A study on the relationship between high school students’ sleep quality, physical exercise, academic stress, and subjective well-being | BMC Psychology

This study explored the intermediary roles of AS and SQ in the connection between PE and SWB among Chinese high school students, validating and supporting Hypotheses 1, 2, and 4. The findings reveal that active involvement in PE can help high school students experience positive emotions, reduce negative emotions, and directly enhance their SWB. Additionally, PE can indirectly influence SWB by alleviating AS and improving SQ. Specifically, PE helps reduce AS, ameliorate SQ, and consequently augment SWB. This chain mediation effect indicates that the impact of PE on high school students’ SWB is mediated by the chain effects of AS and SQ, offering empirical support for designing interventions aimed at Promoting mental wellness among high school students (see Fig. 6).

The direct impact of PE on SWB

PE significantly and positively influences the SWB, congruent with the results of Iwon et al. [19], supporting Hypothesis 1. Iwon et al. [19] found that individuals who regularly exercise exhibit higher levels of well-being compared to beginners and non-exercisers. Additionally, beginners also show increased life satisfaction and well-being after engaging in exercise for four weeks. PE helps individuals effectively alleviate stress, reduce anxiety and depression, and other negative emotions [65], leading to a more stable psychological state and more positive emotional experiences, thus positively affecting SWB. In addition, PE can also influence in a roundabout way SWB by means of psychological and social mechanisms such as satisfying basic psychological needs, enhancing perceived social support, and elevating exercise self-efficacy [21, 45]. These findings further illustrate that PE not only benefits individuals’ health on a physiological level but also contributes to enhancing well-being on a psychological level.

The mediating effect of AS

AS functions as a bridge between PE and SWB, indicating that AS could be a potential risk factor affecting SWB. This finding aligns with the research of Liang [23], confirming Hypothesis 2, which proposes that AS mediates the association between PE and SWB. Liu et al. [29] conducted a study on adolescents and found that PE can improve their mental health by alleviating AS, releasing negative emotions, and reducing anxiety levels, thereby significantly enhancing their life satisfaction and well-being. According to the Conservation of Resources theory (COR), individuals expend significant psychological resources, such as self-control, attention, and emotional regulation, when dealing with stress. For high school students under significant AS, resource depletion may lead to reduced coping abilities, resulting in anxiety and depressive symptoms, ultimately diminishing their SWB [66]. PE, by offering a positive coping strategy, not only reduces the excessive depletion of psychological resources but also helps restore these reserves [67]. Consequently, PE indirectly enhances SWB by alleviating AS. AS acts as a mediating factor between PE and SWB, highlighting the important function of PE in enhancing students’ SWB.

The mediating role of SQ

In this research, SQ has a strong positive impact on SWB; better SQ correlates with greater amounts of SWB, consistent with the findings of Su and He [55]. However, the regression path between PE and SQ is not significant, demonstrating that SQ does not intermediary the relationship between PE and SWB, thus invalidating Hypothesis 3. According to Negele et al. [68], PE can effectively ameliorate short-term SQ in adolescents, and maintaining regular PE helps sustain optimal SQ [69]. Yet, this study found no significant impact between the two variables, this may be closely related to the unique lifestyle and contextual factors of high school students, and it is also possible that AS plays a more significant indirect role between the two. It is hypothesized that this may be due to the unique circumstances of high school students, who often need to complete study tasks at night, increasing the likelihood of nighttime eating or consuming caffeinated beverages. These unhealthy habits may negate the favorable impacts of PE on sleep [70]. Additionally, according to the stress-coping theory, PE may primarily enhance SWB through direct emotional improvements, such as the release of endorphins [18]. This physiological mechanism can quickly generate positive emotions, directly boosting well-being without necessarily depending on improved SQ. This may explain why PE can directly enhance SWB but does not exert an indirect effect on SWB through the improvement of SQ. Furthermore, as high school students’ sleep patterns are greatly influenced by AS, AS may have a greater moderating effect on SQ, thereby weakening the direct impact of PE on SQ. The positive effect of PE on SWB is likely achieved primarily through an indirect pathway of alleviating AS, rather than directly improving SQ [46]. In summary, this study did not find a significant impact of PE on SQ, which may be related to the unique lifestyle, unhealthy behavioral habits, and specific contextual pressures of high school students. This finding provides important insights for further understanding the mechanisms through which PE influences SWB in different contexts.

Analysis of the chain mediating role of AS and SQ on SWB

Research indicates that AS plays an important intermediary role in influencing PE on SQ, thereby influencing the association between PE and SWB through a chain intermediary pathway. A strong negative correlation exists between AS and SQ, consistent with the findings of Yuan et al. [53]. As individual AS increases, SQ deteriorates, and vice versa. This suggests that AS, a prevalent source of pressure for high school students, directly affects their SQ, leading to difficulties in falling asleep and insufficient sleep [71]. Furthermore, the study shows that while SQ does not mediate the relationship between PE and SWB, it does serve as a serial mediator between AS and SWB. Deng et al. [48] discovered that elevated levels of AS lead directly to not only poorer SQ but also contribute to emotional disturbances, anxiety, and depression, which subsequently result in sleep problems. AS may arise from students’ excessive focus on academic issues or their inability to find effective solutions. Gündoğan [46] posits that such stress disrupts individuals’ sleep patterns, making it challenging to maintain healthy sleep. This relationship exhibits distinct characteristics in the context of high school students. Compared to college students, high school students’ stress is more concentrated on academic performance, while compared to middle school students, high school students experience an overlap of physiological traits (e.g., a tendency for late-night habits) and social pressures (e.g., pressures related to higher education entrance). This dual effect may further exacerbate the negative impact of AS on SQ [50]. Overall, it is apparent that AS is an important factor affecting high school students’ SQ, with elevated levels of stress making SQ issues more likely.

