Abstract Background With accelerated urbanization and accumulating academic pressure, university students are experiencing a significant increase in psychological stress, often accompanied by symptoms such as mood disorders, decreased attention span, and sleep disturbances. The concept of natural healing, originating from environmental psychology, emphasizes regulating the nervous system's response through close contact with nature to achieve psychological repair and emotional recovery. Existing research indicates that outdoor natural environments can lower cortisol levels and activate positive emotion processing pathways, providing new insights for mental health education. However, traditional psychological counseling is often limited to indoor settings, with relatively singular intervention methods. To break through existing models, this study introduces natural healing scenarios, constructing an integrated practice program of "outdoor experience + psychological education," aiming to improve university students' psychological adjustment abilities and evaluate its intervention effects. Methods The study included 100 university students with a psychological stress index score ≥ 50, who were randomly assigned to either a natural healing group (n = 50) or a conventional psychological education group (n = 50). The natural healing group received an 8-week intervention, twice a week for 90 minutes each time, including gardening activities, meditative walks, and landscape observation training; the conventional group received only classroom-based mental health education. The intervention was supervised throughout by qualified psychological counselors. The Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90) and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) were used to assess psychological changes before and after the intervention, and the physiological regulatory effect was tested using Heart Rate Variability (HRV). Paired-samples t-tests and between-group differences were used. Results After the intervention, the SCL-90 total score in the natural healing group decreased from an average of 158.2 ± 12.4 to 123.7 ± 11.8, an improvement rate of approximately 21.8%, significantly better than the 13.2% in the control group (p.01). The PSS score decreased from 31.4 ± 4.1 to 22.5 ± 3.9, a reduction of approximately 28.3%, compared to only 26.8 ± 4.0 in the control group (p.05). The HRV index increased from an average of 38.7 ± 5.3 ms to 52.4 ± 5.0 ms, an improvement of approximately 35.4% in physiological regulation ability, compared to less than 15% in the control group. Active emotional engagement in gardening activities was significantly correlated with SCL-90 improvement (r = -0.46, p.05). Discussion The results showed that natural healing combined with psychoeducation can effectively alleviate psychological stress among college students, improve emotional recovery efficiency and self-regulation ability, and is particularly suitable for intervention of mild to moderate emotional problems. Sensory experiences stimulated by the natural environment can enhance activity engagement and promote the formation of positive behaviors, which has potential long-term value for psychological rehabilitation. Future recommendations suggest expanding to virtual natural immersive environments and campus green space planning, exploring the targeted effects of natural elements on different psychological state subtypes, and evaluating the sustained efficacy and relapse prevention effect by extending the follow-up period, providing theoretical and practical support for the innovation of college mental health intervention models.
Li et al. (Sun,) studied this question.