Mindfulness-Based Forest Therapy Programs Promote Well-Being in Middle-Aged Women
By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home. Wilderness is a necessity.” John Muir
Modern living is stressful, perhaps, in part because it has divorced us from the natural world that our species was immersed in throughout its evolutionary history. Modern environments may be damaging to our health and well-being simply because the species did not evolve to cope with them. This suggests that returning to nature, at least occasionally, may be beneficial. Indeed, researchers are beginning to study nature walks or what the Japanese call “Forest Bathing” and their effects on our mental and physical health.
Mindfulness practices have been found routinely to reduce the psychological and physiological responses to stress. People have long reported that walking in nature elevates their mood. It appears intuitively obvious that if it occurred in a beautiful natural place, it would greatly lift the spirits. But there is little systematic research regarding these effects. It’s possible that being in nature might improve mental and physical well-being.
In today’s Research News article “Effects of Forest Therapy on Health Promotion among Middle-Aged Women: Focusing on Physiological Indicators.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7344639/ ) Park and colleagues recruited middle aged women (40-64 years) and provided them with a 3-day program of meditation, yoga, body scan, and walking in the environment. The participants experienced the program twice, once in a forested environment and once in a city environment in counterbalanced order.
Before and after each program blood was drawn and assayed for serotonin and vitamin D levels. They found that after the forest program but not the urban program there was a significant increase in serotonin levels in the blood while after the urban program but not the forest program there was a significant decrease in vitamin D levels.
Low serotonin levels are associated with negative mental health including depression and anxiety, while high serotonin levels are associated with positive mental health and happiness. Hence the results suggest that participating in mindfulness training in a forested environment improves mental health in middle aged women while participating in the same program in an urban setting does not. On the other hand, vitamin D levels are associated with immune function which when low makes the individual more susceptible to disease. Hence, lower vitamin D levels may be considered an indicator of poorer physical health. Participating in mindfulness training in an urban environment was associated with lower vitamin D levels while participating in the forest environment was not.
These results suggest that forested environments are conducive to better mental health while urban environments make the individua more susceptible to disease. It has been previously established that natural environments improve mental health, including improvements in psychological, social, and physical well-being. The current findings add to this developing body of research suggesting that “Forest Bathing” improves well-being.
So, mindfulness-based forest therapy programs promote well-being in middle-aged women.
“There is a robust body of scientific literature on the health benefits of investing time under the canopy of a living forest.” – Ian Barnyard
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
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Study Summary
Park, B. J., Shin, C. S., Shin, W. S., Chung, C. Y., Lee, S. H., Kim, D. J., Kim, Y. H., & Park, C. E. (2020). Effects of Forest Therapy on Health Promotion among Middle-Aged Women: Focusing on Physiological Indicators. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(12), 4348. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17124348
Abstract
Women experience more stress in middle age than in other life stages, and health in middle age is vital, because it influences the quality of life in old age. In this study, the effects of a forest therapy program on physiological changes in 53 middle-aged women (divided into two groups) who lived in the city were examined. One group participated in a three-day program in the forest, followed by three days in the city; the other group participated in a three-day program in the city, followed by three days in the forest. Forest experiments were conducted in a “healing forest,” and urban experiments were conducted near a university campus. Blood tests were performed to evaluate the physiological effects of forest therapy. Differences in serotonin levels and vitamin D levels were verified before and after the forest (experimental group) and urban (control group) programs through paired t-tests. Statistically significant increases in serotonin levels were noted for participants in the forest program; vitamin D levels also increased, but not by statistically significant values. The findings of this study verify that forest therapy programs promote health among middle-aged women, and may prevent disease and improve quality of life.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7344639/