{"title":"Mechanisms of the impact of exercise intervention on college students' mental health: a longitudinal experimental study using swimming as an example.","authors":"Wen Wang, Linling Yu, Le Huang, Xing Gao","doi":"10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1535214","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Introduction: </strong>With the growing prevalence of mental health issues among college students, there is a pressing need for effective and accessible intervention strategies. This study explores the potential of swimming as a structured intervention to improve students' emotional well-being, social adaptation, and academic stress management.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>A 15-week swimming intervention program was implemented among 44 college students, who were randomly assigned to either an experimental group (swimming intervention) or a control group (no intervention). Psychological assessments were conducted before and after the intervention to evaluate changes in emotional state, social functioning, and academic stress.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Students in the experimental group showed significant improvements in emotional stability (3.85 ± 0.78 vs. 3.52 ± 0.80, <i>P</i> = 0.01) and relaxation (3.82 ± 0.75 vs. 3.25 ± 0.61, <i>P</i> = 0.02). Positive changes were also observed in social adaptation, including interpersonal harmony (4.14 ± 0.73, <i>P</i> = 0.03) and perceived social support (4.21 ± 0.75, <i>P</i> = 0.04). Additionally, academic composure (3.57 ± 0.82 vs. 3.05 ± 0.83, <i>P</i> = 0.02) and goal management ability (3.73 ± 0.78, <i>P</i> = 0.04) significantly improved.</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>The findings demonstrate that a structured swimming program can be an effective intervention for enhancing mental health among college students. It fosters emotional regulation, strengthens social ties, and improves coping strategies for academic stress. Further research is recommended to assess the long-term benefits and generalizability across broader populations.</p>","PeriodicalId":12525,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Psychology","volume":"16 ","pages":"1535214"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9000,"publicationDate":"2025-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12206784/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Frontiers in Psychology","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1535214","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Introduction: With the growing prevalence of mental health issues among college students, there is a pressing need for effective and accessible intervention strategies. This study explores the potential of swimming as a structured intervention to improve students' emotional well-being, social adaptation, and academic stress management.
Methods: A 15-week swimming intervention program was implemented among 44 college students, who were randomly assigned to either an experimental group (swimming intervention) or a control group (no intervention). Psychological assessments were conducted before and after the intervention to evaluate changes in emotional state, social functioning, and academic stress.
Results: Students in the experimental group showed significant improvements in emotional stability (3.85 ± 0.78 vs. 3.52 ± 0.80, P = 0.01) and relaxation (3.82 ± 0.75 vs. 3.25 ± 0.61, P = 0.02). Positive changes were also observed in social adaptation, including interpersonal harmony (4.14 ± 0.73, P = 0.03) and perceived social support (4.21 ± 0.75, P = 0.04). Additionally, academic composure (3.57 ± 0.82 vs. 3.05 ± 0.83, P = 0.02) and goal management ability (3.73 ± 0.78, P = 0.04) significantly improved.
Discussion: The findings demonstrate that a structured swimming program can be an effective intervention for enhancing mental health among college students. It fosters emotional regulation, strengthens social ties, and improves coping strategies for academic stress. Further research is recommended to assess the long-term benefits and generalizability across broader populations.
期刊介绍：
Frontiers in Psychology is the largest journal in its field, publishing rigorously peer-reviewed research across the psychological sciences, from clinical research to cognitive science, from perception to consciousness, from imaging studies to human factors, and from animal cognition to social psychology. Field Chief Editor Axel Cleeremans at the Free University of Brussels is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international researchers. This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating scientific knowledge and impactful discoveries to researchers, academics, clinicians and the public worldwide. The journal publishes the best research across the entire field of psychology. Today, psychological science is becoming increasingly important at all levels of society, from the treatment of clinical disorders to our basic understanding of how the mind works. It is highly interdisciplinary, borrowing questions from philosophy, methods from neuroscience and insights from clinical practice - all in the goal of furthering our grasp of human nature and society, as well as our ability to develop new intervention methods.
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