Revista Argentina de Clínica Psicológica 2020, Vol. XXIX, N°1, 1228-1233
DOI: 10.24205/03276716.2020.176 1228
I
NFLUENCE OF
C
ONTINUOUS
S
PORTS
T
RAINING ON
M
ENTAL
H
EALTH
OF
A
DOLESCENTS
Nannan Zhang
Abstract
Adolescence is an important stage of physical and mental growth. At this stage, sports training is often introduced to promote their physical and mental health. This paper attempts to disclose how continuous sports training affects the mental health of adolescents. First, the author discussed the relationship between sports training behavior of adolescents and the factors of mental health. Then, the mental health of adolescents was divided into positive mental health and non-positive mental health. The latter was further split into mental sub-health and mental morbidity. On this basis, adolescents with no mental morbidity were selected for physical fitness test and psychological questionnaire survey. Through detailed analysis on the test results and survey data, it is concluded that more than 30% of adolescents are mentally healthy; With mental sub-health, the adolescents have reduced cardiorespiratory endurance and the number repeat lateral-striding times; continuous sports training is conductive to self-awareness, self-regulation, physical health, mental health and psychological quality of adolescents. The research findings provide an important reference for improving the physical and mental growth of adolescents.
Key words: Psychological Quality, Sports Training, Mental health, Self-Regulation.
Received: 14-02-19 | Accepted: 17-08-19
INTRODUCTION
Adolescents are in a critical period of physical and psychological development; this period is also an important stage for the shaping of their outlook on life, values and worldview. In this stage, the psychological development of adolescents is of strong plasticity (Bapat, Jorm, & Lawrence, 2009). Sports training is an important way to exercise mind and body during adolescence. Linking continuous sports training with the mental health of adolescents is also a comprehensive and concrete support for the functions of sports (Vertommen, Kampen,
Schipper-Van Veldhoven et al., 2018).
Adolescence is a crucial period of physical and
psychological development of people’s life.
Various psychological contradictions and
Department of physical education, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China.
E-Mail: [email protected]
conflicts are mainly concentrated in this period. Positive and healthy psychology can promote the physical and psychological development of adolescents (Izawa, Watanabe, Oka et al., 2014). Studies have shown that continuous sports training not only strengthens the physical and physiological functions of adolescents, but also trains the young people to achieve optimal mental health status; in addition, sports training can improve the bad mood of adolescents and promote the mental health benefits of adolescents in groups (Deb, Sathyanarayanan, Machiraju et al., 2017; Subin, Rim, & Lee, 2018).
From the perspective of psychology, the
optimal status of adolescents’ mental health is the maximization of positive emotions, and sports training is the most influential way for adolescents' emotional benefits (Tan, Chen, Xia et al., 2017). From the perspective of sports psychology, sports can change people's negative emotions, effectively improve their mood, and reduce depression and anxiety (Chiang, Fleming,
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Lucassen et al., 2017). Continuous sports training can change the cognitive pattern and lifestyle of adolescents, educate them with a wider range of resources such as physical, cognitive, psychological and social knowledges, ultimately, it can cultivate the adolescents to form sports training habits and awareness of continuous sports training (Harikrishnan, Arif, & Sobhana, 2017, Shulman, Luo, & Shah, 2018). This paper starts with the self-behavior and individual quality of adolescents, explores the influence of continuous sports training on the mental health status of adolescents, and
provides a theoretical basis for the “healthy psychology” function exhibited in subsequent
sports training.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ADOLESCENTS’
SPORTS TRAINING BEHAVIOR AND THE MENTAL HEALTH FACTORS
There are many criteria for the classification of mental health, including intelligence, healthy
emotions, willpower, interpersonal
relationships, social life, and personality, etc. (Adrian, Charlesworth-Attie, Vander Stoep et al.,
2014). During adolescence, unhealthy
psychology can lead to depression, confusion, negative outlook on life, pessimism, and disappointment, etc. (Garnham-Lee, Trigwell, Mcgee et al., 2016). For different ethnic groups and different ages, the mental health behaviors of adolescents would present differences, mainly depending on the environment in which adolescents are exposed to during their growth. Mental health factors include esteem, self-efficacy, and control source of healthy psychology, etc.; some researchers adopted the bivariate research method and found out that there are significant positive correlations between the mental health dimensions and self-esteem, self-efficacy, and control source of healthy psychology (Castellani & Young, 2012). From the perspective of behavioral psychology, we can divide mental health status into nutritional practice, interpersonal support, health responsibility, life appreciation, exercise behavior and stress management, etc.; while unhealthy psychological status include violent attack, discipline violation and suicidal self-mutilation.
