• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.104 no.2
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• pp.294-299
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• 2015

This study was conducted to investigate the influence of a forest healing program on the level of job stress and the profile of mood states (POMS). 38 public servants who were in charge of social welfare in A city as well as 24 metal health care workers in C province participated in the forest healing programs. The data were collected by a pretest-posttest design. The data analysis showed that both job stress and POMS levels were significantly improved by the forest healing program. The therapeutic effects of forests are highly expected to be utilized for healing programs for job stress reduction and burnout prevention.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.301-309
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• 2021

Background and objective: The purpose of this study is to analyze the case of healing experience for lifestyle and environmental diseases through life and activities in the forest from the perspecitive of critical realism, and how the causal power and mechanism of the healing experience relate to forest healing factors and programs. Methods: 93 video data of people who started living in the forest for disease treatment were analyzed using a qualitative content analysis method from the perspective of critical realism. Categories for analysis include general categories (age, duration, occupation, disease name), forest therapy categories (climate therapy, plant therapy, water therapy, diet therapy, kinesiotherapy, psychotherapy), and other categories (ecology, learning and management, life tools), etc., and the unit of analysis is the context unit. Results: 1) The diseases that motivated life in the forest were digestive system diseases, lung diseases, cardiovascular diseases, endocrine system diseases, and various lifestyle-related diseases and environmental diseases in similar proportions. This indicates that forest life does not have specificity to respond to specific diseases, but provides treatment and recovery for all lifestyle and environmental diseases. 2) Among the forest therapies, climate therapy and plant therapy are related to the climatic and residential environment in the forest where 'natural persons' live. And others such as water therapy, diet therapy, kinesiotherapy, psychotherapy indicate the change from the lifestyle that caused the disease to the lifestyle for treatment and recovery. Conclusion: Life and activities in the forest provide an environment for treatment and recovery in which the healing principles such as aromatherapy, nutritional and dietary therapy, kinesiotherapy, and emotional psychotherapy are integrated in the 'real world'.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.464-472
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• 2023

Middle-aged women experience a lot of physical and mental stress during their developmental cycle. This stress reduces the quality of life because it leads to chronic pain and disease. Forest therapy is attracting attention as an alternative to this. Forest therapy refers to improving human health through the therapeutic elements of forests. Accordingly, this study was conducted to determine whether a sensory insight-based forest therapy program was effective in reducing stress in middle-aged women. For this purpose, middle-aged women who wanted to participate in the forest therapy program were recruited, 20 each were randomly assigned to an experimental group and a control group, and pre- and post-tests were conducted. The forest therapy program consisted of 8 sessions of 6 hours based on sense and insight. The forest therapy program was held at Saryeoni Forest in Jeju, and the measurement tools were compared by measuring perceived stress, leisure satisfaction, and stress index through pulse wave testing. The results of the study showed that the forest therapy program lowered stress and improved leisure satisfaction.

• Child Health Nursing Research
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.300-311
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• 2017

Purpose: There are many forest and outdoor programs being offered but systematic reviews of effects are lacking. This study was done to identify content, format, and strategies of forest therapy programs for elementary school students. Methods: Literature search using keywords in English and Korean was performed using 6 electronic databases in December 2016. Search participants were elementary school students and interventions conducted in the forest. Seventeen forest therapy studies were selected for evaluation. Risk of Bias Assessment tool for non-randomized study was used for quality assessment. Results: All studies were quasi-experimental designs. Forest therapy programs included various activities in forests such as experience of five senses, meditation in the forest, walking in the forest, ecological play, observation of animals and insects. All studies used psychosocial health variables and forest healing programs had positive effects on sociality, depression, anxiety, self-esteem, stress, aggression, anger, and school adjustment. Limitations of these studies were vague reporting of the study, lack of ethical review and rigorous research designs. Conclusion: Forest therapy for elementary school child can be an effective way to improve psychosocial health. Future studies with rigorous study designs are needed to assess long-term effects of forest therapy on physical and psychosocial health.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.691-698
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• 2019

This study is to examine the effect of improving the forest therapy program for adolescents using forest healing resources (focused on improving index of greenness for adolescents). The participants were 30 students from in the control group that participated in the 2018 program, and 51 students in experimental group that participated in the improved program in 2019. The questionnaire, developed by Korea Forest Welfare Institute, was comprised of items on general matters, index of greenness, restorative environment, positive emotion, negative emotion, facial expression and psychological assessment. The control group had 30 and the experimental group had 49 valid copies of the questionnaires. As a result of the paired sample t-test for each group, the control group showed a significant increase in all categories except restorative environment. In the experimental group, all categories significantly improved to a higher level (p <.01). An independent sample t-test (one-tailed test) was performed to test the effect of the forest therapy program with improved index of greenness. As a result, the index of greenness increased by 0.73 points(t=2.555, p <.01) and restorative environment by 1.01 points (t=2.567, p <.01), showing statistical significance. Negative emotion increased by 0.04 points (t=0.183, p >.05), which was not significant. On the other hand, positive emotion decreased by 0.42 points (t=-1.918, p <.05), facial expression by 0.57 points (t=-1.775, p <.05), and psychological assessment by 0.29 points (t=-0.981, p >.05), showing significance in positive emotion and facial expression. However, all the decreased items showed significant improvements between the pretest and posttest scores of the experimental group.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.109 no.4
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• pp.544-552
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• 2020

This study investigated the effectiveness of "Healing Stay in Forest," a long-term stay forest therapy program implemented by National Center for Forest Therapy in 2019 with 49 participants by measuring pre- and post-questionnaire responses and physical changes, such as blood pressure, body composition, and HRV. Results confirmed statistically significant reduction in negative emotions and enhancement of autonomic nerve balance in the participants. Regarding the changes in the evaluation of physical fitness based on medical history, some significant differences were observed in grip strength and standing high jump, in which participants with no medical history showed better results than those with medical history. These findings are important for verifying the effectiveness of long-term stay forest therapy (6 nights and 7 days).

