Revista Argentina de Clínica Psicológica 2020, Vol. XXIX, N°2, 584-589
DOI: 10.24205/03276716.2020.281 584
I
MPROVEMENT
E
FFECT OF
L
ONG
-T
ERM
S
PORTS
T
RAINING ON
W
ORK
S
TRESS AND
M
ENTAL
H
EALTH OF
W
HITE
-C
OLLAR
W
ORKERS
Yang Yang
Abstract
Many white-collar workers are under intense mental pressure in the competitive workplace, which severely undermines their mental health. The long-term sports training provides a possible solution to this problem. This paper aims to identify the relationship between work stress and mental health of white-collar workers, and explore the improvement effect of long-term sports training on their work stress and mental health. Therefore, a questionnaire survey was conducted on white-collar workers in Nanjing, China, and a contrastive experiment was performed on white-collar workers, with or without long-term sports training. The results show that the work stress and mental health is not purely negative; long-term sports training can, to a certain extent, promote positive emotions and reduce emotional disorders; the long-term training group has much more positive emotions than the group without long-term training, and the two groups differ greatly in the various dimensions of positive emotions. The research findings provide a theoretical basis for alleviating work stress and improving mental health.
Key words: White-Collar Workers, Mental Health, Sports Training, Work Stress, Positive Emotions.
Received: 12-03-19 | Accepted: 15-08-19
INTRODUCTION
At present, with people's pace of life accelerating, the people have been faced with fiercer competition everywhere, which inevitably brings great psychological pressure to their work. Excessive pressure will damage their mental health (Chandra, 2019). In general, work stress is evaluated mainly from three perspectives: stress stimuli, stress experience, and stress generation (Snowden, Steinman, Carlson et al., 2015; Tavakolizadeh, Dashti, & Panahi, 2012). White-collar workers are mostly management or technical personnel engaged in mental work. Their work stress is mainly sourced from competitive pressure. The nature of white-collar work determines that they are in a competitive environment for a long time, and
Department of sports, Physical Education College of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450044, China.
E-Mail: [email protected]
the cumbersome tasks cause tremendous psychological pressure on them (Cellini, Serwint, Chaudron et al., 2017). Long-term high-stress work leads to a worrying physical and mental quality. Sports training can improve the health of white-collar workers (Zheng, Xiong, Zheng et al., 2017).
From the perspective of sports psychology, the sports training behaviour of white-collar workers is influenced by psychological factors, and the long-term training is motivated by psychological driving force (Cheng, 2016). Long-term sports training can satisfy the needs of white-collar workers to the greatest extent, making psychological stimulation reach the highest level and improving their mental health (Ari, Kutlu, Sami Uyanik et al., 2004; Piscione, Bouffet, Timmons et al., 2017). It can also promote individual psychological training, activate body cells, reduce psychological stress at work, and maintain the best state of mental health (Candela, Zucchetti, Magistro et al., 2015).
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This paper studies the relationship between white-collar workers' work stress and mental health, and explores the improvement effect of long-term sports training using the questionnaire method.
RELATED RESEARCH ON THE WORK STRESS AND MENTAL HEALTH OF WHITE-COLLAR WORKERS
Due to the increasingly fierce competition in the workplace, white-collar workers are unable to fully release their individuality, resulting in an increase in work stress and mental health problems (Paech & Lippke, 2017). Moderate work stress can mobilize the mental health of white-collar workers, but long-term work stress or excessive stress can have negative effects on their emotion and behaviours (Ndjaboue, Brisson, Vezina et al., 2014). According to the existing research, positive emotions of mental health include the dimensions of amusement, awe, gratitude, hope, inspiration, interest, happiness, love, pride, and serenity; negative emotions include sensitivity, negativity, nervousness, depression, psychosis, anxiety, compulsiveness, and social disability (Rantakeisu & Jönsson, 2010). The work stress of white-collar workers is influenced by the work environment, interpersonal relationships, organizational structure, career development, role stress, and family factors (Tsai, 2012). Figure 1 shows the relationship between the various stressors of white-collar workers. It can be clearly seen that the main work stressors of white-collar workers are the organizational structure and working environment, which also linked the interpersonal relationships, career development and family factors.
