• The Journal of the Korean Institute of Forest Recreation
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.49-58
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of weekend forest healing programs using urban forest on family cohesion and family relationship improvement and parental satisfaction with programs. 21 families (65 people)participated in the weekend forest healing program in Incheon Grand Park from April to August 2018. The program using family forest experience activity and forest healing therapy was newly constructed and implemented with 4 times 8 hours for 2 hours each week. The results of this study is that weekend forest healing programs for family gave a positive effect on family cohesion and family relationship, and parents' satisfaction showed high satisfaction in most items. Therefore, we concluded that forest healing activities are suitable for effective healing activities in modern society where functions such as family cohesion and emotional bond are recognized as important by improving family cohesion and family relationship. Further research should be extended to different types of families, and the development of diverse and interesting family-experience forest healing programs that reflect family needs should continue.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.290-301
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• 2022

Increasing life expectancy leads to a rise in the prevalence of aging-related mental diseases and a concomitant increase in the financial and societal pressures related to their prevention and management. This issue is attracting increasing attention from researchers. Therefore, this study aimed to determine whether a healing program in a forest environment is effective for improving cognitive function, depression, anxiety, and stress in elderly people. A nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design was used. The experimental group consisted of 18 males and females aged 60 to 80 years who participated in a forest healing program for seven days, while the comparison group comprised 10 people with similar demographics. For the process of data analysis, this study performed a cross-analysis to determine the homogeneity of the data and carried out the Wilcoxon signed-rank test, a nonparametric statistical test, to verify the significance of each group. Participation in the forest healing program led to a significant improve-ment in cognitive function (p=0.030). The levels of depression decreased, but this result was not statistically significant. The levels of anxiety decreased significantly (p=0.004). The mean cortisol score, a measurement of stress, decreased, but it was not statistically significant. These findings confirmed the effectiveness of this program for improving certain mental conditions of elderly people, and affirmed that the use of long-term forest healing programs can be expected to alleviate national pressures created by aging societies.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.299-307
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• 2019

This study surveyed the general characteristics and forest use characteristics of forest visitors, the healing power of natural environments and Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS) to find out whether humans can feel the healing effects of natural environments. The target area of this study was the natural environments of Bunseong Mountain in Gimhae, Gyeongsangnam-do, Korea. A total of 50 questionnaires were analyzed. Female visitors and those aged between 40s to 60s accounted for 62% and over 70% respectively. All the surveyed respondents answered 'yes' to the question about the healing effects of Bunseong Mountain and natural environments, and 84% of them answered that they can get 'psychological and physical healing' in Bunseong Mountain. Many respondents chose oxygen, sunlight, and landscape as a healing factor. To the questions about the specific form or conditions of the natural environments that have the healing effects, those who answered 'forest' was the highest (72%), and they described thickness of forests, gentle slope and clean air as their conditions. The average score of the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS) using a 7-point Likert scale was 5.14. The results of this study indicate that respondents perceive Bunseong Mountain as a restorative environment and think that they can enjoy the healing effects of Bunseong Mountain and natural environments.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.338-348
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• 2009

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore and describe healing effects of the forest on alcoholics through a forest experience program. Methods: The qualitative data was gathered from one focus group discussion with 6 alcoholics and individual interviews with 8 alcoholics. They had all participated in a "healing forest" program. All interviews were recorded and transcribed according to thematic content analysis processes. Results: The four main themes on the attributes of forest were "a lively living being", "placidity and tranquility", "acceptive atmosphere", and "beautifulness as it is" which revealed the participants' perceived nature of the forest which was attributed to the healing effects. Eight other themes on participants' positive changes included "revived senses", "aspired to live", "relieved and relaxed from being tense", "gaining insight on self", "having an acceptive attitude", "becoming compliant with his/her life", "learning that life is being together" and "recognizing the value of one's existence". Conclusion: The findings of the study illustrated the participants' self-healing processes through interactions with the nature of the forest. Nursing interventions utilizing healing atmospheres such as "healing forest" programs can be considered helpful in providing a venue to alcoholics to reflect on their lives affirmatively.

• Journal of agriculture & life science
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.45-57
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• 2016

The average income of forestry household was only 54.3% of urban workers's and 67.6% of farms household's income based on the data from statistics Korea in 2012. This indicates that forestry, which is a labor-intensive primary industry, has the limitation for creating added value. On the other hand, the demands for forest healing and forest experiential program have been continuously increased with new lifestyle focusing on the quality of life and increased leisure time. Therefore, it is necessary to establish comprehensive policies to increase added value except forestry to respond forest demands. The project utilizing forest healing can be on of solutions to meet forest demands. Thus, this research intends to investigate an economic revitalization plan for mountain villages with forest healing. The characteristics of forest healing facilities and contents of forest healing programs were examined through internet searching, fields surveys, and expert interviews. Total 186 concepts, 8 categories, and 24 subcategories were derived from raw data of surveys. The application process of forest healing was also provided to encourage local economy of mountain areas. This research offers application procedure of the forest healing for regional economic vitalization in Mountain Villages interviews using grounded theory by Strauss and Corbin(1988) as well as NVio11. This research contributes to prepare the base of future quantitative studies by providing strategies and suggestions for the application plans of forest healing programs. In addition, this research offers basic data for the policies to establish and manage forest healing villages.

