Effects of Fitness Dance and Funny Running on Anxiety of Female Ph.D. Candidates

Nannan Zhang, Fengxin Sun, Yongsheng Zhu, Qinglan Zheng, Changjun Jia, Yupeng Mao () and Bing Liu ()
Additional contact information
Nannan Zhang: Physical Education Department, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China
Fengxin Sun: Physical Education Department, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China
Yongsheng Zhu: Physical Education Department, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China
Qinglan Zheng: Physical Education Department, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China
Changjun Jia: Physical Education Department, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China
Yupeng Mao: Physical Education Department, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China
Bing Liu: School of Arts, Beijing Sport University, Beijing 100084, China

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 2, 1-11

Abstract: Anxiety has been widely prevalent among female Ph.D. candidates. There is a positive correlation between exercise and mental health promotion. Nevertheless, little is known about the use of fitness dance and funny running to intervene in the anxiety of female Ph.D. candidates. In this paper, the effects of fitness dance and funny running on the anxiety of female Ph.D. candidates were evaluated by a repeated measurement experimental design. We randomly divided the participants into two groups, one group received a fitness dance exercise, and the other received a funny running exercise. The Spielberger State–Trait Anxiety Inventory was used to investigate the female Ph.D. candidates’ anxiety. Repeated measures ANOVA was used to test the effects of a fitness dance group and a funny running group on participants’ anxiety, and to compare the differences between the two groups. Results showed that a 12-week fitness dance and funny running can alleviate participants’ anxiety from severe to moderate. Specifically, fitness dance increased the positive emotional experience of participants’ state anxiety ( p = 0.018) and trait anxiety ( p = 0.019) at 8-week, and decreased the negative emotional experience of state anxiety ( p = 0.012), trait anxiety ( p = 0.008), state anxiety level ( p = 0.001) and trait anxiety level ( p = 0.034) at 12-week. Funny running increased the positive emotional experience of participants’ state anxiety ( p = 0.014), and trait anxiety ( p = 0.002), and reduced the negative emotional experience of state anxiety ( p = 0.043), state anxiety level ( p = 0.047) and trait anxiety level ( p = 0.022) at 12-week. This study suggests that fitness dance and funny running are healthy behaviors, which can help Chinese female Ph.D. candidates to dissociate from anxiety and stress situations and develop a healthy lifestyle. It is worth noting that the effects of fitness dance on Chinese female Ph.D. candidates’ anxiety are better than that of funny running. Based on the good effects of fitness dance in alleviating the anxiety of Chinese female Ph.D. candidates, future researches can design fitness dance intervention programs combining exercise therapy and psychotherapy according to the anxiety characteristics of female Ph.D. candidates, such as mindfulness fitness dance programs.

Keywords: fitness dance; funny running; female Ph.D. candidates; anxiety (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/2/1118/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/2/1118/ (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:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:2:p:1118-:d:1027737

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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