Revista Argentina de Clínica Psicológica 2020, Vol. XXIX, N°2, 1443-1451
DOI: 10.24205/03276716.2020.386 1443
E
MPIRICAL
A
NALYSIS OF THE
I
NFLUENCE OF
P
HYSICAL
E
XERCISE ON
P
SYCHOLOGICAL
S
TRESS OF
C
OLLEGE
S
TUDENTS
Xiaobo Qu
Abstract
Many college students suffer from different degrees of psychological stress, calling for effective intervention measures. This paper empirically analyses how physical exercise influences the psychological stress of college students. A questionnaire survey was carried out on 1,000 college students, half of whom are males and the other half, females. Follow-up tests were conducted to measure the mental conditions of male and female subjects under different lengths, intensities and frequencies of exercise. The psychological indices of the subjects were evaluated by the Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90), including subscales of somatization, coercion, interpersonal relationship, depression, anxiety, hostility, and fear. The results show that there is a significant difference in mental health between the students who exercise and who do not exercise; the mental health of college students can be greatly improved by doing exercise for at least one hour, or at least twice a week; reasonable physical exercise has a positive impact on maintaining or promoting the mental health of college students. The research results provide a new means to psychological intervention for college students.
Key words: Physical Exercise, Psychological Problems, College Students, Adjustment. Received: 30-01-09 | Accepted: 10-08-19
INTRODUCTION
Mental health means an individual can maintain a good mental state in various environments. College students are with high cultural quality and shoulder the missions endowed by history and people. Their mental health not only directly affect their own healthy growth, but also affect the development of the nation. The social status and cultural level of college students determine that they will encounter various psychological problems in real life. According to the survey conducted by the State Education Commission on 126,000 college students nationwide, 20.23% of them have different levels of psychological barriers. A university has adopted the SCL-90 scale to conduct a mental health survey of 431 college students in vocational colleges, of which 19.26%
Pingdingshan University, Pingdingshan 467000, China. E-Mail: [email protected]
college students have psychological problems. These figures demonstrate the seriousness of
college students’ mental health problems
(Shearer, Hunt, Chowdhury et al., 2016). Therefore, it is imperative to use various measures to improve the mental health of college students. The mental health problems of college students can be solved through various methods such as medical supervision, ideological and moral education, mental health care and family education. Among them, the influence of physical exercise on the mental health of college students cannot be replaced by any other means. There is a traditional concept that physical exercise only improves physical fitness. This understanding is related to the limited pedagogy and some out-of-date frameworks. With the systematic development of modern education, the understanding of sports has formed a systemic concept. As an integral part of modern education, sports not only improve fitness but also makes us more healthy. The
XIAOBO QU
1444
exercise is an important method to maintain and improve mental health and eliminate diseases. According to PYAN's survey, physical exercise is one of the effective means to treat anxiety. At present, physical exercise is a popular means of psychotherapy and rehabilitation in developed countries such as Europe and America. However, the impact of different sports and exercise forms on the mental health of college students is different (Spruit, Assink, van Vugt et al., 2016).
MAIN FACTORS AFFECTING COLLEGE
STUDENTS' MENTAL HEALTH
Since G.L. Engel proposed the biological--psychological-social medical model in 1997, the influence of psychosocial factors on diseases has attracted people's attention. People have carried out a lot of analysis on various factors causing physical and mental diseases (Laborde, Dosseville, & Allen, 2016). In recent years, Levi and Kagan have proposed a view that psychosocial factors act as a source of stress for the body to cause physical illness. They have pointed out that the so-called psychological social stimulation refers to the stimulation generated in social institutions and social processes, including school families (Ronkainen, Kavoura, & Ryba, 2016). Social processes refer to all things and changes that occur in the social structure, such as family disharmony, learning
competition, and interpersonal competition. Holmes and Rahe have proposed a quantitative research method for various living conditions. Living conditions have various effects on human mental activities in life. For the impact of living conditions on mental health, most studies have shown that when life is unpleasant to, they produce “frustration” or “disappointing”
negative signals, such as quarrels, conflicts, test failures, etc. Mental health has an adverse effect which is closely related to the number and intensity of negative emotions. Psychological research has shown that since the birth of children, stressors (living conditions) have emerged, and the effects of diverse stressors have increased psychological vulnerability. Based on the mental health factors that may be affected by life activities experienced by college students, 40 factors have been listed. After the analysis, they have been summarized into five main factors.
