Jenna Babcock, Rebecca Chavez, Chris Gutierrez, Austin Lepper, Kerielle Williams Touro University Nevada
EXERCISE AND ANXIETY 2 Abstract The purpose of this study was to measure the effects of exercising and how it correlates to individuals anxiety level. The participants were graduate students from a small private medical university in Henderson Nevada. Two surveys were given out to participants. The first survey measured the frequency of exercise during a week as well as the types of exercise each individual did. The second survey was the Zung Anxiety survey that is nationally recognized to measure anxiety levels. The results did not show a significant correlation between exercise and anxiety levels.
EXERCISE AND ANXIETY 3 Results The demographics of our sample size were a total of thirty one participants; eight males and twenty three females. The participants were not recruited over a period of time. The recruiting of the participants was done at Touro University, from the occupational therapy 2015 cohort. Everyone in the 2015 occupational therapy cohort participated in the study except for the individuals conducting the study. These groups of individuals were recruited from this specific cohort, because a waiver form was not needed in order to ask these individuals to participate in the study. The participants in the study were the occupational therapy 2015 cohort at Touro University. The total of thirty one participants were recruited, none of which refused to take part in the study. All thirty one participants completed the study, which was completed in one day. In this study participants completed a survey regarding the amount of exercising weekly in relation to their self-reported level of anxiety. Each participant completed a total of two surveys, one for their level of anxiety and the other on the amount of exercise engaged in over a one week period. Exercise was defined as more than thirty minutes in a variety of types of physical activity. Types of exercise included running or walking briskly enough to become out of breath, taking an exercise class, lifting weights, participating in sports, and exercising at home. It was hypothesized that the more an individual exercised, the lower their anxiety levels would be. The results indicated that the average score for the all participants anxiety levels were higher than the average score for the all participants exercise levels. The mean for exercise per week was 6.65 out of 20 and the mean for anxiety level was 33.58 out of 80. The EXERCISE AND ANXIETY 4 standard deviation for the exercise level was 3.2 and the standard deviation for the anxiety level was 4.88. Results of the data can be seen in Table 1 through Table 3. Summary of Data Analysis The correlation between exercise and anxiety levels was not statistically significant, p =.9532; meaning there was no significant correlation between exercise and anxiety levels. Data analysis indicated that the amount of physical activity the participants exercised per week varied significantly. However, there was more variation in the range of anxiety level scores. The data indicated that there is no significant correlation between the amount a person exercises and their anxiety levels. The participants were asked to answer whether they engaged in a specific exercise, ranging from zero to more than three times a week. The second survey was the Zung Anxiety survey, which participants were asked to choose the anxiety level that related to them most accurately. Gender and race were not factors attributed to this study. It was hypothesized that if participants exercised more than three times per week, their anxiety level scores would be lower than their peers that exercised less than them or not at all. The data gathered did not support the hypothesis. There was no statistical significance found. This correlates with the null hypothesis which stated: Participants who exercised more than three times per week would not have lower anxiety levels than their peers that did less exercise or did not exercise at all. Discussion The background literature that was reviewed showed a positive correlation between exercise and anxiety levels. These studies showed that the more a person exercised, the less anxiety the person had. The purpose of our research study is to prove the same hypothesis of EXERCISE AND ANXIETY 5 exercise and the effects on anxiety levels. This hypothesis is important when examining graduate students and their increased anxiety levels throughout an intense Masters program. The study we conducted will contribute information about the benefits of exercise as well as how exercise can effectively reduce anxiety levels. This quantitative study used a convenient sample from the Touro University class of 2015 occupational therapy cohort. The data was collected and analyzed using a Pearson correlation in conjunction with Microsoft Excel. Limitations Limitations of this study included a small sample size of only n=31. There was bias introduced as data collection was limited to a single point in time. An additional limitation was that participants were involved in multiple convenient samples during our data collection. The potential limitations of the research study were due in large part that there were only thirty one participants who share similar interests and attend the same school and share common schedules. The internal validity of our research included the independent variable, the exercise scale and the dependent variable, the anxiety score. Limitations involved with this included the range of exercise chosen and the amount of variability between the exercises. A limitation among external validity was that we only used two surveys to try and correlate our results. However, the results did not prove our hypothesis to be true. Future research should include more surveys over a longer period of time that could be cross-referenced to produce more accurate findings. Other recommendations would be to have a larger and more diverse pool of participants. Incorporating these recommendations could support previous findings. In retrospect, using another anxiety level Hamilton, Beck, Zung survey could have resulted in more statistically significant data. The Zung anxiety survey did EXERCISE AND ANXIETY 6 not have an option for not at all when measuring participants data. This option would allow for individuals anxiety levels to be lower when analyzing the data.
EXERCISE AND ANXIETY 7 References Salkind, N. J. (2012). Exploring research (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. Zung, W. W. K. (1971). A rating instrument for anxiety disorders. Psychosomatics, 12, 371-379.
EXERCISE AND ANXIETY 8 Appendix A: Table 1 Individual data
Note. This table reflects the amount of times a person exercised in a selected one week period. As well as their self-reported level of anxiety during that same week.
Note. This table reflects the mean number of anxiety and exercise for all of the participants in the study. The mean number of exercise for a normal week was 6.65 out of with a standard deviation of 3.2. The mean number for level of anxiety was 33.58 out of 80 with a standard deviation of 4.9.
Note. As shown by the scatterplot, there was no correlation between the amount of times a person exercised a week and their anxiety level. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 A n x i e t y