Figure 1
.
The relationship between stressors
of white-collar workers
Work environment
Organization
structure Role stress
Work interpersonal
relationship
Family factors
Career development
Figure 2 shows the adjustment effect model of work stress and mental health, clearly indicating that work stress directly affects emotions of mental health, but it is affected by self-emotion, other’s emotions, emotion utilization, emotion regulation and emotional intelligence. People's emotions are controlled by emotional intelligence. The greater the work stress of white-collar workers, the worse their emotional intelligence. In addition, work stress is also related to their own burnout, while burnout leads to a greater psychological stress, thus producing a side effect on the mental health.
Figure 2
.
Model of emotional regulation
effect of work stress and mental health
Demographic variables
Self emotion Other people's mood Emotional utilization Emotion regulation Emotional intelligence
Working pressure
Mental health emotion
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WORK STRESS AND MENTAL HEALTH
Test methods
For white-collar workers, stressors do not directly affect the outcome of stress. Individual coping mechanisms and personality traits interact with work stress to show positive or negative emotions. The results of normal investigations show that most white-collar workers have positive emotions of mental health, and the survey results tend to show a normal distribution. Considering that white-collar workers do not easily express emotional characteristics, this paper uses partial least squares-based outcome model and assumed that work stress has a negative impact on mental health. The questionnaire survey was adopted for data collection. Table 1 shows the reliability test results of the scale, clearly indicating a good reliability index of the scale.
IMPROVEMENT EFFECT OF LONG-TERM SPORTS TRAINING ON WORK STRESS AND MENTAL HEALTH OF WHITE-COLLAR WORKERS 586
Table 1.
Test results of scale reliability
Emotional dimension
Cronbach’s
𝜶
Composite reliability
Emotional dimension
Cronbach’s
𝜶
Composite reliability
Sensitivity 0.930 0.942 Psychosis 0.838 0.867
Negativity 0.877 0.908 Anxiety 0.888 0.922
Stress 0.901 0.920 Compulsion 0.806 0.856
Depression 0.869 0.909 Social disorder 0.827 0.907
Data results and analysis
The relationship between psychological stress and emotions is not all negative, while positive emotions of mental health do not mean that there is no mental health disease. Individuals with positive emotions need to have an enjoyable mood, good adaptability, and sharp insight etc. In order to eliminate the influence of normal distribution on the study of data results, it is necessary to test the normality of the data. Figure 3 shows the results of the normality test. It can be clearly seen that all emotional dimensions did not obey the normal distribution. Figure 4 shows the effect of work stress on mental health. It can be clearly seen that negativity and anxiety scored higher, since greater work stress leads to stronger negative feelings and anxiety; psychosis scored the lowest, i.e., work stress can bring negative emotions, but not a large negative impact on the mental condition of white-collar workers.
Figure 3
.
Normality test results
2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5
Me
an value
Sensitivity Negativity
Stress Depression
Psychosis
AnxietyCompulsionSocial disorder
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LONG-TERM SPORTS TRAINING AND MENTAL HEALTH
Research objects and methods
Furthermore, it can reduce or inhibit negative emotions and increase positive emotions to a
certain extent, which helps to improve people's positive mental health. Long-term training does not directly act on the improvement of mental health, but achieves corresponding effects by changing the emotional dimension. People who like sports training will have better interpersonal relationships, so as to mobilize positive emotions. At present, the mental health are mainly measured from three aspects: subjective experience, physiological arousal, and external performance. This paper mainly studies the effects of long-term training, sports items and gender on the mental health of white-collar workers by selecting the white-collar workers in Nanjing as respondents using the questionnaire method. Table 2 lists the basic information of the survey respondents. Figure 5 shows the satisfaction degree of the white-collar workers about sports training. It can be clearly seen that the sports training needs of white-collar workers have not reached the theoretical mean.