Contradiction between ideal and reality College students are full of ideals and fantasies, and they are also full of anxiety about the future. However, in the process of realizing their ideals, they often have high demands on the conditions of study, work and life, and interpersonal relations, ignoring the limitations of objective conditions. Once they encounter
Figure 1
.
Schematic diagram of theoretical structure of college students' physical exercise
self-ideology
College students' s
elf-concept of physical exercise
Physical exercise self-attitude
Physical exercise self-awarenes s
Physical exercise self-motivation
Physical exercise self-worth
Physical exercise self-awarenes s
Physical exercise experience
Physical exercise emotional acquisition
Physical exercise personality
Physical exercise cognitive acquisition
Physical exercise interpersonal relationship
Knowledge acquisition
EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF THE INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL EXERCISE ON PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS 1445
some setbacks in reality, they are disappointed, such as the employment problem. With the continuous deepening of reforms, the marketization of the employment system has brought a lot of pressure on students. Without a decent job means they are disappointed their parents’ parenting and expectations. As a result, confusion, tension, fear, inferiority and frustration will inevitably lead to psychological problems among students.
Imperfect self-consciousness
Studies have shown that the self-integration of college students is negatively correlated with the psychological distress, that is, the higher the self-integration, the less psychological confusion, and vice versa. Most of psychological problems of college students are related to self-awareness (von Haaren, Haertel, Stumpp et al., 2015). For example, they cannot objectively recognize and understand themselves. They have too-high or too-low self-evaluation. It is impossible to integrate all aspects of information independently. If such an unstable psychological state cannot be properly guided, conflicts with external forces can easily lead to psychological deviations and strange behaviors.
Cognitive bias
They think about problems in an irrational and extreme way. For example, some people always use their own wishes as a starting point,
thinking that things "must" happen or "mustn’t
"happen. There are too much "must" and "should" in their lives, such as "I must succeed", "He should be good to me" and so on. Once things are counterproductive, they are easily caught in emotional distress (von Haaren, Haertel, Stumpp et al., 2015). Some people deal with problems in a partial and irrational way. If they encounter setbacks, they think they are "useless" or "failed", which leads to blame themselves or, others, and even create hostility. They believe that once something happens, it is terrible and irreparable, causing a bad emotional experience.
Lack of coping strategies and abilities A large number of college students' coping strategies are not commensurate with their objective requirements. When they encounter
internal and external reasons. "I know..., but what should I do?" This kind of coping strategy and ability prevent them from effectively handling various problems and actively facing various pressures.
Poor interpersonal relationship
The university environment is a group of young people from different ages, areas, races and beliefs, thus some inevitable frictions and conflicts occurred in the process of communication may cause emotional damages. Once there is disharmony or other conflicts, they will be depressed and anxious. Some college students have obstacles in environmental adaptation, interpersonal communication or heterosexual communication due to personality disobedienc. In short, long-term disharmony of interpersonal relationship can lead to various psychological barriers (Mutz & Müller, 2016).
The above five factors are the main factors affecting the mental health of college students, but there is no continuous and stable relationship between certain factors and symptoms.
OBJECTS AND METHODS
Object
According to the stratified sampling method shown in Figure 2, 13 college students from freshmen to seniors are randomly selected as research subjects, and 1000 valid questionnaires are obtained conducted by 500 male students and 500 female students. The sample consists of 151 male freshmen and 113 female freshmen, 114 male sophomores and 91 female sophomores, 180 male juniors and 198 female juniors, as well as 55 male seniors and 98 female seniors.
Method
The Symptom Checklist-90 includes a total of 90 items scored on a scale of 1 to 5, including subscales of somatization, coercion, interpersonal relationship, depression, anxiety, hostility, and fear.
Results and analysis
Relationship between exercise and mental health
XIAOBO QU
1446
meet the sports population standard are significantly lower than those of 227 non-exercise, and the detection rate of psychological abnormal reactions (at least one factor of SCL-90 factors is ≥ 3) was 7.2%, which was lower than 17.2% of the non-exercise subjects. It shows that physical exercise has a certain effect on promoting mental health. The interaction of each factor in SCL-90 is not significant, indicating that the duration of exercise had no effect on mental health in terms of gender. There is a significant difference between the duration of different exercise and the mental health of college students (McIndoo, File, Preddy et al., 2016). Except for somatization and hostile symptom factors, the other factors of SCL-90 are
significantly different. Follow-up tests suggest that the duration of exercise is more than 1 year, and the mental health of college students is significantly improved. The longer the duration of exercise, the mental more healthy.