Adolescents’ self-esteem has a promotive effect on their mental health and a predictive effect on the harmful acts of mental health, and
sports trainers have more positive self-esteem performance and self-concept than non-exercisers. Sports training has a significant promotive effect on the sports skills, physical attractiveness, power perception and other aspects of the adolescents, and teenagers who regularly participate in sports training have higher self-worth values.
INVESTIGATION ON THE MENTAL HEALTH STATUS OF ADOLESCENTS
Research objects and methods
The mental health of adolescents can be divided into two types: positive mental health and non-positive mental health. Non-positive mental health can also be divided into two kinds: psychological sub-health and psychological morbidity. For adolescents, psychological sub-health is exhibited more often, it is a negative psychological status that leads to low learning efficiency, low mood and drowsiness, which seriously affects the development of the physical and mental health of adolescents and the improvement of their social ability. In addition, psychological sub-health can also affect adolescents' physical fitness, including body flexibility, muscle strength, muscle endurance, and cardiorespiratory endurance, etc. To explore the mental health status of adolescents, this study selected adolescents aged from 13 to 18 to participate in the research and tests, the chosen adolescents have no psychological morbid conditions, and the specific conditions of the subjects are shown in Table 1. The research methods include adolescent physical fitness test and psychological questionnaire survey. The physical fitness test includes repeat lateral-striding test and cardiorespiratory endurance test; the questionnaire survey adopts the multi-dimensional assessment questionnaire for adolescent mental health. Data analysis was performed using SPSS software to analyze the mean and standard deviation of the data.
Table 1.
Basic conditions of the subjects
Age Male Female Total
13 51 65 116
14 45 21 66
15 39 50 89
16 39 45 84
17 56 53 109
18 21 25 46
INFLUENCE OF CONTINUOUS SPORTS TRAINING ON MENTAL HEALTH OF ADOLESCENTS 1230
Research results and discussion
Figure 1 shows the positive rate of
psychological sub-health status among
adolescents. It can be seen that at the ages of 13 and 18, the psychological sub-health positive rates of girls are higher than those of boys, while in other age groups, the psychological sub-health positive rates of boys are all higher than those of girls; boys of age 15 show the highest positive rates of psychological sub-health, while girls of age 13 show the highest positive rates of psychological sub-health. Figure 2 shows the number of repeat lateral-striding times of adolescents under healthy psychological status and sub-healthy psychological status, overall, the number of repeat lateral-striding times shows a trend of increasing first and decreasing later and increasing again with the growth of age, it can be clearly seen that in all age groups, the number of repeat lateral-striding times of adolescents with healthy psychological status is larger than those with sub-healthy psychological status.
Figure 1
.
Positive rate of adolescent
sub-healthy psychological status
13 14 15 16 17 18
22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38
P
e
rc
e
n
ta
g
e
/%
Age
Male Female
Figure 3 is a comparison of the
cardiorespiratory endurance values of
adolescents under healthy psychological status and sub-healthy psychological status. It can be
clearly seen that the cardiorespiratory
endurance value of adolescents under healthy psychological status is larger than that of those
under sub-healthy psychological status;
furthermore, it can be clearly seen that with the
increase of age, the difference in
cardiorespiratory endurance values between mental health and psychological sub-healthy adolescents shows a trend of decreasing first and increasing later. For adolescents of 16, 17, and 18 years-old, there are significant differences in their cardiorespiratory endurance values.
Figure 2
.
Number of repeat lateral-striding
times of adolescents under healthy
psychological status and sub-healthy
psychological status
Figure 3
.
Comparison of cardiopulmonary
endurance between adolescents under
healthy and sub-healthy psychological
status
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INVESTIGATION ON SPORTS TRAINING AND MENTAL HEALTH STATUS
Research objects and methods
The time, intensity, mode and frequency of the sports training all affect the mental health status of adolescents. The psychological quality of adolescents is an important component of mental health and it is also influenced by sports training. Continuous sports training directly affects people's personality development, including the sense of responsibility, the willpower and the brain cognition, etc. In order to explore the relationship between continuous sports training, psychological quality, and each dimension of mental health, this study also adopts the questionnaire survey method, and the questionnaires include the sports activity scale for adolescents between 13 and 18, and the adolescent mental health quality survey questionnaire, etc., the basic conditions of the subjects are shown in Table 2.
Table 2.
Basic information of the subjects
Age Male Female Total
13 100 76 176
14 83 65 148
15 61 52 113
16 35 84 119
17 49 66 115
18 50 41 91
Total 378 384 762
Figure 4
.
