Background
Female office workers are prone to fatigue due to work and life stress. The natural environment has a positive effect on health, but little research has focused on the effects of forest therapy on physical and mental health of female office workers.
Objective
To explore the effect of forest therapy on the mental health of fatigued female office workers.
Methods
In this study, two environments, urban and forest, were selected. A total of 12 subjects with fatigue were recruited and randomly divided into two groups, urban and forest, six subjects in each group, with mean ages of 24.7 and 28.4 years, respectively, all of whom were company employees. The Brief Mood Scale, the Chinese version of Stress Self-Rating Scale, and the Fatigue Self-Rating Scale were distributed to assess baseline psychological indexes of mood, fatigue, and stress status. Higher scores indicate higher levels of negative mood, fatigue, and stress, respectively. The forest group participated in an on-site experiment using forest therapy (forest walks and sits in a forest environment), and the urban group followed the same schedule as the forest group conducting walks and sits in an urban environment. Salivary cortisol was used as the physiological index. Baseline physiological indices were collected on the first day of the experiment, and the on-site forest therapy experiment and collecting physiological and psychological indices were conducted on the second day; physiological indices were collected in the morning before the walk and physiological and psychological indices were collected after the walk, physiological indices were collected in the afternoon before and during the sitting, and psychological indices were collected after the sitting. Subjects' mood and fatigue status were followed up one week after the activity. Mann-Whitney U test and Wilcoxon signed rank test were used to assess the changes of the indicators.
Results
As to the physiological indicator, the salivary cortisol concentrations before and after the morning walk in the forest group were lower than the corresponding baseline values (both P=0.043); and the decreases were 2.21 and 1.86 nmol·L−1 respectively. Differences between groups showed a trend towards a greater decrease in salivary cortisol concentrations in the forest group than in the urban group after walking and at the 15 th min of sitting (both P=0.068). Among the mood indicators, the forest group showed a greater decrease than the urban group in fatigue dimension after walking (P=0.065) and after sitting (P=0.024); the forest group showed a greater decrease than the urban group in vitality dimension after walking (P=0.054) and after sitting (P=0.045); and the forest group showed a greater decrease than the urban group in "total mood disorder" after sitting (P=0.054). Among the fatigue indicators, the forest group showed a greater decrease in "physical fatigue", "mental fatigue", "consequences of fatigue", and "general fatigue" after walking and sitting than the urban group (all P<0.05). Among the stress indicators, there were not statistically significance of "tension", "loss of control", and "total stress score" between the two groups after sitting (bothP>0.05). After one week after the activity, there were not statistically significant differences of mood and fatigue between the two groups (bothP>0.05).
Conclusion
Forest therapy has a regulating effect on symptoms of negative mood, and fatigue in fatigued female office workers, but the effects of a short-term forest therapy last for a limited duration.
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