Effects of Three Levels of Green Exercise, Physical and Social Environments, Personality Traits, Physical Activity, and Engagement with Nature on Emotions and Attention

Ke-Tsung Han

doi:10.3390/su13052686

Abstract

The current study examined the effects of the three levels of green exercise on people’s psychological health using a randomized trial with a pretest and posttest design and further explored which variables of the physical environment (thermal comfort, noise, and air pollution), social environment (the number of companions and crowdedness), personality traits, physical activity (intensity and frequency), and engagement with nature may help explain experiences during the three levels of green exercise using a cross-sectional approach. Field studies were conducted to test the study’s hypotheses. The participants were 95 students from a technology university in Taiwan. The experiment comprised a 15-min green exercise in a park. No significant differences were found in emotions and attention between the three levels of green exercise. However, a 15-min green exercise of any level significantly improved emotions and attention. Furthermore, fatigue was significantly and negatively associated with daily transportation-related physical activity, agreeableness, and engagement with nature. Moreover, the total mood disturbance was significantly and negatively associated with engagement with nature and daily transportation-related physical activity. The degree of engagement with nature played a pivotal role in green exercise. This study provided the evidence that quantified engagement with nature is beneficial for quantified psychological health for the first time.

Highlights

Approximately 31% of adults lacked sufficient physical activity in 2008, around 3.2 million deaths each year are attributable to insufficient physical activity [1].three diseases that received the most attention globally are depression, cardiovascular disease, and AIDS in 2020
Given that this study explores the influence of the physical environment, social environment, physical activity, and personality traits on people’s psychological health, a literature review is provided below
For safety reasons and because this study explored the effects of physical activity on people in an outdoor environment, the inclusion criterion for participants was general good health

Summary

Introduction

Approximately 31% of adults lacked sufficient physical activity in 2008, around 3.2 million deaths each year are attributable to insufficient physical activity [1]. Three diseases that received the most attention globally are depression, cardiovascular disease, and AIDS in 2020. Depression is the number one cause of human disability and number two cause of the overall burden of society. People in modern society certainly face increasingly serious challenges of physical and psychological health [2]. Research has shown that physical activity benefits physical health [3]. The former certainly includes cardiovascular disease [5,6]

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Conclusion