Seasonal Differences in Physiological Responses to Walking in Urban Parks

Chorong Song, Harumi Ikei and Yoshifumi Miyazaki ()
Additional contact information
Chorong Song: Department of Forest Science, Kongju National University, 54 Daehak-ro, Yesan-eup, Yesan-gun 32439, Chungcheongnam-do, Korea
Harumi Ikei: Center for Environment, Health and Field Sciences, Chiba University, 6-2-1 Kashiwa-no-ha, Kashiwa 277-0882, Chiba, Japan
Yoshifumi Miyazaki: Center for Environment, Health and Field Sciences, Chiba University, 6-2-1 Kashiwa-no-ha, Kashiwa 277-0882, Chiba, Japan

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 19, 1-9

Abstract: The aim of the current study was to assess seasonal differences in physiological responses to walking in urban parks. In total, 51 Japanese male university students participated in this research. During each season, the participants walked for 15 min in an urban park and a city area, which was used as the control site. Heart-rate variability and heart rate were used as physiological indicators. The mean values of each indicator in a comparison between walking in an urban park and a city area were compared according to each season. In addition, to show the physiological effect of walking in an urban park, differences (between walking in an urban park and walking in a city area) were calculated. Then, differences according to each season were compared. The results showed that the participants had increased parasympathetic nervous system activity in all seasons except summer. Moreover, they had decreased sympathetic nervous system activity in spring and fall and decreased heart rate in all seasons. Compared with walking in urban parks in summer, walking in urban parks in spring, fall, and winter had a greater relaxation effect on parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system activities; hence, the physiological effects of walking in urban parks vary based on season.

Keywords: forest therapy; heart rate; heart-rate variability; physiological relaxation; preventive medicine; urban green space (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/19/12154/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/19/12154/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:19:p:12154-:d:924962

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().