This study also employed the Bootstrap method to validate the chain intermediary role of AS and SQ in the favorable effect of PE on SWB, confirming Hypothesis 4. This chain intermediary model offers a fresh viewpoint for gaining deeper insights into the connection between PE and SWB. PE can enhance SWB not only through direct pathways but also indirectly by alleviating AS and improving SQ. the conclusions back the stress-buffering theory [72], indicating that PE serves as a positive influencing factor that helps mitigate AS. PE can release endorphins and lower levels of cortisol and other stress hormones, reducing the negative impact of stress on both physical and mental well-being [27]. By alleviating AS, PE can indirectly ameliorate individuals’ SQ, thereby enhancing SWB [51, 55]. Engaging in PE not only strengthens the body but also helps reduce AS, ameliorate SQ, and increase individuals’ sense of happiness in life. This has a vital part in maintaining students’ mental health, enabling them to effectively cope with AS while ensuring both physical and psychological well-being.

Research implications

For high school students, enhancing their SWB and reducing the incidence of mental health issues is a constructive topic of discussion. This study focuses on the impact of PE on SWB, exploring the chain intermediary roles of AS and SQ in this process, which holds significant theoretical and practical implications.

Theoretical Significance: This research offers a new theoretical perspective and empirical evidence regarding the association between PE and SWB. While previous studies have indicated that favorable impacts of PE on individual SWB, further investigation into the underlying mechanisms is needed. By introducing AS and SQ as mediating variables, this research highlights the fundamental mechanism through which PE enhances SWB by reducing AS and improving SQ, this finding not only enriches the theoretical framework regarding the relationship between PE and mental health but also provides a valuable reference for future research to further explore the connections between exercise and mental health.

The practical significance of this study: For educators and mental health practitioners, it is essential to recognize the significance of PE in augment students’ SWB and actively promote the implementation of physical education courses and extracurricular activities to increase student participation. Additionally, teachers need to pay attention to students’ AS by flexibly adjusting course structures and homework loads to help students balance their academic and personal lives, thereby promoting mental health. Finally, educators should emphasize the importance of SQ by providing relevant health education to help students develop good routines, ensuring their psychological and physical well-being. For high school students, it is vital to actively participate in various PE activities as an effective means to alleviate stress and enhance well-being. Moreover, high school students should learn to plan their study and rest time effectively to ensure a balance between academic pursuits and overall health. Lastly, they need to prioritize SQ by establishing a regular schedule to improve their attention and learning efficiency, thereby augmenting their SWB. For researchers, future studies should further explore the differential impact of various types of PE on SWB and examine other potential mediating and moderating factors to gain a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms influencing well-being. Practitioners may also refer to the findings of this study by incorporating PE, AS management, and SQ improvement into intervention programs to provide more personalized psychological support services.

In summary, this study not only deepens our theoretical understanding of how PE affects SWB but also furnishes new perspectives and support for health management, psychological counseling, and educational policies in social practice, contributing significantly to enhancing individual happiness and societal welfare.

Limitations

There are a few constraints in this study. First, it utilized self-reporting methods, which may be influenced by participants’ subjective willingness, leading to potential response bias in the reported data. Future research could consider incorporating objective measurement methods, such as sleep monitoring devices and AS assessment tools, to minimize the influence of subjective bias. Second, the research utilized a cross-sectional design, which cannot establish causal relationships between the variables. Future research could adopt a longitudinal design to gain deeper insights into the long-term effects of PE, AS, and SQ on SWB. Through more objective measurements and repeated data collection, such studies could more clearly reveal lagged effects and causal relationships. Moreover, the study’s sample primarily consists of Chinese high school students, which may restrict the generalizability of the findings to students of other ages or cultural backgrounds. The cultural context in which the study was conducted could influence the applicability of the findings to other cultural settings, as the ways in which PE, AS, and SQ are conceptualized and experienced may differ across cultures due to varying societal norms, educational systems, and health practices. To enhance the generalizability of these results, future research should involve diverse populations, such as university students, working adults, or individuals from different cultural contexts. Cross-cultural studies comparing data from different countries or regions could examine whether the relationships between PE, AS, SQ, and SWB hold across cultural boundaries or if cultural differences influence these relationships. This would contribute to a deeper understanding of the universal or context-dependent nature of the effects observed in this study. Additionally, this study did not specifically account for potential demographic imbalances, such as differences between urban and rural students, which could influence the generalizability of the findings. Urban and rural students may have different access to PE facilities, different lifestyle habits, and varying levels of academic or social stress, which could affect their SQ and SWB. Future research should consider balancing demographic characteristics more carefully to better reflect these potential disparities. In addition, no significant relationship was found between PE and SQ, possibly affected by the duration of exercise; future studies could incorporate longer measurement periods for exercise to better control for this variable. At the same time, future studies should explore the effects of different types of exercise on SQ, as various forms of PE (e.g., aerobic exercise, strength training) may have distinct impacts on improving SQ. Finally, this study primarily explored the impact of PE on SWB and emphasized the chain mediating roles of AS and SQ. However, it did not delve deeply into the causal relationship whereby SQ might inversely influence AS. Although this choice was made to focus on the theoretical core of the research, future studies could further validate this inverse causal relationship through longitudinal studies or experimental designs.