How often adolescents participate
in sports training
22.55% 33.33%
31.37%
5.88% 6.86%
Once a month or no exercise Two to three times a month Once or twice a week Three to five times a week Once a day
Figure 5
.
Duration of each exercise of
adolescents participating in sports training
21.57% 29.41%
26.47%
14.71%
7.84%
0-10min 10-30min 30-60min 60-120min ＞120min
The adolescent sports activity scale includes the duration and frequency of sports training.
Figure 4 shows the adolescents’ frequency of
participation in sports training, the frequency with the largest proportion is three to five times a week, followed by one to two times a week, adolescents whose exercise frequency reached once a day account for 22.55%; Figure 5 shows the duration of sports training of the adolescents, it can be seen that the proportion of adolescents whose exercise duration is more than 60 min accounts for more than a half, and
most adolescents’ sports training duration is
more than 30 min. According to the theory of sports, sports training with a duration of 0-30min is called low intensity training, that with a duration of 30-60min is called moderate intensity training, and that with a duration of more than 60min is called high intensity training. The adolescent mental health quality survey questionnaire includes various dimensions of mental health: introvert-extrovert tendency, willpower, risk-taking, optimism-pessimism,
responsibility, frustration endurance and
independence, etc., which were scored
according to the 4-point scoring standard. The higher the scores of each dimension of mental health, the higher the level of psychological quality. The data is subject to analysis using SPSS software.
Research results and discussion
Continuous sports training means that the training frequency and duration within a certain period of time can achieve the optimal sports training results. Figure 6 shows the scores of exercise duration and frequency of adolescents of different ages, it can be seen from the figure that, for adolescents of different age groups, their exercise duration and frequency of sports training are different. The exercise duration and frequency of sports training are related to the academic pressure of different age groups. The age group with the longest exercise duration and highest exercise frequency is age 15, while the age group with the shortest exercise duration and lowest exercise frequency is age 14. Figure 7 shows the scores of each dimension of mental health. The scores of the responsibility dimension are the highest among all dimensions of mental health, followed by frustration
endurance, optimism-pessimism,
introvert-extrovert tendency, independence, willpower, and risk-taking, etc., indicating that the sense of
INFLUENCE OF CONTINUOUS SPORTS TRAINING ON MENTAL HEALTH OF ADOLESCENTS 1232
responsibility and the frustration endurance ability of adolescents are relatively strong, and they have shown a more positive mental health status. Figure 8 shows the relationship between the intensity of continuous sports training and the status of mental health. Under different training intensity situations, the scores of regulations are the highest, followed by self-efficacy; it can also be clearly seen that with the increase of exercise intensity, the score of self-regulation increases as well, indicating that continuous sports training can enhance the
adolescents’ self-regulation ability.
Figure 6
.
Exercise duration and exercise
frequency scores of adolescents of different
ages
13 14 15 16 17 18
2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0
S
co
re
Age
Training time Training frequency
Figure 7
.
Scores of each dimension of mental
health
Figure 8
.
Relationship between continuous
sports training level and mental health
status
Figure 9
.
Relationship between exercise
frequency and psychological quality score
2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3.0 3.2
Once a month or no exercise
Two to three times a month
Once or twice a week Three to five times a week Once a day
A
v
e
ra
g
e
sc
o
re
o
f p
sy
c
h
o
lo
g
ic
a
l q
u
a
li
ty
Sports training frequency
Figure 9 shows the relationship between the frequency of sports training and the score of psychological quality. It can be seen that the adolescents with an exercise frequency of four to five times a week have the highest score in psychological quality, followed by those with an exercise frequency of once a day and two to
three times a month. Compared with
adolescents who participate in sports training once a month or do not exercise at all, continuous sports training can greatly enhance their psychological quality.
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CONCLUSIONS
This paper started with the self-behavior and individual quality of adolescents to explore the influence of continuous sports training on the mental health of adolescents. The specific conclusions are as follows:
Sports training has a significant promotive
effect on the sports skills, physical
attractiveness, power perception and other aspects of the adolescents, and teenagers who regularly participate in sports training have higher self-worth values.
At the ages of 13 and 18, the psychological sub-health positive rates of girls are higher than those of boys, while in other age groups, the psychological sub-health positive rates of boys are all higher than those of girls; for adolescents with healthy psychological status, their number
of repeat lateral-striding times and
cardiorespiratory endurance values are both higher than those with sub-healthy psychological status.
The duration and frequency of sports training are related to the academic pressure of adolescents of different ages. Continuous sports training can enhance the self-regulation ability of adolescents and can greatly enhance their psychological quality.
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