Impact of Agro-healing Activities on Adult Brain Activity Measured by EEG

This study investigated electroencephalogram (EEG)-based psychophysiological responses to agro-healing activities in adults. Eighteen participants in Cheongju, South Korea, each completed seven activities—raking, planting, harvesting, cleaning (weeding and sweeping), cooking, dog brushing, and painting—for 5 minutes, with 10-minute rest intervals between randomized tasks. Brain waves were continuously recorded, and relative alpha (RA), relative beta (RB), relative gamma (RM), relative fast alpha (RFA), relative low beta (RLB), and ASEF50 (spectral edge frequency 50% of alpha) were calculated. Within the results, raking, planting, harvesting, and cleaning showed significant increases in RA compared with baseline ( P < 0.05), indicating enhanced relaxation. Raking, planting, harvesting, painting, and cleaning significantly increased ASEF50 ( P < 0.05), reflecting greater comfort and emotional stability. Raking, planting, and harvesting also showed significant activation in RFA and RLB ( P < 0.05), indices associated with learning, attentional processing, and sustained vigilance. In contrast, cooking, dog brushing, and painting produced significant increases in RB ( P < 0.05), indicative of an alert and aroused state, and in RM ( P < 0.05), which is related to memory, learning, and selective attention. Overall, raking, planting, and harvesting elicited the broadest pattern of beneficial activation across relaxation (RA), attention and learning (RFA, RLB), and emotional stability (ASEF50), whereas cleaning primarily supported attention and stability. These findings demonstrate that specific agro-healing activities differentially modulate neural indices of relaxation, arousal, attention, and cognition in adults, providing an empirical basis for designing personalized agro-healing programs tailored to targeted cognitive and emotional outcomes.