• Korean Journal of Environment and Ecology
• /
• v.37 no.6
• /
• pp.464-472
• /
• 2023

Middle-aged women experience a lot of physical and mental stress during their developmental cycle. This stress reduces the quality of life because it leads to chronic pain and disease. Forest therapy is attracting attention as an alternative to this. Forest therapy refers to improving human health through the therapeutic elements of forests. Accordingly, this study was conducted to determine whether a sensory insight-based forest therapy program was effective in reducing stress in middle-aged women. For this purpose, middle-aged women who wanted to participate in the forest therapy program were recruited, 20 each were randomly assigned to an experimental group and a control group, and pre- and post-tests were conducted. The forest therapy program consisted of 8 sessions of 6 hours based on sense and insight. The forest therapy program was held at Saryeoni Forest in Jeju, and the measurement tools were compared by measuring perceived stress, leisure satisfaction, and stress index through pulse wave testing. The results of the study showed that the forest therapy program lowered stress and improved leisure satisfaction.