Relationship between male mental health and exercise factors
Subsequent test results show that 30-60 min/time or 60-90 min/time exercise is better, and exercise time has no significant effect on promoting psychological development. The effect of exercise intensity on mental health is more obvious. There are significant differences in the scores of SCL-90. The follow-up test find that RPE 11~14 exercise is better, and RPE 15~19
Figure 2
.
Overall architecture of the impact of physical exercise on college students'
psychological stress
Experimental Study
Research overview
Literature review
Measurement research
Forging
Investigation on the current situation of college students
Measurement of College Students' Self-esteem Status
Research content
Investigation on the mental health of college
students
College students' general self-efficacy measurement
Analysis and discussion conclusion and suggestion
Table 1.
Multivariate analysis of effects of exercise factors on male mental health (n=500)
Factor and
significance test Forced
Interpersonal
sensitivity Depression Anxiety Hostility Fear Somatization
Exercise time F-value 1.66 2.05 0.48 0.98 2.38 0.81 4.12
P-value 0.13 0.18 0.11 0.69 0.41 0.07 0.49
Exercise intensity F-value 5.98 3.82 2.77 3.61 3.55 4.68 2.52
P-value 0.03 0.02 0.06 0.02 0.02 0.01 0.01
Exercise frequency F-value 2.67 0.23 0.54 0.74 2.799 0.73 1.52
EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF THE INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL EXERCISE ON PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS 1447
exercise can aggravate psychological symptoms. 2 times/week or 3~5 times/week exercise can significantly promote the mental health of college students. However, the mental health of exercisers with ≥1 time/d is not significantly different from that of non-exercise, and there is a decline tendency as shown in Table 1 and Figure 3.
Figure 3
.
Effects of exercise factors on male
mental health
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Forced
Inte rpers
onal …
Depress ion
Anx iety
Hostil ity
Fear
Soma tiza
tion
Relationship between female mental health and exercise factors
The effects of exercise time on female mental health shown in Table 2 and Figure 4 are mainly manifested in somatization, coercion, interpersonal sensitivity and depression factors. The results of follow-up test are consistent with those of male. The psychological difference of exercise intensity is more prominent with somatic factors showed the physical response of high-intensity exercise is obvious. The frequency of exercise has a significant effect on multiple factors of SCL90 (McIndoo, File, Preddy et al., 2016).
It can be seen from Table 3 and Figure 5 that the physical exercise has a significant effect on
the adjustment of college students' psychological problems. From the perspective of psychology, there are four main positive effects of physical exercise on college students' psychology:
1) Physical exercise can help the development of non-cognitive factors, which can enhance people's self-confidence, responsibility, honor and collectivism. Personality qualities such as persistence, decisiveness, self-control, independence, and so on are cultivated to make people cheerful, optimistic, and emotionally excited.
2) Physical exercise can improve emotional life and reduce psychological stress. Psychological stress refers to emotional fluctuations and physiological changes caused by the strong influence of internal and external environment. When a person is under psychological pressure for a long time, various diseases will occur. In physical exercise, self-discipline can alleviate bad emotions.
3) Physical exercise helps build good relationship. The relationship among people is mutual influence, interaction, and interdependence. Good relations depend on mutual understanding and communication. The characteristics of sports require people to eliminate barriers, remove wariness, and build understanding.
4) Physical exercise can produce a feeling of fullness and satisfaction. A variety of extracurricular sports activities can enable college students to increase their knowledge, develop their talents, and create a fulfilling experience. In addition, because physical exercise has its own unique content and form, participants often get the joy of learning, growth, success, winning and so on. These senses of satisfaction can eliminate people's nervousness, hone their character, exercise their will, and improve their mental health.
Table 2.
Multivariate analysis of effects of exercise factors on female mental health (n=500)
Factor and
significance test Forced
Interpersonal
sensitivity Depression Anxiety Hostility Fear Somatization
Exercise time F-value 10.39 7.18 5.00 3.01 1.96 2.63 2.91
P-value 0.00 0.00 0.02 0.00 0.05 0.07 0.09
Exercise intensity F-value 6.34 1.43 0.58 1.01 1.43 0.64 0.48
P-value 0.03 0.24 0.56 0.03 0.24 0.53 0.62
XIAOBO QU
1448
Figure 4
.
Effects of exercise factors on female mental health
0 0 0.02 0 0.05
0.07 0.09
0.03
0.24
0.56
0.03
0.24
0.53
0.62
0
0.01
0
0.01
0
0.61
0.02
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4
Force d
Interperso n…
Depression Anxiety Ho
stility Fear
Somatiza tion
Exercise time P-value Exercise intensity P-value Exercise frequency P-value
Table 3.
