Associations Between Physical Activity, Resilience, Psychological Stress, and Mental Health, and the Moderating Role of Socioenvironmental Context in University Students
Creators: name: Stewart, Matthew
Publisher: name: My University
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: physical activity
subject: wearables
subject: resilience
subject: stress
subject: depression
subject: anxiety
subject: Kinesiology and Sports
subject: Health Sciences

description: Background: With adequate coping resources, stress can be adaptive, motivating an individual to overcome an obstacle to achieve growth. However, when stressors exceed our ability to cope, a debilitating physiological and psychological response occurs. Regular physical activity may promote resilience to stress, but there are several critical gaps in our understanding of how these constructs interrelate, impeding our ability to develop mental health interventions. Objective: The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the relationship between physical activity, resilience, stress, depression, and anxiety in university students. Aims were threefold: to examine the relationship between physical activity and resilience; to examine whether resilience mediates the relationship between physical activity and perceptions of stress, depression, and anxiety; and to examine the moderating influence of demographics and socioenvironmental context on the relationship between physical activity and resilience. Methods: Aims were addressed in two separate projects. The first was a daily protocol implemented in a sample of 120 students titled Physical Activity, Resilience, and Stress: Daily (PARS-D). This study utilized a research-grade wearable sensor (ActiGraph GT9x Link) to capture comprehensive physical activity data. Daily assessments of resilience, stress, socioenvironmental context, and an inventory of stressors was assessed through surveys over the course of one week. The second was a longitudinal study of over 1,000 University of Michigan students titled Physical Activity, Resilience, Anxiety, and Depression: Monthly (PARADE-M). Physical activity was assessed through a wearable sensor (Fitbit®) while resilience, depression, and anxiety were measured at monthly intervals through surveys. Analysis consisted of regression modeling, mediation analysis with bootstrapping, and moderated mediation analyses. Results: In PARS-D, 24-hour physical activity was unrelated to daily resilience and stress. No significant mediation or moderation was found. Greater resilience was associated with less daily stress, and those who performed physical activity outdoors or with others were more active than those who were active inside or alone. In PARADE-M, usual physical activity in month 1 predicted greater resilience in month 2. Resilience fully mediated the relationship between physical activity and perceptions of anxiety and depression in month 3. There was no significant moderated mediation. Those who identified as male reported higher levels of resilience, while those who identified as nonbinary or Asian reported lower levels of resilience compared to female or White students, respectively. Conclusion: The PARADE-M study suggests that physical activity may be an important mechanism to increase resilience and lower anxiety and depression in university students. University personnel should incorporate physical activity into mental health interventions among this population. Future research should capitalize on naturally occurring stressful periods for students to help establish causality and utilize more robust measures, such as GPS, to allow for a more detailed examination of the influences of socioenvironmental context.