Restorative experiences across seasons? Effects of outdoor walking and relaxation exercise during lunch breaks in summer and winter

Svein Åge Kjøs Johnsen, Marin Kristine Brown and Leif Werner Rydstedt

Landscape Research, 2022, vol. 47, issue 5, 664-678

Abstract: This study aimed to explore whether a walk outdoors during a lunch break would promote restorative experiences for a sample of office workers (N = 52), compared to following instructions from an online video of progressive muscle relaxation. Furthermore, the study aimed to compare the impact of a walk during winter to a walk in a summer landscape. Compared to baseline measures, walking in winter and summer were both associated with significantly increased subjective vitality and psychological detachment from work, but there were no significant differences in these specific wellbeing indicators between winter and summer conditions. The indoor muscle relaxation exercise had no effect on psychological detachment from work, but participants who had the relaxation session during summer reported a significant increase in subjective vitality. Active outdoor restoration seems to have a beneficial impact on mental wellbeing, while indoor muscle relaxation may also have some benefits.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01426397.2022.2063268 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:clarxx:v:47:y:2022:i:5:p:664-678

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/clar20

DOI: 10.1080/01426397.2022.2063268

Access Statistics for this article

Landscape Research is currently edited by Dr Anna Jorgensen

More articles in Landscape Research from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().