Running Head: EXERCISE AND ANXIETY STUDY 1

The Effects of Exercise on Anxiety Levels

Jenna Babcock, Rebecca Chavez, Chris Gutierrez, Austin Lepper, Kerielle Williams
Touro University Nevada

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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.


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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
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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
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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
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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.









































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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.




















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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.








1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
Participants
Amt of wk
Anx level
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Appendix B: Table 2
Mean data

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.








0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Workouts Anxiety
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Appendix C: Table 3
Correlational data

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

l
e
v
e
l

Amount of exercise per week