Journal of Coastal Zone Management

Abstract

An Empirical Study on the Effects of the Beach on Mood and Mental Health in Japan

Chenchen Peng, Kazuo Yamashita and Eiichi Kobayashi

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether beach-going affects the mood and mental health of Japanese people, and to examine gender-based differences with regard to these effects of beach-going. We used a short version of Sakano et al.’s Mood Inventory to measure tension and excitement, fatigue, depressive, anxious, and refreshed moods; and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) to measure mental health. We randomly selected data from 180 people in Japan, including 104 males (57.8%), and 76 females (42.2%). Based on the participants’ degree of enthusiasm for going to the beach, they were categorized into three groups: the high enthusiasm group, moderate enthusiasm group, and low enthusiasm group. The findings of this study showed that (1) a high degree of enthusiasm for beach-going had a greater significant effect on mood and mental health than did moderate and low degrees of enthusiasm for beach-going. There were vast differences in scores on the subscales assessing depressive mood, anxious mood, and refreshed mood, and the GHQ-12 scores, among the three groups, and (2) for males, the differences in the mood inventory and GHQ-12 scores among the high, moderate, and low enthusiasm groups were more pronounced and significant than they were for females. Although the females did not differ much in terms of the quality of their mood and mental health status, there was a slight difference among the three groups. These results suggest that especially for Japanese males, the beach has a great influence on improving mood and mental health.