![]() ![]() Li and his coauthors, whose study appeared in the European Journal of Applied Physiology in March, speculate that the forest trip’s effects on blood pressure may be related to phytoncides, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that plants produce and release as protection from fungi and bacteria. The authors note that DHEA-S may contribute to heart health, among other benefits, and that lower levels of adiponectin are associated with obesity and type 2 diabetes. And blood levels of the adrenal hormone dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEA-S) and of adiponectin, a hormone secreted by fat tissue, were higher after the forest walk but not the urban walk. Levels of the stress hormone noradrenaline, measured in urine, were also significantly lower after the forest walk than after the urban walk. Subjects’ blood pressure measured in the forest was significantly lower when compared to measurements taken in the city. The study’s sample size is small-16 male subjects-and the timescale short-effects were measured after one day trip to the forest and one to the city-but the results suggest that the forest trip had positive effects on health. He and his colleagues recently measured specific physiological markers before and after study subjects took walks in a forest and in an urban control environment. Qing Li, a professor in the Department of Hygiene and Public Health at Nippon Medical School, Tokyo, has been involved with several such studies. One such body of work is accumulating in Japan, where researchers are investigating the physiological effects of shinrin-yoku-“forest bathing,” or, to put it plainly, taking walks in the woods. These questions are not the kind that can be answered by a single, groundbreaking paper rather, like so many of the subtle and complex problems science explores, the evidence is being deposited, small study by small study, like layers of sediment on a river bed. The more difficult questions are how, and in what ways, these effects arise. If some of these studies seem too specific to be useful in answering the broader question, their results in sum suggest that time spent in nature improves human health. Since then, researchers have asked whether the presence of trees influences people’s sense of safety in inner-city neighborhoods explored how gardening might improve quality of life for people with disabilities and used physiolgical measures to test for restorative effects of natural environments. Ulrich in 1984, found that patients recovering from surgery in rooms with a window facing a natural setting had shorter hospital stays and took less pain medicine than did patients whose window faced a brick wall. One of the first and most well-known studies, published in Science by Richard S. A growing and varied body of research attempts to quantify how and why spending time in the natural world might have beneficial effects on humans’ physical and psychological health. Perhaps that’s why Richard Louv’s 2005 book Last Child in the Woods, which explores the relation between the natural world and children’s development, became a bestseller in the United States.īut to know empirically that these experiences are beneficial-and to know exactly how they might help us-requires more than personal experience. I suspect that many people have similar feelings about the effects of spending time in the wilder places near where they live. The results of my informal experiment? I did, in fact, feel better-calmer, more relaxed, clearer-headed. I did this because I hadn’t been spending much time at the river, even though it’s only a short walk from home, and even though I like doing it. ![]()
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