The physiological effects of “Shinrin-yoku” (taking in the atmosphere of the forest) were examined by investigating blood pressure, pulse rate, heart rate variability (HRV), salivary cortisol concentration, and immunoglobulin A in 12 male University students.

The physiological measurements were conducted before and after the subjects walked a predetermined course in the forest and city areas for 15 minutes.

In the forest area compared to the city area, 1) blood pressure and pulse rate were significantly lower, and 2) Heart Rate Variability (HRV) was higher and 3) salivary cortisol concentration was significantly lower.

Journal of Physiological Anthropology, Volume 26, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 135-142

Laboratory and clinical studies suggest that the autonomic nervous system responds to chronic behavioral and psychosocial stressors with adverse metabolic consequences and that this may explain the relation between low social position and high coronary risk.

Researchers tested the hypothesis with 2197 male civil servants 45 to 68 years of age in the Whitehall II study who undertook standardized assessments of social position (employment grade) and the psychosocial, behavioral, and metabolic risk factors for coronary disease. In addition their autonomic activity was measured using Heart Rate Variability (HRV).

The reserachers found that Low employment grade was associated with low HRV . Adverse behavioral factors (smoking, exercise, alcohol, and diet) and psychosocial factors (job control) showed  associations with low HRV .

Low HRV was also strongly associated with components of the metabolic syndrome such as waist circumference, systolic blood pressure, HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, and glucose levels.

The researchers concluded that “chronically impaired autonomic function (Low HRV) may link social position to different components of coronary risk in the general population”.

(2005) Circulation, 111 (23), Pages 3071-3077.

Walking a dog increased the heart rate variability (HRV) of senior citizens significantly more than walking without a dog: and, independent of actually walking, merely patting and talking to a dog also raises HRV. The researchers alo noted that HRV “shows promise as a non-invasive approach to quantifying clinicophysiological research on human health benefits possibly derived from interaction with companion animals”.

Medical Journal of Australia, 2006, 184 (2), Pages 60-63.

Patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) who experience depressed mood or psychological stress exhibit decreased heart rate variability (HRV). Myocardial infarction and sudden cardiac death are independently associated with depression and stress, as well as impaired HRV.

In this randomized controlled trial enrolled 46 CHD patients s were randomized to five 1.5-hour sessions of HRV biofeedback or an active control condition.

The researchers found that  improved psychological adjustment was significantly associated with the higher levels of HRV.  The researchers concluded that “A novel behavioral neurocardiac intervention, HRV biofeed!back, can augment vagal HRV regulation while facilitating psychological adjustment to CHD”

 American Heart Journal, 2005, 149 (6)

The front page of Australia’s national newspaper featured an article titled  $1 million dollars to keep our fat cats happy. It essentially questioned how a government could justify spending a millon dollars on positive psychology courses for the public service in the current tough economic times.  Although much of it can be attributed to  political point scoring, there are some interesting points made.

Perhaps the most pertinent is the comment by Senator Mason where he says “at $6500 per participant, taxpayers really want to be assured that there have been some positive outcomes and tangible results out of a seminar like this.” This gives the perception that positive psychology is only for the privileged. This perception is futher strengthened by the fact that the courses were undertaken at Geelong Grammar - Australia’s most expensive School.

So what is the way forward for positive psychology? Ultimately it’s about developing cost effective interventions that are accessible by the less privileged people in our community -after all they are the people who stand to benefit the most.

Our ACCEPTional Resilience program is one such program - it costs less than $60 per participant. Interestingly the ACCEPTional program might to be more effective than the positive psychology program run at Geelong Grammar. We have recently licenced the program to several overseas providers who used to run a programs based on the book The Resilience Factor (the Geelong Grammar positive psychology program is based on the book). They now prefer the ACCEPTional program primarily because the participants find the techniques quicker and simple to learn and easy to apply. And according to the licencees they get better results.

So why does the ACCEPTional program get better results - very simply it is based on the latest research that is only starting to emerge in the field of positive psychology.

A workplace stress management program based on Heart Rate Variability (HRV) training found that 3 months after completing the program that participants had on average reduced their systolic and diastolic blood pressure by 10.6 and 6.3 mm Hg respectively.

Participants also had significant reductions in stress symptoms, depression and increases in peacefulness, positive outlook, workplace satisfaction and value of contribution.

Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine Volume 9, Issue 3, June 2003, Pages 355-369

The associations between vital exhaustion (long-term stress), temperament, and Heart Rate Variability(HRV)  were studied during an experimentally induced stress (mental arithmetic, reaction time, and giving speech) in a sample of 76 healthy subjects.

Results showed that vital exhaustion was associated with lower levels of HRV In addition the researchers found that exhausted, persistent women expressed the highest level of physiological stress reactivity.

The researchers concluded that “background stress may diminish one’s capacity to cope with acute stress”.

Biological Psychology, 2004,65 (2), Pages 121-135

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) has been proposed as a stable biological marker for the ability to sustain attention and regulate emotion.

In this study HRV was collected before exposure to a stressor, during the stressor and during recovery from the stressor. In addition partcipants completed measures of Social Desirability , Anxiety, Self-Consciousness, and the Openness to Experience

The researchers found that lower levels of HRV were associated with greater social anxiety and defensiveness.

Biological Psychology, 2005, 68 (2), Pages 147-162.

Heart rate variability (HRV) has proven predictive value for patients with cardiac and neurologic disorders and correlates with depression severity and treatment effects.In this study researchers explored with HRV could be used to predict the efficacy of Electroconvulsive therapy when treating depression.

The researchers found that Low baseline HRV is associated with rapid relapse of depression after ECT. Both high baseline HRV and increasing HRV predict a sustained outcome.

Journal of ECT, 2004, 20 (2), Pages 81-88

This studylooked at the relationships between depressed mood and HRV in healthy men and women at rest and during two stressors (a challenging speech task and a forehead cold pressor task). Depressed mood was also assessed.

Participants with higher depressed mood  had significantly lower levels of HRV during the two stressor tasks.

The researchers concluded that “because the participants in this study were healthy, the relationship between depressed mood and parasympathetic cardiac control does not seem to be secondary to cardiovascular disease.”

Psychosomatic Medicine, 2000, 62 (6), Pages 796-803