Visitors to the University of New Hampshire's College Woods reported better moods and greater feelings of relaxation after time in the forest, in a study that also examined how sounds and visitors' sense of the forest's variety of life related to their experience.
The yearlong study produced 641 usable matched before-and-after surveys from adults visiting the 230-acre natural area in Durham between June 2023 and May 2024. People who had already completed the survey were excluded from taking it again.
Average positive-mood scores rose from 29.5 before a visit to 33 afterward on a scale of 10 to 50. Negative-mood scores fell from 14.5 to 12.1. A separate measure of feeling relaxed and mentally restored rose from 23 to 29.8, about a 30% increase in the score.
These are changes in visitors' self-reported experiences. The study did not compare forest visitors with a separate group spending the same time elsewhere, so the before-and-after results do not isolate the forest's effect from other influences.
Visitors' overall rating of the site's biodiversity, meaning the variety of living things around them, and the pleasantness of the sounds were strong predictors of reported well-being in the researchers' statistical models. Their estimates of how many bird, mammal and plant species were present, and the measured bird and mammal species counts, provided less explanatory power. The researchers used wildlife cameras, bird observations and existing vegetation records to describe the site.
The team also rotated an educational sign in and out of the trail entrance in weeklong periods. It encouraged visitors to look and listen for the forest's mammals, birds and plants. During sign weeks, research staff also encouraged survey participants to read it.
Visitors reported slightly greater species variety when the sign was present. The researchers concluded the sign was linked to higher positive mood and called such signs a simple, low-cost tool for forest managers. Their model put the difference at 1.19 points on the 10-to-50 mood scale, an estimate with wide uncertainty. The sign did not show a clear relationship with lower negative-mood scores or greater feelings of restoration.
The researchers did not test a sign-free trail at the same time, and visitors were not individually assigned to see the sign. Those limits, along with staff prompting people to read it, make the results an uncertain guide to what an unattended sign would accomplish elsewhere.
The sample also reflects its university setting: 51% were students, 11% were faculty or staff, and 83% had visited College Woods before.
Lauren Ferguson, a UNH assistant professor of recreation management and policy, led the paper, which was available online Sept. 23 in Landscape and Urban Planning. UNH announced the findings Oct. 20. The work was funded by the UNH Agricultural Experiment Station with support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture.