Physiological and Psychological Effects of Walking in Campus Landscape to Young Adults

Abstract

Green space has a vital role in the community’s health and well-being. Forest bathing is an effective method of enjoying the forest atmosphere through physical activity or relaxing in a forest landscape. However, until now, no one has declared the benefits of forest therapy in Indonesia. This study clarifies the physiological and psychological effects of walking in a campus landscape. This research was conducted using experimental methods through physical activity survey, self-report questionnaires, Visitor Employed Photography (VEP), and automatic classification based on the image annotation API. The experiment was conducted in a park and an arboretum, and thirty-two young university subjects were tested. The participants walked for fifteen minutes on walking routes and district roads. Their blood pressure was measured before and after walking, and their heart rate was measured continuously. During the walk, the subjects took photographs of striking scenes using the Visitor Employed Photography method. Profile of Mood States (POMS) and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) were used to evaluate the psychological responses. Walking in the campus landscape resulted in a lower heart rate, less negative moods, and less anxiety than walking on the district road. Out of 837 photographs, 45% were taken from the Academic Event Plaza, 41.5% from the Arboretum, and the remaining 13.5% from district road, Jalan Raya Dramaga. Two main groups of campus green spaces included man-made landscape consisting of road surface, buildings, plant organs, stairs, and terrestrial plants; and natural landscape consisting of sky, trees, flowers, clouds, and plant community. This study found that walking in campus green space induced physiological and psychological health benefits and prominent landscape elements supported the green campus.

Linking University Campus Green Space and Students’ Mental Health and Well-Being: A Systematic Literature Review

“…In the present systematic literature review, 7 articles involved in visit frequency of campus green space or the duration of campus green space use (Holt et al, 2019;Stepansky et al, 2022;Lee et al, 2022;Ning et al, 2023;Pratiwi et al, 2022a;Zhang et al, 2023). However, 3 experimental design studies failed to regard the duration of campus green space use as a variable (Ning et al, 2023;Pratiwi et al, 2022a;Zhang et al, 2023). 3 studies involved in visit frequency Holt et al, 2019;Lee et al (2022) and 1 studies simultaneously involved in visit frequency and duration .…”

“…Overall, the results indicated that all types of campus green space were beneficial for university students' mental health and well-being compared with hard landscape. The benefits included more psychological restoration Sun et al ( 2021 2023), less negative moods (Pratiwi et al, 2022a;Pratiwi et al, 2022a;Guo et al, 2020). In addition, blue space and waterfront space which is dominated by the water landscape element had better restorative effects than other landscape types such as vegetation space, courtyard space and forest space Ning et al, 2023;Sun et al, 2021;Lu & Fu, 2019).…”

“…there is already a wealth of literature to explain the ways in which natural environments positively affect human's mental health and well-being. So far, numerous studies have linked viewing or spending time in natural environment and mental benefits such as stress reduction Wang et al (2019); Payne et al (2020), increased positive affect Duan & Li (2022); Hung & Chang (2022), recovery from concentration fatigue Hartig et al (2003); Kaplan et al (1989), avoidance of negative moods (Ibes & Forestell, 2022;Pratiwi et al, 2022bPratiwi et al, , 2022a, higher life satisfaction (Honold et al, 2016;Payne et al, 2020), quality of life (Holt et al, 2019;Stepansky et al, 2022) , happiness Houlden et al (2017); Marselle et al (2016) and subjective well-being Chen & Ye (2023); ; positive social interactions, cohesion, and engagement Jennings & Bamkole (2019); Sugiyama et al (2008); a sense of meaning and purpose in life (O'Brien et al, 2011).…”

“…). These 9 studies included 7 experimental and intervention studies executed in a real-life settingKim et al (2021);Ning et al (2023);Pratiwi et al (2022a);Zhang et al (2023);Bang et al (2017);Ibes & Forestell (2022);Stepansky et al (2022) and 2 experimental studies using virtual reality(Ha & Kim, 2021)(Guo et al, 2020). This systematic review further included 16 cross-sectional studies Baur (2022);Gulwadi et al (2019);Hipp et al (2016);Holt et al (2019);Lee et al (2022);Liu et al ( , 2018;;;Loder et al, 2020;Lu & Fu, 2019;Malekinezhad et al (2020);Sun et al (2023);Sun et al (2021);Van Den Bogerd et al (2018), of which 1 study used a cross-sectional sample to examine the differences between photograph stimuli(Van Den Bogerd et al, 2018).…”

The health perception of urban green spaces and its emotional impact on young adults: an empirical study from three cities in China

“…In Barcelona, a hands-on investigation of the total green space environment in which elementary school students in grades 2-4 live and learn demonstrated that the greenness of the space was associated with children's emotional well-being (34); and in New Zealand, the effects of blue, green, and biodiversity on adolescents' mental and emotional wellbeing were assessed in a community setting, and the results showed a positive correlation between the two (35). Through combing through the literature, we found that the research population focuses on children (36), college student groups (37), and older adults (38), while little research has been done on young urban residents aged 18-35 in China, which we would like to know. Moreover, the current research has explored the restorative effects of natural elements in blue space and green space on emotional health (39), while ignoring the connection between other objective conditions and the subject's own use of the green space and emotional health.…”