日本衛生学雑誌
Online ISSN : 1882-6482
Print ISSN : 0021-5082
ISSN-L : 0021-5082
ミニ特集 第81回日本衛生学会 シンポジウム7:予防医学の視点から森林セラピーの健康増進・疾病予防効果を検証する
自然セラピーの予防医学的効果
宮崎 良文李 宙営朴 範鎭恒次 祐子松永 慶子
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2011 年 66 巻 4 号 p. 651-656

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Five million years has passed since a subset of primates recognizably became human. Because we have already spent more than 99.99% of our evolutionary history in natural environments, it is thought that we are essentially adaptive to nature. However, we live in a society characterized by urbanization and artificiality, despite our physiological functions still being adapted to nature. We conducted experiments involving 420 subjects at 35 different forests throughout Japan. As a result, these subjects sitting in natural surroundings showed decreases in the following physiological indices compared with the urban control group: 12.4% decrease in cortisol level, 7.0% decrease in sympathetic nervous activity, 1.4% decrease in systolic blood pressure, and 5.8% decrease in heart rate. This shows that stressful states can be relieved by forest therapy. It should also be noted that parasympathetic nerve activity increased by 55.0%, indicating a relaxed state. The results of walking experiments were also similar. Li et al. demonstrated that immune functions are enhanced by forest therapy. Middle-aged employees volunteered to participate in these experiments. NK (natural killer cells) activity, as an indicator of immune function, increased by 56% on the second day and returned to normal levels. A significant increase of 23% was maintained for 1 month even after these subjects returned to urban life, clearly illustrating the preventive medical effects of nature therapy. We expect nature therapy to play an increasingly important role in preventive medicine in the future.

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© 2011 日本衛生学会
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