Abstract
To mitigate the negative effects of modern cities on health, scientists are focusing on the diverse benefits of natural environments; a conceptual approach to use gardens for promoting human health is being attempted. In this study, the effects of the visual landscape of a traditional garden on psychological and physiological activities were investigated. Eighteen male and female adults participated in this indoor experiment (mean age, 26.7 years). Twelve different landscape images for city and garden were presented continuously for 90 s. In the time series changes of oxygenated hemoglobin (O2Hb), different patterns of changes were observed between the city and garden. The mean O2Hb values increased for the city landscapes, whereas they decreased for the garden landscapes both in the left and right prefrontal cortices. Significant differences in the negative psychological states of tension, fatigue, confusion, and anxiety were observed between the city and garden landscapes. Important differences in the physiological and psychological responses to the two different landscapes were also detected between male and female participants, providing valuable clues to individual differences in the health benefits of natural landscapes. To validate the use of gardens as a resource for promoting health in urban dwellers, further scientific evidence, active communication, and collaboration among experts in the relevant field are necessary.
Highlights
Over the past several decades, the level of urbanization in Asian countries has increased from27% in 1950 to 57% in 2014 [1]
To mitigate the negative effects of modern city environments, scientists are currently focusing on the benefits of natural environments [7,8,9]
The cerebral activity was decreased as evidenced by the declining O2 Hb concentrations in the prefrontal areas
Summary
Over the past several decades, the level of urbanization in Asian countries has increased from27% in 1950 to 57% in 2014 [1]. Despite the many advantages of developed infrastructures, artificialized urban environments, in general, might be closely related to the negative health outcomes in modern people, which is supported by an increasing body of research [3,4,5,6]. To mitigate the negative effects of modern city environments, scientists are currently focusing on the benefits of natural environments [7,8,9]. In recent years, quantified scientific evidence has been reported on the health benefits of natural environments with the development of biological markers [10,11,12,13,14,15]. The epidemiological approach supports the positive relationship between nature and health-related parameters [16,17]. The Korean government passed legislation to use forests for promoting health, which included national funding support from the government, a specialist production system, and facility construction on forest therapy [18]
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