Direct and Stress-Buffering Effects of COVID-19-Related Changes in Exercise Activity on the Well-Being of German Sport Students

Laura Giessing, Julia Kannen, Jana Strahler and Marie Ottilie Frenkel
Additional contact information
Laura Giessing: Institute of Sports and Sports Sciences, Heidelberg University, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
Julia Kannen: Institute of Sports and Sports Sciences, Heidelberg University, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
Jana Strahler: Faculty of Psychology and Sport Science, Justus-Liebig University Gießen, 35394 Gießen, Germany
Marie Ottilie Frenkel: Institute of Sports and Sports Sciences, Heidelberg University, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 13, 1-17

Abstract: Maintaining or initiating exercise activity in the COVID-19 pandemic may act as a buffer against the observed stress-related deterioration in well-being, with emotion regulation (ER) discussed as a possible moderator. Therefore, the present study investigated the interaction between stress, exercise activity (EA), and ER on mood. In an online survey, 366 German sports science students (56% women, M age = 23.04, SD = 2.87) reported their stress levels (general and COVID-19-specific), mood (energy, valence, calmness), EA before and during the pandemic, and use of ER strategies in spring 2020. Pandemic-related change in EA was calculated as residual change. Due to gender differences in mental health and EA, the main and interaction effects were tested in twelve hierarchical regression analyses, separately for men and women. Overall, EA significantly decreased during the pandemic and was positively associated with energy in both men and women. ER was positively associated with women’s energy, but negatively with all three mood dimensions in men. Only one three-way interaction appeared significant: in the case of high stress, low levels of EA and high use of ER were associated with the greatest deteriorations in energy in men. Our findings suggest that EA may buffer deteriorations in energy in men with high stress and difficulties in ER.

Keywords: pandemic; stress; coping; mental health; mood; emotion regulation; physical activity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/13/7117/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/13/7117/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:13:p:7117-:d:587768

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().