What is academic stress?
Academic stress is something that every student experiences with elevated levels being reported during the key last weeks of each semester… FINALS week. “Students report experiencing AS at predictable times each semester with the greatest extent at the end of a semester, resulting from taking and studying for exams, grade competition and the large amount of time invested in studying” (Wunsch, Kasten, and Fuchs, 2017).
What factors of your life can academic stress effect?
o Sleep
o Mental Health (Anxiety and depression)
o Overall perceived well-being
Typically, all of these factors will go hand in hand in a cyclical nature. High stress situations will affect your sleeping patterns, less sleep will cause you to experience higher stress levels, and so on, which can then wreak havoc on your mental health. “…in AS periods, different effects on psychological parameters can be detected, such as increased anxiety, poor sleep quality, a negative effect on well-being, increased negative affectivity and increases in the prevalence of depressive symptoms. Based on these findings, it can be assumed that times of high AS (ie, examination periods) have a negative impact on health-related physiological and psychological outcomes” (Wunsch et al., 2017).
What can you do for yourself during times of academic stress to help?
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY! It has been shown in many studies that physical activity is a great way to buffer stress induced health problems and of course, help deal with stress in and of itself. This can be especially beneficial for students if used during times that they experience academic stress. Whether or not you were already physically active before times of stress does not matter, you may start to benefit from physical activity right away. “…the results of the present study suggest a positive effect of physical activity on sleep quality, well-being and affect in AS periods” (Wunsch et al., 2017). “…it should be students’ goal to maintain their physical activity levels (or even to start exercising) in times with high (academic) stress. Moderate intensity activity of 150 minutes/week seems to be enough to profit from the stress-buffering and health-promoting effects” (Wunsch et al., 2017).
What type of exercise can be most helpful in reducing stress?
Generally, aerobic exercise and yoga have been proven to be especially beneficial in reducing perceived stress in individuals over multiple studies. “the interaction was significant during the academic exams after the aerobic exercise intervention. In conditions of higher PS, AET participants rated lower NA and thus had reduced emotional stress reactivity” (Von Haaren et al., 2015). “The perceived stress scale showed a statistically significant reduction in stress levels from baseline compared to six weeks after the yoga intervention” (Prasad et al., 2016).
AS = Academic Stress
PS = Perceived Stress
NA = Negative Affectivity
AET = Aerobic Exercise Intervention
References
Prasad, L., Varrey, A., & Sisti, G. (2016). Medical Students’ Stress Levels and Sense of Well Being after Six Weeks of Yoga and Meditation. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2016, 9251849–7. https://doi.org/10.1155/2016/9251849
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. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2015.04.004
Wunsch, K., Kasten, N., & Fuchs, R. (2017). The effect of physical activity on sleep quality, well- being, and affect in academic stress periods. Nature and Science of Sleep, 9, 117–126. https://doi.org/10.2147/NSS.S132078
