Effects of Walking in a Forest on Young Women

Abstract

The effects of forest activities on health promotion have received increasing attention. The aim of this study was to evaluate the physiological and psychological effects of brief walks in forests on young women. The experiments were conducted in 6 forests (test) and 6 city areas (control). Overall, 12 participants in each area (60 participants in total, mean age: 21.0 ± 1.3 years) were instructed to walk in a forest and a city area for approximately 15 min; simultaneously, their heart rate variability, heart rate, blood pressure, and pulse rate were measured to quantify their physiological responses to walking. The modified semantic differential method, Profile of Mood States (POMS), and the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) were used to determine their psychological responses. Walking in a forest was associated with significantly higher parasympathetic nervous activity and lower sympathetic nervous activity and heart rate. In addition, scores for the comfortable, relaxed, and natural parameters and vigor subscale of POMS were significantly higher, whereas scores for negative feelings, such as tension–anxiety, depression–dejection, anger–hostility, fatigue, and confusion, were significantly lower, as were the total mood disturbance of POMS and the anxiety dimension of the STAI. The subjective evaluations were generally in accordance with the physiological responses. A brief walk in a forest resulted in physiological and psychological relaxation effects in young women.

Combined Effect of Walking and Forest Environment on Salivary Cortisol Concentration

“…As Bowler et al (5) reported, 13 studies on the effects of walking in natural environments were published between 1991 and 2008, most of which reported that nature therapy decreased negative emotions, such as anger, fatigue, and sadness, and enhanced positive emotions, such as energy. The psychological benefits of forest-walking have been supported by many subsequent studies (6,7). However, the benefits of forest-walking are not only psychological.…”

Physiological and Psychological Effects of Viewing Forests on Young Women

“…Numerous studies have demonstrated the effects of forests in mitigating stress states and inducing physiological relaxation in healthy individuals [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. Walking through a forest and/or viewing sceneries can reduce levels of salivary cortisol, a stress hormone [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]17], blood pressure [8,11,12,15,17], and pulse rate [8,10,11,13,15,17,18].…”

“…Numerous studies have demonstrated the effects of forests in mitigating stress states and inducing physiological relaxation in healthy individuals [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. Walking through a forest and/or viewing sceneries can reduce levels of salivary cortisol, a stress hormone [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]17], blood pressure [8,11,12,15,17], and pulse rate [8,10,11,13,15,17,18]. It can also increase parasympathetic nervous activity, which is enhanced during relaxation [8,10,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18], and can suppress sympathetic nervous activity, which increases in stressful situations [8,[12][13][14][15]…”

“…In addition, recent studies have demonstrated positive physiological effects resulting from various activities in forests in elderly individuals and adults at risk of stress-and lifestyle-related diseases, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and depression [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. However, most studies involving forest therapy experiments have reported effects on male participants [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]19,20,26,27,30], with few focusing on women [18,21,25,31,32].…”

Labor off‐farm employment and household forest management investment in Jiangxi, China: A perspective from gender influence of rural labor

“…forest tenure reform, gender structure, household, off-farm employment, sustainable forest management 1 | INTRODUCTION Forestry is the basic industry, which produces tremendous economic, ecological, and social benefits (Fujii, Sato, & Managi, 2017;Mei & Clutter, 2012;Song, Ikei, Kagawa, & Miyazaki, 2019), and the benefit outputs mainly depend on continued forest management investment (Blanco et al, 2018;Robinson & Lokina, 2011;Widianingsih, Theilade, & Pouliot, 2016). Forest management is a typical traditional labor-intensive industry, and the labor force is regarded as the main productive factor of economic output and the major decision-making factor in forestry economic activities (Fisher, 2004;Peng, Deng, Zhang, Sun, & Xiong, 2019).…”