• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.273-288
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• 2023

Although many studies have been conducted on techniques and effects that can be applied to forest meditation in domestic forest healing meditation research, there has been little research on the space where forest meditation takes place. Nevertheless, a meditation space is not just a place concept but a forest environment element responsible for the healing function of a forest, i.e., a place containing healing factors, and can be an essential clue to the healing mechanism. Therefore, to determine whether a healing forest meditation space is suitable for meditation, this study selected the attribute items of the meditation space using the Delphi expert survey and then surveyed the user satisfaction of the healing forest meditation space using the IPA (Importance Performance Analysis) technique. The survey was conducted from August to November 2022, targeting 315 adults who used the forest meditation space at the National Center for Forest Therapy, the Saneum Healing Forest, and the Jathyanggi Pureunsup Arboretum in Gyeonggi Province. The result of the IPA analysis showed the average satisfaction with the forest meditation space was relatively high at 4.33 points on a 5-point Likert scale (4.33 points for the National Center for Forest Therapy, 4.34 points for the Saneum Healing Forest, and 4.37 points for the Jathyanggi Pureunsup Arboretum), indicating that the three healing forest meditation spaces were suitable for forest meditation. Satisfaction with the "Sounds of nature" was high in all three forests. On the other hand, all three forests showed a relatively low satisfaction with "Quietness," indicating it to be a priority problem to be addressed. Also, an open-ended questionnaire survey showed that the mediation space's natural elements, such as natural sounds, scenery, air, forest spaces, and scents, had a higher positive impact on meditation satisfaction than artificial elements, such as facilities. Therefore, it is essential to secure sound resources such as the sound of water and birds around the meditation space, and it is also necessary to consider ways to create a meditation forest in an independent area to avoid encounters with visitors and allow only participants in the forest healing meditation program to enter to increase satisfaction with forest meditation.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.245-254
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• 2020

Patients diagnosed with cancer face mental problems such as alienation, isolation, anxiety about death and fear, recovering from psychological difficulties. In this study, a forest healing program was provided for cancer patients to recover from psychological stress, depression, social isolation and self-esteem caused by cancer and changes in salivary cortisol through psychological and emotional recovery were measured. From September 19 to November 28, 2017, a forest healing program composed of a total of 10 sessions, two hours per session was provided for 12 cancer patients in the Forest of Taegyo located in Yongin. Psychological tests were performed with Social Adaptation Self-evaluation Scale (SASS), Korean-version Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the collected data were analyzed with the SPSS 18.0. The salivary cortisol level was measured along with the psychological tests and were analyzed by a specialized testing agency. The results of the analysis showed that the pre- and post-assessment score of SASS was 29.17 and 25.92, respectively, and that the pre- and post-assessment score of PSS was 30.50 and 23.92, respectively. The pre- and post-assessment score of BDI was 41.00 and 34.83, respectively, which showed significant differences. In addition, the pre- and post-assessment level of saliva cortisol was 3.13 and 1.68, respectively, showing a significant decrease. In short, the forest healing program was found to be effective in reducing physiological changes caused by social isolation and stress due to the emotional and psychological difficulties that the subjects who were diagnosed with cancer and were recovering from it have. In the future, it will be necessary to develop and implement a forest healing program by conducting a forest healing requirement survey on cancer patients.

• Journal of Sasang Constitutional Medicine
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.487-502
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• 2011

1. Objective This study was performed to research the biological change of forest healing according to Sasang constitution. 2. Methods Forty seven applicants are involved in this study. They were classified into three groups(Soyangin, Taeeumin, Soeumin) by QSCC II. And then they participated in forest healing program from March 26 to March 27 in 2011. We performed before and after experiment, including vital sign, electroencephalography(EEG), heart rate variability(HRV), complete blood cell count(CBC), biochemical test(BC), and stress hormones. 3. Results Men had the relaxative effect of tension. While, the group of women and Soyangin was more sensitive to sudden environmental change than the group of men or other constitutions. The tension of women and soyangin's group increased after the forest healing program. Soeumin group showed reduced diastolic blood pressure after the forest healing program. 3. Conclusions Forest healing program has shown better efficacy in relaxation in men than women, in lowering diastolic blood pressure in Soeumin group than other constitutional groups. However a single positive result within this study should be carefully interpreted.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.505-513
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• 2019