Figure 4
.
Effects of work stress on mental
health
0.76 0.78 0.80 0.82 0.84 0.86 0.88 0.90
Social disorder Compulsion Anxiety Psychosis Depression Stress Negativity Sensitivity
Mental health emotion Personal resources Professional tasks
-0.06 -0.04 -0.02 0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08
-0.05 -0.04 -0.03 -0.02 -0.01 0.00 0.01 0.02 0.03
Long-term sports training not only strengthen the physical health, but also improve people's cognitive level, memory, self-esteem, self-confidence and interpersonal relationship.
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Figure 5
.
Psychological needs satisfaction of
white-collar workers in sports training
3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0
Overall satisfaction Capability needs
Relationship needs Autonomous needs
Me
an value
Mean value
Mean value of sports training theory
Table 2.
Basic information of respondents
Type Classification Quantity Proportion/% Long-term
sports training
Yes 221 73.66%
No 79 26.33%
Sports training
items
Swimming 71 23.66%
Badminton 132 44.0%
Running 97 32.33%
Gender Female 129 43%
Male 171 57%
Research results and analysis
Figure 6
.
Comparison of mental health
emotions between long-term training group
and non-training group
2 3 4 5
Quiet Proud Love Happy Interested Inspiring Hopeful Grateful Admiring Funny
Average
sc
ore
Long-term sports training group Non sports training group
Figure 7
.
Comparison of mental health
emotions under different training items
1 2 3 4 5 6
Average
sc
ore
Swimming group Badminton group Running group
Funny
AdmiringGratefulHopeful Inspiring
Interested
Happy Love Proud Quiet
Figure 8
.
Comparison of mental health
mood of white-collar workers of different
genders in long-term training group
2 3 4 5 6
Quiet Proud Love Happy Interested Inspiring Hopeful Grateful Admiring Funny
Average
sc
ore
Long-term sports training group Non sports training group
Figure 6 compares the mental health between the long-term training group and the control group. It can be clearly seen that the positive emotions of the long-term sports training group were significantly higher than that of the control group, and there was a significant difference between different dimensions of positive emotions. Figure 7 compares the mental health emotions under different sports items. The results clearly showed that there were significant differences in the effects of swimming, badminton and running on mental health; on the whole, swimming training had the best effect on positive emotions, followed by badminton and running training, respectively, but not in the dimensions of inspiration and serenity; these two dimensions scored the
IMPROVEMENT EFFECT OF LONG-TERM SPORTS TRAINING ON WORK STRESS AND MENTAL HEALTH OF WHITE-COLLAR WORKERS 588
highest in badminton. Figure 8 compares the mental health among white-collar workers of different genders in the long-term training group. It’s found that female white-collar workers scored higher in the dimensions of amusement, gratitude, hope, interest, love than males, , while male white-collar workers scored higher in the dimensions of awe, inspiration, and serenity. Gender factors show significant differences in the dimensions of amusement inspiring, interest, happiness and love.
CONCLUSIONS
This paper studies the relationship between white-collar workers' work stress and mental health, and explores the improvement effect of long-term sports training using the questionnaire method. The following conclusions have been drawn:
(1) The main work stressors of white-collar workers are the organizational structure and working environment. These two major stressors also link the interpersonal relationship, career development and family factors. Moreover, under greater work stress, the white-collar workers’ emotional intelligence ability shall be lower, thereby producing a side effect on mental health; (2) The relationship between psychological
stress and mental health is not all negative. The survey found that the greater work stress will lead to stronger sense of negativity and anxiety, but it won’t bring a large negative impact on the mental condition of white-collar workers;
(3) The positive emotions of the long-term training group were significantly higher than that of the control group, and there were significant differences between the various dimensions of positive emotions; the swimming training has better effects on improving the positive emotions, followed by badminton and running; gender factors showed significant differences in the dimensions of amusement, inspiration, interest, happiness, and love.
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