SLEEP WELL AND LEARN SOMETHING NICE

Wood not only makes the heart beat harder, but also significantly less often – and that is just one of its many impressive properties that Joanneum researcher Maximilian Moser has studied.

It’s every teacher’s dream: classes in which their pupils hardly ever argue with each other and are in good spirits and so focussed throughout the school day that they only make the occasional lapse in concentration. Not even the most charismatic teacher can create such an atmosphere in the long term – and yet it is not difficult to realise the dream of productive teaching and a harmonious classroom community: By building, designing and furnishing the school and classrooms with wood as much as possible.

IN SEARCH OF PROOF

This is exactly what happened around ten years ago in the municipality of Haus in the Styrian Enns Valley, which embarked on the refurbishment of its secondary school. Under the organisational leadership of Hans Resch, who at the time was not only involved as mayor for his home community, but also on the board of the Styrian wood cluster proHolz. At the time, he was looking for a scientific testing ground, recalls proHolz Head of Communications Petra Seebacher: “We reached a crucial point back then: Everyone in the timber industry was arguing the health effects of wood without being able to prove them with substantiated data.”

THE WOODEN CLASSROOM IN THE NEW MIDDLE SCHOOL IN HAUS IM ENNSTAL. © TONI MUHR

MEASUREMENT TECHNOLOGY: TWO DIFFERENT MEASURES

The trigger for the Holzcluster’s scientific ambitions was, of all things, the supposedly scientific measurement technology with which the manufacturers of wooden floors, ceilings and walls had repeatedly struggled: The air quality measuring devices persistently interpreted the natural essential oils of lacquer-free and wood-free Swiss stone pine & co. as highly concentrated pollutants.

With university professor Dr Maximilian Moser from Joanneum Research and Hans Resch, the Styrian wood cluster found the right allies to provide counter-evidence for the health qualities of wood.

Over the years, Moser, who also heads the Human Research Institute for Health Technology and Prevention Research in Weiz, has developed measurement methods and sensors that, among other things, allow the processes in the autonomic nervous system and brain stem to be observed from the outside without physical intervention. His test subjects included astronaut Franz Viehböck, the first Austrian in space.

FLOOR, WALL AND CEILING SURFACES ARE MADE OF SPRUCE, FIR AND OAK. © TONI MUHR

WOOD VERSUS CHIPBOARD AND PLASTERBOARD

Resch spontaneously agreed to have two classes at Hauser Mittelschule built in wood for a comparative study: With a total of 63 square metres each of floor, wall and ceiling surfaces made of spruce, fir and oak as well as a solid wood classroom made of beech and Swiss stone pine. Both classes still exist to this day. In the regular classes, on the other hand, linoleum, plasterboard and laminated chipboard dominated.

During the school year from 2008 to 2009, a total of 52 pupils in the 5th and 6th grades from the wooden and standard furnishing classes took part in Moser’s study. They did so by regularly taking 25-hour continuous ECG measurements with a wearable device (“Heart of Man”) and, together with their teachers, by taking various psychological tests to determine the stress during their time at school.

RECREATION IN SCHOOL

Special attention was given by Moser and his medical study co-author Richard Maierhofer from arte.med to the heart rate, which was very high in all classes in the morning after getting up. However, in the wooden classrooms, the heart rate quickly dropped well below the statistically assumed baseline—meaning nothing less than that, physiologically speaking, the children were actually recovering at school. The quality of recovery in the afternoon and at night was also significantly better for the children in the wooden classrooms compared to their peers in classrooms furnished according to conventional standards. On average, children in a wooden environment save around 8,600 heartbeats per day—an enormous relief that makes it quite justifiable to attribute a life-prolonging effect to wood.

School without stress:
8,600 heartbeats every day
saved thanks to wood!

LESS DISPUTES, FEWER ERRORS

In addition to heart rate, Moser and Maierhofer also focused on the vagus nerve. The higher its tone, the better the heart is protected against heart attacks—and in this regard, the values in the wooden classroom left nothing to be desired. While the tone value of the comparison group remained low, the value for the wooden classroom group stayed high well into the evening. Interestingly, girls responded even better to the atmospheric effects of the wooden environment than boys.

These effects also demonstrably include an increase in concentration while simultaneously reducing conflicts. While the potential for conflict increased over the course of the school year in the standard classrooms, it steadily diminished in the wooden classrooms. This was a welcome development not only for the students but also for the teachers, who had to correct noticeably fewer concentration-related errors in the wooden classrooms compared to the conventionally furnished ones.

AROLLA PINE: TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE PUT TO THE TEST

Commissioned by institutions such as the Austrian Federal Forests, the Princely Schwarzenberg Forest Administration of Styria, the Bündner Forestry Association SELVA, and the South Tyrolean Farmers’ Association, Professor Moser, with support from the European Union, was able to scientifically prove the special health benefits of Arolla pine in a second study. With this, he provided scientific validation for the long-standing traditional knowledge about the power of this Alpine tree.

In two study segments involving 30 participants, Moser investigated both the physical and mental resilience and recovery capacity in an Arolla pine-furnished environment, as well as sleep quality in such a setting. Once again, comparison provided clarity: The study was conducted in both a wood-decor particleboard room and a solid Arolla pine room.

THE DIAGRAM SHOWS HOW MUCH MORE THE CLASS EQUIPPED WITH PLASTERBOARD AND CO. STRESSES THE HEART THAN THE WOODEN CLASS DOES // Source: Forum Holz | Study SOS – School without stress

One Hour Less Work For THE HEART

The results could not be more clear: In the Arolla pine room, heart rate remained noticeably lower even under physical and mental stress compared to the wood-decor room, where the autonomic recovery process took significantly longer. While heart rate in the Arolla pine environment remained stable regardless of the weather, it was influenced by air pressure in the particleboard room—an indication of "weather sensitivity," which signals an unstable circulatory system.

The second part of the study was just as revealing. Moser had his participants sleep alternately in their own beds, in a wood-decor particleboard bed, and in an Arolla pine bed over a period of three weeks. In the Arolla pine bed, heart rate decreased the most, and participants reported the best nighttime recovery. This was accompanied by an average reduction of about 3,500 heartbeats per night—equivalent to roughly one hour of heart activity!—as well as an increased physiological balance throughout the day.

Live longer with wood

As the driving force of human life, the heart plays a central role in the beliefs and worldviews of all cultures. From India—where the heart-rate-lowering practice of meditation was developed—comes the idea that every person is born with a precisely defined “balance” of heartbeats. According to this perspective, a slower heartbeat equates to a longer life.

In this regard, Maximilian Moser’s research highlights how effectively wooden environments contribute to the longevity of the heart: Those who surround themselves with wood on a permanent basis save their heart up to three or more hours of work per day.