety are certain—as well as your own personality and history. Some people are simply more emotionally responsive than others.
Are there health and safety risks?
Tree diseases themselves are generally not something people ‘catch’ from hugging a tree. The more relevant concerns are physical hazards and environmental exposures: unstable branches, rotten wood, rough bark, insects, irritating sap, pollen, fungi or plants growing around the trunk. Follow your forest therapy guide’s safety instructions and do not touch a tree when the situation is unclear.
A damaged tree may also host insects, fungi or other organisms. Long sleeves can reduce scratches and contact with irritants, but the simplest option is often to observe rather than embrace.
Avoid making a fragile tree worse
A damaged or declining tree may be structurally fragile. Unlike humans, trees do not have an immune system in the same sense; they rely on specialised defence and compartmentalisation processes. Damage to bark or living tissue can make an already stressed tree more vulnerable.
Its bark may be loose or damaged,
its branches may be brittle or unstable,
its foliage may show signs of stress,
and roots or trunk wood may be decayed.
Respect is therefore essential. If you approach a fragile tree, do not pull bark, break twigs, climb damaged limbs or lean heavily against unstable wood. Also remember the risk of falling branches—especially after storms, drought or high winds.gentle contact
Some spiritual traditions describe declining trees as having ‘low energy’. I treat this as symbolic language rather than a biological fact. There is no evidence that a sick person weakens a tree energetically by touching it. Ecologically, the important question is whether physical contact could damage the tree or put you at risk.
If you feel drawn to a struggling tree, you can simply offer attention, gratitude or a quiet intention for its wellbeing without touching it. If the tree is on your property and you are worried about disease or structural safety, contact a qualified arborist rather than treating it without a diagnosis.
What about dead trees?
Dead trees are a natural and extremely valuable part of forest ecosystems. They provide habitat and food for fungi, insects, birds and many other organisms. But they can also present physical hazards if trunks or branches are unstable.
There is nothing inherently wrong with
approaching a dead tree when the area is safe.
Deadwood can offer an opportunity for reflection on life, death, time, decomposition and the way one form of life nourishes another.
If death is an uncomfortable subject, you are always free to move on. If a dead tree affects you strongly, you may choose to explore what it brings up for you—without assuming the tree itself is sending a psychological message.
Toxic trees and plants
Not everyone joining forest therapy is a botanist, and some trees and plants contain substances that are toxic or irritating if eaten, touched or burned.
🌲 Examples that may be encountered in Europe or ornamental plantings include:
yew,
oleander,
cherry laurel,
laburnum,
dwarf elder,
some sumacs and related species,
thuja and other arborvitae,
and castor bean, which is a shrub-like ornamental rather than a tree.
The manchineel is exceptionally hazardous but is native to tropical America and is not a normal forest-therapy encounter in France.
My advice: never eat any part of a tree or wild plant unless identification and edibility are certain. A forest therapy walk is not a foraging course, and tasting unknown plants can be dangerous.
A responsible forest therapy guide should know the main local hazards and set clear boundaries around touching and tasting. When in doubt, admire the tree without handling it. 😉
Key points
You can approach or gently touch many sick or dead trees during forest therapy, but first assess the tree and its surroundings. Look for falling-branch risk, unstable trunks, rotten wood, irritant sap, insects and other hazards.
Avoid causing further damage to a fragile tree. With toxic or irritating species, avoid unnecessary contact and never taste unknown plant material.
You may feel differently beside a dead or damaged tree, but the meaning of that experience is personal rather than predetermined.
Feel free to talk about the experience with your guide afterwards. You may also share with other participants, while remembering that their interpretation may be completely different from yours.
To go further, read my article on forest therapy safety and common misconceptions.
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