Can forest bathing in spring enhance the positive psychological response of university students: A pilot study in Northeast China

摘要

Forest bathing is well known to be beneficial of the visitors’psychological changes with better emotion and mood.Most understanding about the psychological change of university students in response to forest bathing is mainly obtained by the profile of mood states(POMS)method:a psychological rating scale to assess the transient and distinct mood states.Although some other studies explored to use a new questionnaire to assess the psychological change of university students in the urban park,more detailed information is scarce.In this study,23 university students(12 female;aged 20-23)were recruited to walk for 3.5 hours in Nanhu forest park,Changchun,China on 22 and 23 May 2018,when they were arranged to walk in an urban routine simultaneously.It was found that these students instantiated more positive emotion in the urban forest.These positive psychological changes were accompanied by improved perception about personal details and school work.In contrast,participants walking in the urban environment did not feel any psychological change.Therefore,forest bathing can be taken as an active way to stimulate more positive psychological changes compared to the urban experience.However,as a pioneer project,this study suggests more studies by designing more specific questions about social contact affairs for university students’forest bathing.