Do All Types of Restorative Environments in the Urban Park Provide the Same Level of Benefits for Young Adults? A Field Experiment in Nanjing, China

Abstract

Previous research has consistently shown that exposure to natural environments provides a variety of health benefits. The purpose of this study is to investigate the restorative benefits of non-virtual environments in field experiments as well as the differences in physiological and psychological effects between different types of restorative sites for stressed young adults. This controlled study design used the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), electroencephalogram (EEG), and heart rate variability (HRV) as psychophysiological indicators of individual affect and stress. We used a “stress imposition-greenspace recovery” pre- and post-test mode to simulate the most realistic short-term recovery experience in the park (Grassplots, Square, Forest, and Lakeside) under relatively free conditions. The experimental results show that all four natural spaces in the park have some degree of recovery. However, there were discernible differences in the restorative effects of four selected natural sites. Lakeside and Forest demonstrated the most robust restorative properties in terms of both negative emotion reduction and positive emotion enhancement. In contrast, Square showed the weakest facilitation of recovery, while Grassplots promoted moderate resilience. Physiologically, we found that the EEG-α% of the Square was significantly lower than the EEG-α% of the Forest (t = −3.56, p = 0.015). This means that stressed young adults were much more relaxed in the forest than in the paved square. The study answers which types of natural spaces, when considered together, would provide greater restorative benefits to stressed young people participating in natural therapies in urban parks. The study’s policy implications include the need to create more green natural spaces, especially forests with multiple plant levels, as well as to improve the restorative nature of urban parks through appropriate landscape space design.

Back to the Village: Assessing the Effects of Naturalness, Landscape Types, and Landscape Elements on the Restorative Potential of Rural Landscapes

“…At 18 Hz, beta waves can be subdivided into β1 (low frequency: 13-18 Hz) and β2 (high frequency: 18-30 Hz), where β1 waves represent a relaxed, focused, and coordinated mental state, and β2 waves represent an alert and excited state of tension [48]. Studies have used EEG to analyse the beneficial effects of blue spaces on mental health [4], to examine perceived fear in different types of nocturnal environments [49], and to confirm the restorative effects of various types of immersion in nature on youths experiencing stress [1].…”

“…Rapid and intensive urbanization on a globally scale not only leads to a monotonous, fast-paced lifestyle but also exacerbates the degradation of natural and human habitats, adversely affecting public health [1,2]. Numerous studies have indicated that exposure to natural environments, such as urban green spaces [3] and blue spaces [4], can reduce stress [5,6], increase happiness [7] and improve attention recovery [8], thereby offering psychological restorative benefits.…”

Back to the Village: Assessing the Effects of Naturalness, Landscape Types, and Landscape Elements on the Restorative Potential of Rural Landscapes

“…At 18 Hz, beta waves can be subdivided into β1 (low frequency: 13-18 Hz) and β2 (high frequency: 18-30 Hz), where β1 waves represent a relaxed, focused, and coordinated mental state and β2 waves represent an alert and excited state of tension [51]. Studies have used EEG to analyze the beneficial effects of blue spaces on mental health [6] to examine perceived fear in different types of nocturnal environments [52] and to confirm the restorative effects of various types of immersion in nature on youths experiencing stress [1].…”

“…Rapid and intensive urbanization on a global scale not only leads to a monotonous, fast-paced lifestyle but also exacerbates human disconnection from nature and the fragmentation of rural ecological landscapes [1,2]. With increasing global attention to ecological, environmental protection and carbon neutrality issues, scholars have started researching the features and characteristics of rural settlement landscapes from perspectives such as landscape genetics, ecological environment, and landscape aesthetics, emphasizing the importance of restoring rural natural landscapes [3,4].…”

The Effect of Perceived Real-Scene Environment of a River in a High-Density Urban Area on Emotions

“…This, in turn, contributes to the enhancement of the positive impact of riverside spaces on emotions and the reinforcement of public health promotion through everyday landscapes in densely populated cities. The advent of portable wearable sensors has made it feasible to capture the counter experience of natural environments [45]. It can be seen that by collecting the emotional perceptions of individuals in constructed riverside spaces, a more comprehensive and objective evaluation of environmental influence can be achieved, thereby facilitating a more appropriate assessment of spatial design.…”