Nature therapy, including relaxation by exposure to natural stimuli from forests, urban parks, flowers, and natural wooden materials, is receiving increasing attention, and scientific data in support of this have begun to accumulate in various research fields. For example, the Japanese term “Shinrin-yoku”, which means “taking in the forest atmosphere through all of our senses”, was proposed in 1982 by a Forestry Agency secretary in Japan and in 1984, an American clinical psychologist coined the term “Technostress”. Indeed, over recent decades, there have been reactions to the urbanized environment, suggesting a possible second phase in how we interact with it. We proceeded with this research based on the hypothesis that highly urbanized and artificial environments cause a state of physiological stress, which manifests as an increase in sympathetic nervous activity, blood pressure, heart rate, and stress hormone. It is considered that the human body is adapted to a natural setting. Even since the beginning of urbanization with the industrial revolution, less than 0.01% of our species’ time has been spent in an artificial and urbanized environment. In the 7 million years that human species have existed, over 99.99% of our evolution has taken place in a natural environment. Further study is needed to elucidate the physiological effects of wood on humans. In addition, this review examined the field of forest therapy, for which there is abundant research. It became clear that many studies were limited by (1) a small number of participants, mostly aged in their 20s (2) use of only a single stimulus (e.g., only olfactory or only visual), or (3) an incomplete experimental design. We reviewed reports that elucidated the effects of wood-derived stimulations on the olfactory, visual, auditory, and tactile sensations using physiological indices such as brain activity (e.g., near-infrared spectroscopy) and autonomic nervous activity (e.g., heart rate variability and blood pressure).
This review provides an overview of the current situation for peer-reviewed reports related to the physiological effects of wood. However, data using physiological indices have increasingly accumulated in recent years.
On the other hand, not enough scientific knowledge based on evidence-based research is available on this subject. It is empirically known that wood can cause a comfort enhancement effect in humans.
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