ArticleFrontiers in psychology2026
Exploring the effects of short-term forest bathing on anxious medical undergraduates' stressful emotions using near-infrared functional brain imaging and facial expression technology.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
Background: Enrolled medical undergraduates face high exam competition and stress, reducing life quality, well-being, learning abilities and health; supporting their exam stress management is critical. This study used a 2-h forest bathing intervention to alleviate their exam-related stress. Methods: One week prior to the intervention, 160 students were recruited via university bulletin boards; eligibility screening, defined by a State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-State score >40, was administered 1 day before the 2-h sensory exposure. Ultimately, 60 final-examination-preparing medical undergraduates (male:female = 7:53) were randomly assigned to two groups ( Results: Forest environments characterized by lower noise levels, and higher negative air ion concentrations-with a comfort index of 0.971-1.368 (vs. 2.221-3.647 in urban areas) and negative oxygen ion concentrations of 1,000-1,200 ions/cm Conclusion: Short-term forest bathing reduces physiological stress markers, enhances nature connectedness/positive emotions, alleviates stress via modified cerebral blood flow, and improves memory and reduce cognitive fatigue to a certain extent. As a low-cost, easy-to-implement strategy, it is may recommended for enrolled medical undergraduates' mental health curricula to build sustainable stress management.
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