Physical Exercise and Mental Health

PHYSICAL EXERCISE AND MENTAL HEALTH

Data Analysis Procedures

The study seeks to determine the relationship between physical activities and mental health in teachers. The data was analyzed using SPSS version 15.0. Chi-square tests were used to test demographic differences in the frequency of exercising and the type of exercises undertaken. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to assess differences in mental health status by the type and frequency of physical exercise. Tukey post-hoc analysis was conducted for statistically significant associations to determine where the differences lie. The number of hours worked was used as a proxy for job stress, which past studies have identified as a predictor of mental health. Ishikawa et al. (2022) found a significant negative association between job stress and mental health, and hence, more hours of work was used to indicate poorer mental health.

The study tests the following hypothesis:

1. H0: there is no statistically significant association between age and the type or frequency of physical exercise among teachers

Ha: there is a statistically significant association between age and the type or frequency of physical exercise among teachers

2. H0: there are no statistically significant differences in mental health status among teachers based on exercising frequency

Ha: there are statistically significant differences in mental health status among teachers based on exercising frequency

3. H0: there are no statistically significant differences in mental health status among teachers based on the type of physical exercise undertaken

Ha: there are statistically significant differences in mental health status among teachers based on the type of physical exercise undertaken

Sample Characteristics

Data was collected from a sample of 50 teachers aged between 30 and 40 years. 66 percent of participants were aged between 30 and 35, while 34 percent were aged between 36 and 40 years. Most of the participants (48%) engaged in aerobics, 32 percent engaged in aerobics and weight lifting, 8 percent engaged in Zumba, and 4 percent did yoga. Further, most of the participants (28%) engaged in physical activity three times a week, as compared to 20% who engage five times a week, and 18 percent who engaged twice and seven times a week. Participants who believed physical exercises helped in managing stress were overrepresented in the sample at 84 percent as compared to 10% who did not believe that exercise had an effect on stress. Finally, 36% of participants reported having tried yoga, 46% had tried meditating, while only 8% had tried Tai-Chi.

Results

i) Descriptive Statistics

The study’s dependent variable (number of hours worked) was converted into a numerical variable to obtain descriptive statistics. 8plus responses were rounded off to 9 hours, while 9plus responses were rounded off to 10 hours. The descriptive statistics are as presented below.

Descriptive Statistics

N

Minimum

Maximum

Mean

Std. Deviation

Mode

Median

VAR00001

Valid N (listwise)

The mean number of hours worked was 9.26 with a standard deviation of 0.59. The mode and median are fairly close to the mean, indicating that the variable has a fairly normal distribution.

ii) Inferential Statistics

Chi-square tests were conducted to determine the relationship between age and both frequency and type of physical exercises. The results showed that younger teachers engaged in physical exercises more frequently (three times a week) than older teachers, who engaged only twice a week. Further, teachers were more likely to engage in aerobics than other forms of physical exercises regardless of age. However, the results were insignificant (p>0.05) for both frequency (5, N=50) =8.35, p=.138) and type of physical exercise (5, 4, N=50) = 3.951, p=.413). Thus, we accept the first null hypothesis that there is no significant association between age and the type or frequency of physical exercise among teachers.

One-way ANOVA was conducted to determine whether there were significant differences in mental health status based on the frequency of exercising (twice a week, three, four, five, and seven times a week). Results showed that differences between groups was statistically significant (F (5,49) = 0.57, p= 0.017). The Tukey post-hoc test showed that high exercising frequency was associated with better mental health status compared to lower exercising frequencies. Results of the Tukey test showed that only the mean difference between the group that exercised five times a week and that which exercised seven times a week was statistically significant (p = 0.000). The mean differences between the groups that exercised twice, three times, and four times a week were not statistically significant. Thus, we reject the null hypothesis and conclude that differences in mental health status across groups of teachers who exercise five and seven times a week were statistically significant.