Summary
• Stone pine is said to aid sleep.
• Sleeping in a stone pine bed lowers the heart rate.
• It is thought its essential oils are key to its physiological effects.
• Stone pine also repels clothes-moth larvae.
Generations of Austrian countryfolk have sworn by the benefits of stone pine. According to rustic wisdom, if you made a cradle from the timber of this sturdy mountain tree, your baby would drop off more quickly and be less grizzly when it woke. In a stone pine bed adults slept more deeply and felt more refreshed in the morning. And a room clad in stone pine panels, allegedly, induced feelings of calm and contentment.
Until recently, all this was taken by most people with a hefty pinch of salt; another country yarn spun for the gullible urbanite seeking some rural R&R. If farmers did sleep like a log in stone pine beds, it was assumed it was most likely down to healthy mountain air or schnapps. But then, at the request of the Austrian timber sector, the Johanneum Research Institute in Weiz put the anecdotal evidence to the test and found that a lot of it stacked up. The result has been a surge in demand for stone pine beds and panelling across Austria and Germany.
“At first we didn’t believe the stories either,” said Vincent Grote, a lead researcher on the project. “But our work has convinced us that the timber does have certain measurable effects.”
Research
For its investigations, the Institute recruited 30 “healthy adults” and put some through physical and psychological stress tests in an entirely stone pine-clad room and others, as the control, in a room clad in imitation pine plastic foil-coated panels.
“We monitored them over 24 hours using high resolution electrocardiogram recorders to look at heart beat frequency and the biological rhythms of recovery,” said Grote. “We also used psychometric tests for feelings of well-being and vigilance.”
The tests showed subjects in the stone pine room had lower heart rates during physical and mental exercises and after rest phases. The heartbeat of the guinea pigs in the fake pine room also varied according to atmospheric pressure. Those in the stone pine room were unaffected by it.
In the next study the subjects were studied sleeping first in stone pine beds, then their own and synthetic veneer pine lookalikes.
“We used an ECG recorder to measure heartbeat and rhythm and an electroencephalogram to monitor brain activity,” said Grote. “This showed that sleep quality was improved in a stone pine bed and heart beat frequency reduced.”
The latter added up to a saving of about 3,500 heartbeats a day, or “about an hour’s heart-work”.
Psychometric tests showed that the stone pine bed sleepers also felt more relaxed. Some even thought they had become “more socially extrovert”.
The secret
So what’s stone pine’s secret?
“We don’t know for sure, but the fragrance of the essential oils in the wood are very likely to play a significant role,” said Grote. “Researchers are now looking into these to see if they can isolate the active ingredients.”
Other theories include the possibility that light reflected from the timber can affect melatonin levels, assisting restfulness and sleep, and, given the fact that you get a poor phone signal in a stone pine-clad room, it is thought it might also shield against electro-magnetic radiation and radio waves.
So stone pine, it seems, does you good. Although there is one health warning. “It only works if the wood is bare,” said Grote. “But you should not have a room clad in stone pine that’s poorly ventilated because it also gives off formaldehyde, which can be bad for you in sufficient concentration.”
But to end on another plus point, it has also been shown that the timber has a “bio-inhibitoric” effect which repels clothes-moth larvae. So you can sleep even more soundly in a stone pine-furnished bedroom, knowing your natural fibres are safe.
• For more information: www.joanneum.at.
