Psycho-Physiological Stress Recovery in Outdoor Nature-Based Interventions: A Systematic Review of the Past Eight Years of Research

In modern, urban daily life, natural environments are increasingly recognized as an important resource for stress recovery and general well-being. the present review aims to provide an overview and synthesis of the past eight years' research into the psycho-physiological effects of outdoor nature-based interventions, related to stress recovery. a structured search was performed in seven databases, returning 5618 articles. Removal of duplicates and initial screening gave a total of 95 studies. After full text reading, 36 studies were included in the assessment. most of the psychological outcomes were related to different emotional measures. The synthesis of the results points towards outdoor, nature-based exposure having a positive effect on different emotional parameters, related to stress relief. The studies into physiological measures showed more equivocal results. the research, conducted over the past eight years, into outdoor, nature-based exposure has now attained a sound evidence base for psychological and especially emotional effects, but the evidence base for physiological effects within this timeframe shows a great degree of heterogeneity. interpretation of the results is limited by the review only covering the past eight years' research on the subject.