• The Journal of the Korean Institute of Forest Recreation
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.35-48
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• 2018

This research was carried out to provide a good quality forest healing program as a basic source of development by researching the general characteristics of users of Geiji Mountain in North Jeolla Province, the recognition of forest healing and regional preference programs. As a result of the survey, Geigisan Mountain is used as a natural place for recreation and leisure of residents of Jeonju. The most important factors in the selection of forest healing programs for visitors were the activities, organization and chronology of the program, and the main purpose was to improve health. Week-by-week programs utilizing weekends were preferred for management of forest healing programs. It was revealed that sports programs prefer to enjoy natural scenery, forest experience programs, healing programs, forest therapy programs, meditation programs, and listening to forest music. The outcome of this study is expected to be used as a basic source for developing and researching a program for forest healing in the area of Mt. Meanwhile, the limit on the composition of suitable forest healing programs according to preference is required for continuous and continuous integrated study of the forest healing program for the future of the forest healing program.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.277-286
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• 2016

This study was performed to investigate main psychological phenomena and healing process through qualitative analysis on the 115 handwriting healing experience in the forest. Main psychological phenomena experienced in the forest were important in order happiness, comfort, and understanding. The process of healing in the forest was first characterized by emotional changes, and was led to cognitive changes and behavioral changes. Healing stage of the forest has followed with six steps of stimulus, accommodating, purification, insight, filling, and change. This process was associated with nature sympathetic, rapport with oneself, and with the world. Previous studies, which were focused on the measurement of transient state after the comparative study between control and experimental groups, could not verify the continuity and process of psychological healing. this study suggests a new approach to understand the subjective psychological phenomena and healing processes in the forest, and will be a basis for developing and performing of forest healing program.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.963-972
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• 2016

A survey was performed to present a scheme for building a healing forest park inside a city in consideration of the fact that healing forests are located in non-urban areas because of their nature, and are therefore not conveniently accessible to urban population (n=196). As a result, among 196 respondents to the survey, 74.5% indicated that it was necessary to build an urban healing forest park. In the case of the expected usage pattern, were an urban forest park to be built, the largest proportion responded that it would be used to "walk", followed by "rest and meditation" and then "meeting/talk/date". An analysis showed that the largest proportion responded that they factor in "Accessibility" (48%), followed by "Park condition" (16.8%), and "Vegetation type" (12.2%). According to the analysis of usage preference for healing therapy, it was shown that the largest proportion preferred "Terrain therapy" (37.8%), followed by "Exercise therapy" (19.9%), and "Naturopathy" (18.9%). The factor anlaysis of usage preference regarding urban healing forest park facilities showed that the components were divided into "Operation facilities" and "Natural healing space", and the largest proportion preferred "Trails for healing", followed by "Space or forest for meditation" and "Health promotion center", and then "Facilities for a exercise therapy". In building an urban healing forest park, we think that it is effective to introduce zones and facilities in consideration of park characteristics that are centered on everyday behaviors, such as taking a walk, which differ from those of healing forests located in non-urban areas.

• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.566-570
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• 2010

This review was conducted to investigate clinical trial trend, clinical effect, and study methods of forest healing. Literature search was performed using the search engines of eight electronic databases from inception to march 2010 without language limitation. The search terms were "forest healing", "forest experience", "forest therapy", "forest treatment", "clinical trial", and "clinical study". Inclusion criteria were randomized controlled trials (RCTs) among all kinds of study searched about forest healing. Selection literature and data extraction was performed by authors(SH Sun and SG Lee) independently. Total three studies were selected finally. The methodological quality in all study was low because of poor reporting. Study indications were metal health, depression, self-esteem, and stress. The scale of studies was very small, which was the level of pilot study. There were no description for obtaining informed consent and being reviewed by Institutional Review Board (IRB), and could be any problems for statistical method in any studies. It is difficult to accept the fact that each studies had the significant effect for study indications in the results of studies. It is concluded that the evidence that health healing have a significant effect is insufficient. Further systematic and methodological study and well-designed clinical trial will be needed.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.415-428
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• 2017

The purpose of this research was to develop healing food dishes for the vitalization of forest healing tourism in agricultural areas by enhancing satisfaction of food experiences by visitors to Mount Chungnyeong, Jangseong. Results from site visitation by three professors from food-related departments, association opinions, Jangseong-gun policies, and research materials relating to healing foods were applied for the preparatory experimental cooking, and the final dishes were selected through a food demonstration event. As a result of observation during the site visitation, the main dishes of the subject restaurant appeared to be limited to Samchae Bibimbap, Samchae Ddeokgabi, and Korean set menu items, revealing a limited selection for tourists and referencing a failure to induce customer attraction and long-term stay. Development of a menu conforming to the image of forest healing at Mount Chungnyeong is desperately needed. As a result of applying the results of the surveys from visitors to Mount Chungnyeong, the types of dishes preferred appeared to be Korean table d'hote and Bibimbap, and pork was preferred as the $entr{\acute{e}}e$. The characteristics of preferred dishes appeared to be based on tradition and regionality. Thus, Forest Healing Savory Dish, Yellow Health Dish, and Samchae Kalguksu applying the policy direction of the Yellow City, Jangseong-gun and the image of Jangseong-gun based on Confucianism were developed. Tourists may further enhance the effectiveness of forest healing through foods based on dishes by adding traditional taste using seasonal food ingredients and local specialties, which can contribute to the vitalization of forest healing tourism.