Comparison of the general evaluation of six indicators before and after university
students' experiment
Before the experiment After the experiment
Good General Bad Good General Bad
Number 120 253 127 267 134 99
Percentage 24.0 50.6 24.0 53.4 26.8 19.8
Figure 5
.
Comparison of indicators before and after the university students' experiment
120
253
127
267
134
99
24
50.6
24
53.4
26.8 19.8
Good General Bad Good General Bad
Before the experiment After the experiment
N %
Table 4.
Comparison of major factor scores of SCL-90 before and after college students'
experiment
Basketball Football Volleyball Jogging Bodybuilding
Depression Before the experiment 30.16 29.86 32.44 32.34 33.17
After the experiment 20.33 20.45 18.41 18.67 19.65
Anxiety Before the experiment 23.57 23.27 21.71 22.83 23.42
After the experiment 22.56 21.35 22.14 20.83 10.36
Interpersonal sensitivity Before the experiment 23.34 21.36 22.75 25，31 24.04
EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF THE INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL EXERCISE ON PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS 1449
Figure 6
.
Comparison of major factor scores before and after the experiment
Bef
ore
the
…
Afte
r t
he
ex
pe
rime
…
Bef
ore
the
…
Aft
er the
experim
e
…
Bef
ore
the
…
Afte
r t
he
ex
pe
rime
…
Depression Anxiety Interpersonal sensitivity
Basketball Football Volleyball Running slowly Bodybuilding
As shown in Table 4 and Figure 6, the data of depression shows a significant difference before and after the experiment in each group (P<0.05), which indicates that various exercise forms can significantly improve the symptoms of depression. For the anxiety, only the volleyball and jogging training groups show significant differences, indicating that volleyball and jogging increase anxiety. The interpersonal sensitivity shows significant differences in basketball, volleyball, and football training groups, which may be due to these three balls belong to collective projects, requiring athletes to communicate with each other frequently, which naturally promotes the interpersonal relationship.
Exercise has a positive impact on improving college students' psychological symptoms
(1) Physical exercise is an effective means to improve the mental health of ordinary college students.
(2) Basketball, volleyball, football, jogging, and bodybuilding exercises have different degrees of adjustment for the psychological state of college students with psychological problems. Among them, basketball, volleyball, football, jogging, bodybuilding have a significant improvement effect on depression. Volleyball and jogging have a significant effect on anxiety. The basketball, volleyball and football have a significant adjustment effect on interpersonal sensitivity.
(3) All institutions should pay attention to the
modern concept of health.
The effects begin to manifest after one-year exercise. People with exercise habits may have learned to set exercise adjustment programs according to their physical feelings, so as to effectively relax themselves in exercise (von Haaren, Haertel, Stumpp et al., 2015). Therefore, in order to maintain the psychological benefits of physical exercise and make it work for a long time, it is necessary to make exercise a part of the individual's way of life and form a law of life. The results of this study indicate that the exercise tends to be 30-90 min / time, 2 ~ 5 times / week, and RPE 11 ~ 14 to promote mental health of college students. At the same time, this exercise mode is effective to promote physical health and fitness (McIndoo, File, Preddy et al., 2016). The theory of exercise psychology believes that exercise can promote good health, and physical health can improve the individual's sense of control and self-efficacy. The most important benefit of regular exercise is to improve the quality of life related to physical fitness, and thus enhance self-satisfaction. The research on differences of college students' mental health shows that psychological barriers are main factors that influence the physical quality (Cook-Cottone, 2015). The effect of exercise on college students of different genders is mainly reflected in the frequency of exercise. The male exercise at regular intervals, while the female have a tendency to exercise at high frequencies. The reason for this phenomenon may be that gender characteristics determine
XIAOBO QU
1450
challenges of activity or the skill requirements are appropriate (Frost & Rickwood, 2017). The male prefer confrontational and competitive sports during exercise, while the female tend to moderate and rhythmic projects. It is more conducive to physical health. Considering the diversity and uncertainty of undergraduate students engaged in exercise programs, this explanation remains to be further demonstrated. Due to the uncontrollable factors in the investigation and research, the relationship among various factors of physical exercise and mental health has yet to be verified by strict conditions. This survey suggests that regular exercise is conducive to the development of college students' mental health. It is suggested that sports as a means of mental health education intervention, improve college students' awareness of exercise, and actively guide college students to conduct sports activities reasonably.
