Assessing the Impact of Outdoor Activities on Mental Wellbeing; Focusing on the Walking Path in Urban Area
Abstract
Background: Provided that COVID-19 pandemic has led to mental wellbeing disorders for city dwellers, and given that there is a significant association between outdoor activities and mental health, this paper investigated how the frequency of walking during the pandemic contributes to the immediate and subsequent ‘mood’.
Methods: A longitudinal data collection method was adopted to verify the ‘mood’ of the participants before and after walking. The survey was conducted with 100 participants in a walking path in Shiraz, Iran, on Jan 2021. The quantitative analysis methods were performed in SPSS to examine the mental wellbeing outcomes of walking in the outdoor walking path when considering the psychological impacts of the pandemic and the quantity.
Results: The result affirms the positive contribution of walking in the improvement of mental-wellbeing-mood during the pandemic; though, such a mood boost is in a direct relationship with the quantity of the activity within a week. Moreover, other factors can play a significant role, including the ‘mood before walking’, and the age of the participants.
Conclusion: It is likely that encouraging people to consider walking as their routine activity can lead to several positive consequences on mental wellbeing since walking as a basic outdoor activity during the pandemic can contribute on the mood.
2. Veer IM, Riepenhausen A, Zerban M, Wackerhagen C, Puhlmann LM, Engen H, Köber G, Bögemann SA, Weermeijer J, Uściłko A, Mor N (2021). Psycho-social factors associat-ed with mental resilience in the Coro-na lockdown. Transl. Psychiatry, 21;11(1): 1-1.
3. Cullen W, Gulati G, Kelly BD (2020). Mental health in the COVID-19 pan-demic. QJM-INT J MED, 1;113(5): 311-2.
4. Tyrväinen L, Ojala A, Korpela K, Lanki T, Tsunetsugu Y, Kagawa T (2014). The influence of urban green envi-ronments on stress relief measures: A field experiment. J Environ Psychol, 1;38: 1-9.
5. Rokni L (2021). The Psychological Con-sequences of COVID-19 Pandemic in Tourism Sector: A Systematic Review. Iran J Public Health, 2;50(9): 1743-56.
6. Jackson SB, Stevenson KT, Larson LR, Peterson MN, Seekamp E (2021). Outdoor activity participation im-proves adolescents’ mental health and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. Int J Environ Res Public Health, 18(5): 2506.
7. de Figueiredo CS, Sandre PC, Portugal LC, Mázala-de-Oliveira T, da Silva Chagas L, Raony Í, Ferreira ES, Giestal-de-Araujo E, Dos Santos AA, Bomfim PO (2021). COVID-19 pan-demic impact on children and adoles-cents' mental health: biological, envi-ronmental, and social factors. Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry, 2;106: 110171.
8. Rezaei M, Kim D, Alizadeh A, Rokni L (2021). Evaluating the Mental-Health Positive Impacts of Agritourism; A Case Study from South Korea. Sus-tainability, 13(16): 8712.
9. Wanner M, Götschi T, Martin-Diener E, Kahlmeier S, Martin BW (2021). Ac-tive transport, physical activity, and body weight in adults: a systematic re-view. Am J Prev Med, 1;42(5): 493-502.
10. Sugiyama T, Neuhaus M, Cole R, Giles-Corti B, Owen N (2012). Destination and route attributes associated with adults' walking: a review. Med Sci Sports Exerc, 1;44(7): 1275-86.
11. Jamei E, Ahmadi K, Chau HW, Seyed-mahmoudian M, Horan B, Stojcevski A (2021). Urban Design and Walkabil-ity: Lessons Learnt from Iranian Tra-ditional Cities. Sustainability, 13(10): 5731.
12. Roe J, Aspinall P (2011). The restorative benefits of walking in urban and rural settings in adults with good and poor mental health. Health Place, 1;17(1): 103-13.
13. Ancold AD, Stephen C (1995). Devel-opment of a short questionnaire for use in epidemiological studies of de-pression in children and adolescents. Age (years), 6(11): 237-49.
14. McNair, D., Lorr, M., and Droppleman, L. (1992). Profile of Mood States Manual (rev.). San Diego: Educational and Industrial Testing Service.
15. McNair DM, Lorr M, Droppleman LF. Manual profile of mood states. San Diego, CA: Educational and Industrial Testing Ser-vice.
16. Lee AC, Maheswaran R (2011). The health benefits of urban green spaces: a review of the evidence. J Public Health, 1;33(2): 212-22.
17. Barton J, Hine R, Pretty J (2009). The health benefits of walking in greenspaces of high natural and heritage value. J Integr Environ Sci, 1;6(4): 261-78.
18. Wood L, Hooper P, Foster S, Bull F (2017). Public green spaces and positive mental health–investigating the relationship be-tween access, quantity and types of parks and mental wellbeing. Health Place, 1;48:63-71.
19. Grahn P, Stigsdotter UA (2003). Landscape planning and stress. Urban For Urban Green, 1;2(1): 1-8.
20. Wendelboe-Nelson C, Kelly S, Kennedy M, Cherrie JW (2019). A scoping review mapping research on green space and as-sociated mental health benefits. Int J Envi-ron Res Public Health, 16(12): 2081.
21. Anser MK, Sharif M, Khan MA, Nassani AA, Zaman K, Abro MM, Kabbani A (2021). Demographic, psychological, and environmental factors affecting student’s health during the COVID-19 pandemic: on the rocks. Environ Sci Pollut Res, 19: 1-1.
22. Zenker S, Braun E, Gyimóthy S (2021). Too afraid to Travel? Development of a pan-demic (COVID-19) anxiety travel scale (PATS). Tour Manag, 1;84: 1042-86.
23. Parsons R (1991). The potential influences of environmental perception on human health. J Environ Psychol, 1;11(1): 1-23.
| Files | ||
| Issue | Vol 50 No 10 (2021) | |
| Section | Original Article(s) | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.18502/ijph.v50i10.7517 | |
| Keywords | ||
| COVID-19 Mental wellbeing Mood Urban area Outdoor activity Walking path | ||
| Rights and permissions | |
|
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. |
