The number of foreigners who are living in Korea for various purposes has increased. Not only Korea, but also many countries around the world have seen significant changes in the composition of labor force, which has made individuals, who had to adapt themselves to their own culture and other new cultures, experience mental and physical stress due to cultural shock. The difficulties that foreign workers, as an immigrant, face in living in Korea have doubled due to differences between what they expected from their life in Korea and the actual life (Hendriks and Bartram, 2016; Liu and Zhang, 2015). As such, the increasing number of foreigners staying in Korea has also resulted in several social problems (Han and Choi, 2011). The number of foreigners who committed crimes in Korea has gradually increased (Korean National Police Agency, 2016), and married immigrants were reported to have difficulties in settling in Korea due to various issues, such as conflicts with their spouses, financial difficulties, difficulties in communication, and conflicts between cultures like different lifestyles (Kim, 2012). People have to face a process of cultural adaptation whether the environment of adaptation is good or bad whenever they enter another society with different culture (Berry, 1997). As they try to adapt themselves to a new environment, they are affected from different sides, whether it is society or individuals, by absence of social support, and pressure they feel in achieving mental goals. From a macroscopic perspective, social factors such as the level of social support, and strategies suggested by the government for cultural adaptation affect stress from cultural adaptation, and from a microscopic perspective, people are affected by personal factors such as personality, educational background, previous experience of multiple cultures and language proficiency.

Stress from cultural adaptation is a stress that individuals experience due to several factors in adapting themselves from their own cultural background to a new culture (Berry et al., 1987), or a stress that they experience in the process of settling and cultural adaptation due to various environmental factors such as financial difficulties and cultural conflicts (Berry, 1997). Foreign workers who immigrate from a different cultural area, a familiar environment, mostly experience stress from cultural adaptation due to discrimination, identity confusion, and a sense of loss as they lose their social and economic position, and their support system (Berry, 1984; Lee et al., 2009). Those who had a low level of stress from cultural adaptation were reported to show more prosocial behaviors such as helping and cooperating with others and voluntarily giving help to others (Kim and Kim, 2011). Those who have a high level of stress tend to show high crime and accident rates (Park and Lim, 2000). Stress that foreigners experience in Korea during cultural adaptation can be recognized as one of the causes of these social problems. Their attempts to effectively adapt themselves to an unfamiliar culture also affect the health of family members and personal behaviors. Difficulties that foreign workers experience are very diverse, ranging from minor and usual things to structural problems, which may threaten their mental health and thus have a negative impact on their psychological wellbeing. Symptoms of depression or anxiety that occur in the process of cultural adaptation can be reduced during sports activities, and positive effects on mental health and satisfaction from life can be expected from the activities (Han and choi, 2011; Lee et al., 2013; Moon and Heo, 2015). Psychological wellbeing can be gained from pleasure from activities in daily life, positive self-image and self-esteem, and optimistic attitudes and emotions (Neugarten et al., 1961), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) explains wellbeing with satisfaction of life, physical living conditions and quality of life (OECD Better Life Index, 2017). The psychological wellbeing of workers is a factor that determines the mental health of individuals, and improves not only their health, but also their work efficiency (Carolan et al., 2017), and also affects the productivity of businesses (Koo and Suh, 2013), having a significant impact on the economic development of countries. Meanwhile, one thing that needs to be considered before measuring the psychological wellbeing of foreign workers is the fact that wellbeing is easily affected by the distinct characteristics of culture (Jung et al., 2016).

Earlier studies conducted in Korea on the psychological wellbeing of foreign workers showed that Taekwondo practices improved their sense of accomplishment (Kim and Shin, 2018), and had a positive impact on psychological wellbeing (Yoon, 2011), and that improvements in the quality of life of their family in their motherland were recognized as their own quality of life (Lee, 2010), which was found to give a high level of happiness to them unlike the expectation of the researcher. It was difficult to find studies that were conducted in other countries on the psychological wellbeing of foreign workers for the past decade. There was one study on a similar variable, happiness, and Li et al. (2018) reported that psychological integration directly affected happiness (Jeong, 2019). However, there is almost no study that used forest healing programs to examine stress from cultural adaptation or psychological wellbeing. Against this backdrop, this study aimed to examine stress that foreign workers experience from cultural adaptation and their psychological wellbeing by applying a forest healing program, and to identify relationships between these variables, and the results of this study are expected to be utilized as basic data for reducing their stress from cultural adaptation and restoring their psychological wellbeing.

In this study, a 3-day, 2-night forest healing program focusing on forest walking and meditation was provided for foreign workers in order to identify the effects of the program on their stress from cultural adaptation and psychological wellbeing. Based on the results of this study, the following conclusions were reached. First, the effects of the forest healing program on their stress from cultural adaptation were examined, and it was found that the lower the level of stress from cultural adaptation, the higher the level of psychological wellbeing. Among the sub-factors surveyed in this study, the treatment group showed statistically significant differences in discrimination experience compared to the control group (p<.05), and the differences in language conflict and legal status were very statistically significant (p<.001). The results can be attributed to the opportunities that the program provided for subjects to freely express their feelings and thoughts. The process of asking who I am and finding themselves through activities including touching trees and lying back to look at the sky in forest, and meditation in nature seemed to positively affect their stress from cultural adaptation. Second, while the control group showed a decrease in psychological wellbeing after the program (M=3.70 to 3.63), the treatment group showed statistically significant differences in all the sub-factors surveyed including confidence, ego, immersion and joy. Opportunities to look back about themselves through activities such as looking at the night sky alone, break ice between participants through self-introduction, and share their feelings they felt living in Korea seemed to promote to build sympathy and support between foreign workers, and bond and sympathy with fellow workers. In addition, words of encouragement and support seemed to draw positive energy and improve their adaptability to the reality, improving psychological wellbeing. Third, the forest healing program focusing on forest walking and meditation reduced stress from cultural adaptation and improve psychological wellbeing. In order to adapt themselves to a different society and culture, communication is essential, and the reason why these positive results were obtained above was that they were able to break ice, feel a sense of closeness and build bond between participants through several activities before participating in the program, which seemed to create rapport between them. They were able to get to know each other by themselves even during the program, and to have chances to share and frankly speak about the difficulties they have experienced, which seemed to make them understand each other better. Since the program was performed for 3-days and 2-nights, a limited amount of time, it is difficult to generalize the results of this study. Therefore, it will be necessary to conduct more in-depth studies going forward to address this limitation.

Based on the conclusions above, the following suggestions can be presented. First, since the period of this study was only 3-days and 2-nights, which is relatively short, and how long the effects lasted after the program was not surveyed, it is necessary to conduct a follow-up study on the long-term effects of the program. Second, it is also needed to compare the effects on the cultural adaptation stress and psychological wellbeing of foreign workers with those of Korean workers. Third, it is necessary to develop a program that can reduce the stress that foreign workers experience from cultural adaptation and improve their psychological wellbeing considering their social support, health conditions and academic background. The results of this study are expected to be utilized as basic data for further identifying the effects of forest healing programs focusing on forest walking and meditation going forward.