Effectiveness of Aerobic Exercise in Reducing Stress and Anxiety among High School Level Boarding Students

Students' mental stability can be restored by comfort from a familiar home environment and support from their parents. Secondary boarding school students are more prone to the symptoms of stress and anxiety because of academic pressure and lack of parental support. So helping the boarding school students to deal with the symptoms of stress and anxiety improves their self-confidence and academic performance, thus making a positive impact on their mental health. Objective: To evaluate the effect of aerobic exercise in reducing stress and anxiety among high school level boarding students. Methodology: 30 students from ST. Teresa's boarding school, Ernakulam were selected and divided into two groups: Experimental group and Control group after fulfilling the inclusion criteria. Each group consists of 15 students. Experimental group was given aerobic exercises that include walking, jogging and aerobic dance along with music therapy and control group was given only music therapy. Both groups received intervention for 3 days per week for 4 weeks. Pre- test and Post-test for both the groups were examined for stress using Perceived Stress Scale and anxiety by using Test Anxiety Questionnaire. Results: In this study, while within the group comparison, both group showed reduction in stress and anxiety. While comparing between the groups in case of stress and anxiety there is significant reduction in stress only. Conclusion: This study results shows both aerobic exercise and music therapy are effective in reducing stress and anxiety among high school level boarding students. But when compared between the groups, there is a significant reduction only in stress group, and not in anxiety group. Therefore from this study it is concluded that aerobic exercise along with music therapy are effective in reducing stress than music therapy alone.