As the number of foreign workers increases in Korea, people's interest in their adaptation to this society has also increased. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a forest-healing program on foreign workers' cultural adaptation stress and psychological wellbeing. The experiment was conducted in a recreation forest located in Hongcheon-gun, Gangwon-do. The subjects who participated in this study included 40 foreign workers (16 males, 24 females). The experiment was conducted for three days and two nights from June 26 to 28, 2019. The forest healing program was composed of activities that can enhance immunity and restore physical and mental health by utilizing various healing environmental factors such as landscapes, sunlight, anion and oxygen in forest. The independent sample t-test was conducted to examine changes in cultural adaptation stress and psychological well-being before and after the program. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 18.0 program. As a result, cultural adaptation stress was statistically significantly reduced in sub-factors including discrimination experience, language conflict and legal status. Psychological wellbeing improved in all the surveyed sub-factors such as self-confidence, ego, immersion, and joy. The results of this study are expected to be used as basic data for reducing the stress foreign workers experience from cultural adaptation and restoring their psychological wellbeing in the future.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.473-483
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• 2023

This study was conducted to find out the psychological or physiological healing effects of real natural forests and virtual forest experiences using virtual reality (VR) in an artificially-controlled digital environment. To find out this, 81 healthy undergraduate students from C University were experimented on visual forest stimulation effects in the digital environment from September 5 to December 9 in 2022. The experiment evaluated the psychological and physiological healing effects of visual forest stimulation in the digital forest environment (2D, 3D). The SRI (stress response inventory) experiment for analyzing psychological effect showed statistically significant differences among groups. As for the SRI experiment for measuring psychological stress, except Control group, 2D group in the digital environment showed little difference before and after the experiment. But 3D group showed less stress than before. As a result, it was proved that visual forest stimulation in a forest-based digital environment (2D, 3D) reduces psychological stress significantly. And when analyzing how visual forest stimulation changes EEG (electroencephalogram) in the digital environment, alpha waves (RA), which are activated during relaxation or stabilization, were more active than beta waves (RB), which are activated during tension or awakening. This study is expected to be used to create a psychological and physiological healing environment for those who cannot go to a natural forest due to mobility difficulties by providing them visual forest stimulation experiences in a digital environment. It is also expected that the results will be the basis for forest healing in the digital environment and virtual reality programs will help forest healing activities.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.108 no.1
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• pp.109-115
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• 2019

The objectives of this study was to analyze the importance and satisfaction (ISA) of forest healing instructor training program, targeting on the students educated in 2018. As a result, it was found that students older than forties are the majority as 81 %, and they preferred forest healing instructors as their second future job. When comparing the importance and satisfaction, the students evaluated satisfaction with low grade compared to importance with high grade in all questions. In ISA analysis, it was needed to improve the updated textbook information, to list the example problems by subject, to expose the test subjects in the textbooks, to disclose the test questions and answers, to control the test difficulty, to adjust the test pass rate, to expand the number of test and test sites, to increase the effort for making students understand, to prepare lectures appropriate to practice for forest healing instructor training program by priority.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.301-309
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• 2021

Background and objective: The purpose of this study is to analyze the case of healing experience for lifestyle and environmental diseases through life and activities in the forest from the perspecitive of critical realism, and how the causal power and mechanism of the healing experience relate to forest healing factors and programs. Methods: 93 video data of people who started living in the forest for disease treatment were analyzed using a qualitative content analysis method from the perspective of critical realism. Categories for analysis include general categories (age, duration, occupation, disease name), forest therapy categories (climate therapy, plant therapy, water therapy, diet therapy, kinesiotherapy, psychotherapy), and other categories (ecology, learning and management, life tools), etc., and the unit of analysis is the context unit. Results: 1) The diseases that motivated life in the forest were digestive system diseases, lung diseases, cardiovascular diseases, endocrine system diseases, and various lifestyle-related diseases and environmental diseases in similar proportions. This indicates that forest life does not have specificity to respond to specific diseases, but provides treatment and recovery for all lifestyle and environmental diseases. 2) Among the forest therapies, climate therapy and plant therapy are related to the climatic and residential environment in the forest where 'natural persons' live. And others such as water therapy, diet therapy, kinesiotherapy, psychotherapy indicate the change from the lifestyle that caused the disease to the lifestyle for treatment and recovery. Conclusion: Life and activities in the forest provide an environment for treatment and recovery in which the healing principles such as aromatherapy, nutritional and dietary therapy, kinesiotherapy, and emotional psychotherapy are integrated in the 'real world'.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.112 no.1
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• pp.93-104
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• 2023