SOME COUNTERMEASURES TO PROTECT COLLEGE STUDENTS' MENTAL HEALTH
Attaching great importance to mental health issues
Psychological education is comprehensively carried out for young students to improve their mental health. A guiding programmatic document should also be formulated for the psychological health education of college students.
Conducting mental health education and popularizing mental health knowledge
Through the establishment of mental health public classes and lectures, mental health education is provided to all college students, so that college students can learn how to adjust themselves to maintain a good mental health. College students establish risk awareness in the practice of social life, experience the hardships in real life, learn to communicate with others, and enhance their psychological endurance through social practice activities (Hooker, Masters, & Park, 2018).
Carrying out physical activities to promote physical and mental health
Sports activities have extremely obvious effects on the physical and mental health of college students. Physical education promotes the improvement of intelligence. Through
exercise, the overall ability of college students can be improved, and the attention, responsiveness, thought, imagination and memory of college students can be further improved. An important feature of physical exercise on the mental health of college students is the regulation and change of emotional state. Physical exercise is used to reduce or distract some unpleasant mental states and free them from troubles and pains. Through the physical exercise, students can cultivate a strong will, courage and confidence in learning and working. Schools, families and the society should work together in a coordinated manner to establish and improve the organizations and networks, which are responsible for the mental health consultation, education.
CONCLUSION
Most college students can voluntarily take part in some extracurricular physical exercise during their leisure time. However, at present, college students have not yet reached the standard of regular physical exercise. Some college students still do not participate in any form of physical exercise during their spare time. The project of college students participating in physical exercise has gender characteristics. The sports with the largest number of male and female college students participating in physical exercise are running. In addition, the male prefer to choose strong and cooperative sports, while the female prefer to choose body type, simple and safe sports. Through the intervention of college students who are sensitive to interpersonal relationships, they find that college students recognize health.
The level of knowledge and cognition of physical exercise have improved. Physical exercise has a certain role in promoting the symptoms sensitive to the interpersonal relationship of college students, especially collective and cooperative sports programs. These programs have a good effect on improving the symptoms sensitive to interpersonal relationships among college students. The mental health problems of college students are related to China's socialist cause and the healthy growth of the younger generation. This is not alarmist, but it is a matter of vital interests of the country and individual. The Party and the government attach great importance to this and gradually implement various measures, but the
EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF THE INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL EXERCISE ON PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS 1451
key lies in implementation and deepening. This work will gradually achieve the desired results.
REFERENCES
Cook-Cottone, C. P. (2015). Incorporating positive body image into the treatment of eating disorders: A model for attunement and mindful self-care. Body image, 14, 158-167. Frost, R. L., & Rickwood, D. J. (2017). A
systematic review of the mental health outcomes associated with Facebook use.
Computers in Human Behavior, 76, 576-600.
Hooker, S. A., Masters, K. S., & Park, C. L. (2018). A meaningful life is a healthy life: A conceptual model linking meaning and meaning salience to health. Review of General Psychology, 22(1), 11-24.
Laborde, S., Dosseville, F., & Allen, M. S. (2016). Emotional intelligence in sport and exercise: A systematic review. Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports, 26(8), 862-874. McIndoo, C. C., File, A. A., Preddy, T., Clark, C. G.,
& Hopko, D. R. (2016). Mindfulness-based therapy and behavioral activation: A randomized controlled trial with depressed college students. Behaviour research and therapy, 77, 118-128.
Mutz, M., & Müller, J. (2016). Mental health benefits of outdoor adventures: Results from two pilot studies. Journal of adolescence, 49, 105-114.
Ronkainen, N. J., Kavoura, A., & Ryba, T. V. (2016). A meta-study of athletic identity research in sport psychology: Current status and future directions. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 9(1), 45-64. Shearer, A., Hunt, M., Chowdhury, M., & Nicol, L.
(2016). Effects of a brief mindfulness meditation intervention on student stress and heart rate variability. International
Journal of Stress Management, 23(2), 232.
Spruit, A., Assink, M., van Vugt, E., van der Put, C., & Stams, G. J. (2016). The effects of physical activity interventions on psychosocial outcomes in adolescents: A meta-analytic review. Clinical psychology review, 45, 56-71.
von Haaren, B., Haertel, S., Stumpp, J., Hey, S., & Ebner-Priemer, U. (2015). Reduced emotional stress reactivity to a real-life academic examination stressor in students participating in a 20-week aerobic exercise training: A randomised controlled trial using Ambulatory Assessment. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 20, 67-75.
