Clinical Research Directory

HIIT Vs Snack Exercises on the Academic Stress of University Students

Sponsor: Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educacion

Summary

Mental health among Chilean university students has steadily deteriorated since 2020. One of the factors associated with mental health is the academic workload that comes with transitioning from high school to higher education, which may lead to an increase in stress levels due to university life referred to as academic stress. Academic stress has been linked to multiple negative outcomes in university students, such as a lower quality of life, as well as cardiovascular risk markers, including body composition (e.g., higher fat percentage), muscle function, aerobic capacity, and physical activity levels. Academic stress affecting more than 50% of university students represents a health issue that needs to be addressed, not only because it can lead to chronic stress, but also because it increases cardiovascular risk in a Chilean population where more than 10,000,000 people are overweight, obese, or have insufficient physical activity levels. Academic stress and its associated complications represent a prevalent health issue among university students. It is essential to implement interventions that help reduce academic stress while also counteracting its negative effects on quality of life, body composition, muscle function, aerobic capacity, and physical activity levels. Cost-effective tools, both in terms of financial resources and time, are needed. From this perspective, physical exercise meets both requirements, as it is inexpensive to implement and there are various protocols such as high-intensity interval training and "exercise snacks" that can require less than 40 minutes per week while providing beneficial effects on academic stress, body composition muscle function, aerobic capacity, and physical activity levels in university students. Expanding the body of evidence on these different training protocols would allow us to address multiple issues simultaneously. The primary one is academic stress and its related consequences, but also to generate new evidence on aspects not yet covered in the current literature, such as the impact on university students' quality of life, and to provide an accessible treatment tool for the future. Importantly, implementing these short-duration programs would also enable students to maintain their academic responsibilities, as the proposed protocols require no more than 40 minutes per week (\<10 minutes per day). Finally, these programs could be implemented within university facilities, which, in the long term, could become a permanent tool for improving students' university experience.

Official title: HIIT Vs Snack Exercises on the Academic Stress of University Students: a Randomized Controlled Trial

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