dbeard@dominionpost.com
MORGANTOWN – This holiday season of peace and joy can actually be quite stressful for many people. A 2021 study by the American Psychiatric Association said that 41% of people in their study reported holiday season stress and anxiety.
One solution might be to talk a walk through a Christmas tree lot, according to a study conducted by four WVU Davis College Division of Forestry & Natural Resources professors.
“You don’t even have to buy one,” said Chad Pierskalla, who led the study. “You can just go to your local retailer and enjoy the smell for 15-20 minutes, and that alone can have a lot of positive benefits.”
The study looked at how tree shopping could offer restorative effects for mental fatigue, and compared walking through a lot with real trees with walking through a display of artificial trees.
For the study, they prepared two videos offering first-person point-of-view walk-throughs of displays of real trees and artificial trees. They provided a simulated shopping experience in different store environments – walking through the various types of displays, smelling and feeling the trees, Pierskalla said.
The study involved 1208 people across the country wh answered 45 questions and viewed the two videos. The subjects, using established study methods, evaluated the videos moment to moment, indicating how the experience would help them recover from mental fatigue.
The study looked at the role of fascination: one of five major qualities of an environment that contributes to recovery from mental fatigue, and is considered the most important of he five, Pierskalla said.
Both experiences produced fascination, he said. But touring the artificial tree display stimulated what he called “hard” fascination – along the lines of what you might experience playing a video game or watching a sports event. It’s noisy and loud and burdens the mind more than it helps it recover.
The real trees stimulated “soft” fascination – similar to wind blowing through leaves, ripples of water, clouds, sunsets, he said. It doesn’t burden the mind with internal noise and clutter.
They learned that the real tree experience contributed more than twice as much to recovery. “That was an unexpected and interesting finding.” Hard fascination can lead to mental fatigue, which in turn can lead to distractibility , impulsivity, irritability.
Touring the real trees offered a type of “forest bathing” experience – an immersion in nature.
“It’s hard to get out this time of year, maybe more-so than in the summer,” he said. “It’s nice to be able to go to a shopping environment, a retail lot, a big box store, even a Christmas tree farm, and have this accessible nature right there, as a way to forest bathe while shopping.”
You don’t need to spend a lot of time, he said. Stroll through the tree lot for 15-20 minutes. Walk slowly and appreciate the experience. You don’t have to drive far. A retail tree lot offers an easily accessible urban forest.
“The smell is one of the peak restorative moments that we identified in our study,” he said. Artificial trees don’t offer the same multi-sensory experience.
The benefits can continue if you take a tree home, but it’s not necessary, he said. The brief walk alone can help reduce mental fatigue and stress.
A couple questions we posed are topics of possible future study, he said. One is how visiting a tree farm would compare to a tree lot where they’re already cut and sitting in a retail environment.
They don’t at this point want to discourage or discount the tree lot experience, he said. “We can find nature in very accessible places, including your local retail store.”
Another question is what kind of benefits having a real tree versus a fake tree in your home might offer. He noted that research has shown that artificial plants offer less of the positive fascination benefits compared to real plants.
Pierskalla noted that the Real Christmas Tree Board sponsored the study, but that played no role in the data collection and WVU didn’t know the outcomes in advance. The professors wanted to see if tree shopping could help people at the time they may need it most.
Dave McGill, forest resources specialist and professor with WVU Extension, was another member of the study team.
For those looking to buy a real tree, he said, “think about supporting West Virginia growers. Purchasing a locally grown Christmas tree helps sustain West Virginia’s agricultural economy and maintains open farmland. Also, many tree farms replant saplings annually, ensuring a sustainable and renewable tradition that contributes to cleaner air and wildlife habitat conservation.”
Look for trees with vibrant, green needles that don’t easily fall off when gently pulled or shaken, he said. “Before bringing the tree inside, be sure to cut about one to two inches off the trunk’s base to improve water absorption and ensure your tree stays hydrated.”
“After the holiday season,” he said, “many communities in West Virginia offer tree recycling programs. Recycled trees can be turned into mulch for parks or wildlife habitats. Also, placing your tree in your yard can provide shelter for birds or wildlife until spring.”
The West Virginia Department of Agriculture lists 29 tree farms across the state.
