Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Apr 24;16(8):1456.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph16081456.

Relation between Psychological Restorativeness and Lifestyle, Quality of Life, Resilience, and Stress-Coping in Forest Settings

Norimasa Takayama  1 , Takeshi Morikawa  2 , Ernest Bielinis  3
Affiliations

Relation between Psychological Restorativeness and Lifestyle, Quality of Life, Resilience, and Stress-Coping in Forest Settings

Norimasa Takayama et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Previous research has mainly dealt with the physiological and psychological restorative effects of the forest environment. However, comparatively few studies have focused on how the traits and attributes of individuals (individual traits) affect the restorative effects of the forest environment. In this study, we examined the relationships between the psychological restorative effects offered by perceived restorativeness of outdoor settings and the individual traits. Then, we investigated the relationships between the restorative indicators that are useful in examining the restorative properties (i.e., the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS); seven indicators in total), the psychological restorative effect (Profile of Mood States (POMS), Restorative Outcome Scale (ROS), positive and negative affect schedule (PANAS), and Subjective Vitality Scale (SVS); 10 indicators in total), and the individual trait indicators that could be used to investigate individual traits (Development of Health and Life Habit Inventory for lifestyle, Lazarus-type Stress Coping Inventory for stress coping, World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment 26 for quality of life (QOL), and Sukemune-Hiew Resilience test for resilience; 28 indicators in total) in forest and urban settings. Respondents consisted of 46 male students in their twenties. A short-term experiment was conducted using the same method in both environmental settings. We then analyzed the intrinsic restorative properties and the restorative effects of the settings and referred to prior research to determine the restorative effects. Furthermore, we analyzed the relationship between the restorative indicators and the individual trait indicators by correlation analysis and multiple regression (step-wise) analysis. These new findings were obtained: (1) the forest setting was a restorative environment with a higher restorative effect than the urban setting; (2) although the forest setting had a higher restorative effect than the urban setting, and the influence of individual traits was small; (3) in the forest setting, the relationship between the restorative indicators and individual traits indicators were arranged; (4) distancing (Stress coping), psychological health (QOL), and satisfaction with living environment (QOL) were likely important indicators that are related to the restorative effects in the forest setting.

Keywords: Shinrin-yoku; lifestyle; mood states; perceived restorativeness scale; positive and negative affect schedule; quality of life; resilience; restorative outcome scale; stress coping; subjective vitality scale.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Location of the four study municipalities in Japan (A–D).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Experimental protocol of the study.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Frumkin H. Beyond toxicity human health and the natural environment. Am. J. Prev. Med. 2001;20:234–240. doi: 10.1016/S0749-3797(00)00317-2. - DOI - PubMed
    1. McEwen B.S. Protective and damaging effects of stress mediators. N. Engl. J. Med. 1998;338:171–179. doi: 10.1056/NEJM199801153380307. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Sluiter J.K., Frings-Dresen M.H.W., Meijman T.F., van der Beek A.J. Reactivity and recovery from different types of work measured by catechol amines and cortisol: A systematic literature overview. Occup. Environ. Med. 2000;57:298–315. doi: 10.1136/oem.57.5.298. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Nilsson K., Sangster M., Konijnendijk C.C. Forest, tress and human health and well-being. In: Nilsson K., Sangster M., Gallis C., Hartig T., de Vries S., Seeland K., Schipperijn J., editors. Forest, Trees and Human Health. Springer; Dordrecht, The Netherlands: 2011. pp. 1–19.
    1. Quick J.C., Wright T.A., Adkins J.A., Nelson D.L., Quick J.D. Preventive Stress Management in Organizations. 2nd ed. American Psychological Association; Washington, DC, USA: 2013. ISBN 1-4338-1185-5 (Hardcover); ISBN 978-1-4338-1185-2 (Hardcover)

Publication types