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.22 no.11
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• pp.1519-1527
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• 2013

We have researched the image of different forest species by asking those who use these forests how they feel when enjoying them for their various purposes. We surveyed five different forest areas, these were a pine forest a korean pine forest a cypress forest a broad leafed forest and a mixed forest. We asked 806 people how these forests made them feel and what they thought was the image of these forests. We offered them a choice of 18 pairs of adjectives to describe how they felt. We used the SD Scale and discovered 4 different factors. A feeling of comfort and freshness and a feeling of order and space. There was also a feeling of intimacy with nature. Each forest gave out its own feeling and image. comfort and freshness was felt by those in the pine forest, the korean pine forest, the broad leafed forest and the mixed forest. A Feeling of order and space was felt in the korean pine forest. Intimacy was felt in the pine forest, broad leafed forest and the mixed forest.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.429-439
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• 2021

Background and objective: This study verified the physiological and psychological effects of plant fragrance therapy to analyze whether the therapy has a forest healing effect on maladjusted soldiers. Methods: This study was conducted from March 14 to May 31, 2020 according to the Green Camp curriculum for 2 weeks per recruit class. Thus, plant fragrance therapy was implemented twice each for three recruit classes. Each session of the program was carried out for 4 hours from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. The venue was the garden within the camp and the forest nearby. Forest healing activities using plant fragrances were led by 1 forest education specialist and 1 assistant. The effects of plant fragrance therapy for maladjusted soldiers were analzed analyzed by quantifying physiological and psychological changes through measuring brain waves and stress levels before and after the therapy. Results: As a result of analyzing BRQ and SQ to determine the physiological and psychological healing effect of plant fragrance therapy, both the left and right brain showed higher BRQ and SQ after the therapy with statistical significance. This indicates that plant fragrance therapy on maladjusted soldiers helped positively stabilize their negative psychological and behavioral dispositions, and stabilization of brain waves lowered physical and mental stress and improved self-regulation and immunity. On the other hand, there was no significant difference in ATO. This is the result of analyzing the stress-coping mechanism. Troubleshooting (t = -2.702, df = 61, p = .009), emotional remission (t = -2.173, df = 61, p = .034), pursuit of help (t = -3.286), df = 61, p = .002), and wishful thinking (t = -3.714, df = 61, p < .001) showed statistically significant results. Conclusion: Applying plant fragrance therapy to maladjusted soldiers positively stabilized their negative psychological and behavioral dispositions and helped their self-regulation. Thus, plant fragrance therapy has psychological and physical forest healing effect on maladjusted soldiers.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.51-59
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• 2022

This study investigated the effects of participation in a forest therapy program on ego-resiliency and interpersonal relationships to strengthen the independent capabilities of children requiring protection. The participants were divided into two groups: the experimental group (n=87; age, 16.40±1.90 years) and control group (n=90; age, 16.97±1.39 years). The study was conducted from July to August 2020. The experimental group participated in a forest therapy program operated by the National Center for Forest Therapy, Yeongju, for 2 nights and 3 days, whereas the control group lived routine life. The participants' ego-resiliency and interpersonal relationships were tested at the beginning and end of the forest therapy program. In the experimental group, ego-resiliency was improved and interpersonal relationships were significantly altered. Therefore, forest therapy programs may serve as effective interventions that can positively affect the social adaptation and growth of protected children into healthy adults.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.107-117
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• 2021

Background and objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of a forest healing program in terms of depression, neuropsychological and physiological benefits for the elderly. Methods: For this purpose, we developed a forest therapy program for the elderly who are vulnerable to dementia and conducted a total of 11 sessions of forest therapy activities in a forest once a week. We measured the changes in depression, resting-state Electroencephalography(EEG) and heart rate variability (HRV) before and after the program. There were 60 subjects aged over 65 yesrs old. 30 subjects participated in the forest therapy program, and the other were in the control group. The Geriatric Depression Scale was used to measure the level of depression, neuroNicle FX2 (Laxtha, Korea) was used to measure the resting-state EEG, and photoplethymogram (ubpulse T1, Laxtha, Korea) was used to measure the HRV. Results: The results showed that the depression index of the experimental group improved with statistical significance after the program (experiment group = 3.267 decrease of the mean). In the EEG measurement, the alpha-peak frequency at rest (experimental group = 0.227 Hz increase of the mean) was improved (mean increase = 0.23 in the experimental group, p < .05). The high frequency of HRV, which represents the parasympathetic nerve activity of the body's autonomous response, was also significantly improved (mean increase = 0.396 in the experimental group, p < .05). Conclusion: The results suggest that the forest therapy program can reduce the cognitive, psychological and physical risk factors of dementia for the elderly at risk of cognitive decline. Therefore, forest therapy activities may be suitable for the prevention of dementia in the elderly.