Forest bathing diminishes anxiety in undergraduate students: a pilot study in the Valdivian temperate rainforest

Abstract

Table S1. Candidate models to evaluate the impact of intervention treatment (i.e. Treatment; city versus forest), time (i.e. Time; pre-intervention versus port-intervention), intervention treatment plus time (i.e. Additive) and intervention treatment in interaction with time (i.e. Interaction), on one physiological (MAP) and five psychological variables (see Methods for further details). K: number of parameters; AICc: AIC values corrected for small sample sizes, ΔAICc: delta AICc between each model and the one with the lowest AICc value, and wi: Akaike weights, the probability that the model is the correct one of those evaluated.

The Impacts of Forest Therapy on the Physical and Mental Health of College Students: A Review

“…The focus of forest therapy interventions in eight studies was stress reduction, with measurements taken for systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP). In two studies [34,50], no changes in the participants' SBP and DBP before and after the intervention were observed. The authors of one study [50] posited that the recruited university student population had good blood pressure levels before the experiment, while the authors of the other study suggested that the lack of change in the participants' blood pressure was due to the short duration of forest bathing (only 15 min), which was insufficient to induce physiological changes.…”

“…In two studies [34,50], no changes in the participants' SBP and DBP before and after the intervention were observed. The authors of one study [50] posited that the recruited university student population had good blood pressure levels before the experiment, while the authors of the other study suggested that the lack of change in the participants' blood pressure was due to the short duration of forest bathing (only 15 min), which was insufficient to induce physiological changes. In seven studies, the participants exhibited significant decreases in both SBP and DBP, with one study finding this effect sustained for up to 5 days [36].…”

“…Among the twenty-one studies, nine investigated physiological effects [24,35,36,41,43,45,49,50,52]. Concerning cardiovascular aspects, the primary factors frequently used to evaluate the impacts of forest therapy included blood pressure, the sympathetic-parasympathetic nervous system, and cardiovascular risk factors.…”

“…Concerning cardiovascular aspects, the primary factors frequently used to evaluate the impacts of forest therapy included blood pressure, the sympathetic-parasympathetic nervous system, and cardiovascular risk factors. Specifically, eight articles measured blood pressure [24,35,36,41,45,49,50,52], two measured pulse rate [36,52], six measured heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) [34,35,41,45,49,52], and three measured peripheral blood oxygen saturation (SpO 2 ) [35,41,50]. A study evaluated immune function by examining NK cell activity, NK cell count, and levels of cortisol, granulysin, perforin, and granzyme A/B in peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBLs) [35].…”

“…The Stress Response Inventory (SRI) was predominantly utilized to assess stress, although some researchers also employed the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Survey (MBI-SS), the job-seeking stress survey [40], a clinical data management system (CDMS) [39], and self-written questionnaires. Furthermore, the Profile of Mood States (POMS) (n = 9) [35,38,42,44,45,47,49,51,52] and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) (n = 3) [49][50][51] were primarily adopted for emotional evaluations. Some researchers also used the inventory of learning self-regulation processes (IPAA) [50], the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS-J), the UCLA Loneliness Scale Version 3 (UCLA-LS3-J) [48], and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) [33].…”