Life expectancy is increasing due to the aging of the population, which is in turn exacerbating problems such as the prevalence of various geriatric diseases. This study was established to provide basic data for the expansion of forest healing activities for the elderly by systematically analyzing the literature on how such activities affect this age group. For the collection of studies, the Korean databases RISS, KISS, Korea Med, and Science On were used, while PubMed, Cochrane Central, MDPI, and Google Scholar were used to identify reports published elsewhere. To assess the quality of the methodology used in the collected studies, the risk of bias was analyzed using Cochrane's RoB2 and RoBANS. Among 1,856 reports initially identified, 21 were finally selected for analysis in this study, which were limited to research papers on forest healing activities for the elderly published between 2000 and January 2022. In this review, the subjects were those aged 60 or older, with a total of 750 participants, ranging from at least 7 to a maximum of 88 per study. The analysis showed that the most frequently performed tests in each category were on depression as a psychological indicator in 7 studies, MMSE(Mini Mental State Examination) as a cognitive indicator in 2 studies, on blood pressure as a physiological indicator in 4 studies, on melatonin as a biochemical indicator in 2 studies, and on body fat and muscle strength as physical indicators in 3 studies. Of the 21 studies, 19 used two or more test items, with psychological indicators being most commonly measured. For the future application of forest healing activities for the elderly, various forest healing programs to prevent cognitive function decline should be developed and distributed, and follow-up studies should be continuously presented to provide the basis for forest healing activities.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.19 no.11
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• pp.95-112
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• 2021

This study analyzed the effects of healing agriculture program types on program satisfaction by using functional image and emotional image of the program as mediators for the participants of healing agriculture program. The sub-variables of the healing agriculture program were classified into horticultural healing, animal healing, food healing, and forest healing. 328 questionnaires collected from the participants of healing agriculture program in the whole country were used for empirical analysis, which used SPSS v22.0 and PROCESS macro v3.4 to analyze the parallel multiple mediation model. First, Among the types of healing agriculture programs, animal healing, food healing, and forest healing had a positive (+) effect on functional image. Second, all types of healing agriculture program had a positive (+) effect on emotional image. Third, both functional and emotional images had a significant positive effect on satisfaction. Fourth, among the types of healing agriculture program, horticultural healing, animal healing, and forest healing had a significant effect on satisfaction, while food healing did not maintain the significant effect on satisfaction. Fifth, functional image mediated between healing agriculture program and satisfaction. Sixth, emotional image mediated between healing agriculture program type and satisfaction. In the next study, it is necessary to study for the adjustment of mediators other than the mediators introduced in this study or the controlled mediated analysis through the conditional process model in which the moderator variable is introduced.

• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.107-115
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of forest healing programs with walking, sightseeing, and forest scent among six healing forest treatments using forest environment on the cognitive function, depression, and quality of life of elderly living alone. The subjects of the study were 17 senior citizens living in Samcheok and complaining of severe depression and forgetfulness. They were divided into two groups, and each group participated in the six sessions of the weekly forest healing program. All of them were surveyed of a Korean version of the MMSE-K, BDI (Beck Depression Inventory Korean Version), and SF-36 (Short Form 36 health survey questionnaire) with the questionnaire designed for the one-group pre-post test to examine changes in cognitive function, depression, and quality of life. The results showed that the mental status, depression level, and quality of life of respondents were significantly higher after healing programs. These results suggest that participation in healing program activities using forest environment can improve cognitive function, relieve depression and improve quality of life for senior citizens living alone. Therefore, inducing older adults who live alone and avoid outside activities to participate in the regular forest healing program will contribute to the prevention of dementia due to age and environment.