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Trees have a defense system. When they are threatened, they release airborne chemicals called phytoncides. When you walk through a forest, you breathe them in. They enter your bloodstream. Dr. Qing Li at Nippon Medical School spent twenty years tracking exactly what happens next. The chemicals actively limit stress hormones. They increase your Natural Killer (NK) white blood cells by up to 80 percent. These are the specific cells that destroy viruses and tumors. A three-day weekend in the woods changes your blood chemistry for an entire month. Most of us spend 90 percent of our lives indoors. We are starving our immune systems of the one thing they evolved to rely on.