The Effect Of Jogging On A Person's Physical And Psychological Well-Being

By Edmund Chun

Exercise has been one of the most important factors to have been discovered in decades which can affect our sense of well-being. In just a short period of time, exercise has changed from being an activity of the minority to an activity of the majority. In the past, people who had been a part of the minority had been considered a bunch of crazy fools pushing themselves to the limit for no good reason. Today, exercise has taken over every aspect of our lives. What began as exercise, has developed into what we know of today as health and fitness. We no longer just concentrate on working out, but we must now watch what we eat and plan every part of our meals. What we had learned as a child about a balanced diet was found to be false and things we took for granted as safe; salt, sugar, etc., no longer can be considered safe. What had started out as a fad, has developed into a multitude of industries. These industries specialize in every aspect of exercise, health and fitness. We now have special shoes, clothing, food, soft drinks, books, diets, magazines and for those who can afford it, a variety of home gym machines. No longer do we go to a bar to socialize, now we go to health clubs. Every part of our lives in the 80"s stress the importance of fitness and health.

Fitness and health have developed into something so influential that many studies have been done in order to further understand the importance of exercise in our daily routine. It has been shown that regular moderate exercise can reduce job stress and strains. Recently, two studies, one at Duke University and the other at Harvard University proves the benefits of exercise. The first study by an associate professor of psychiatry at duke University concluded that basically health and well adjusted people can increase their sense of well-being if they exercised. Only 30-45 minutes of continuous aerobic exercise 3-5 days a week provides the most benefits and exercising beyond this point provides no additional benefits. The other study done at Harvard University review that by doing 20 miles of jogging a week about the same amount of exercise as the other study, continuously and regularly can help you live an average of two years longer than a person who doesn't exercise. A great deal of information can be found on this subject by either using the online catalog or by using the InfoTrac Database system. it should be easy to find because researchers have been publishing similar findings on the positive effects of exercise for years and new articles are published in almost every type of magazine. The two studies which I had mentioned earlier were found in recent magazines.

In my first paper, I tried to show that exercise in general can have a direct effect on a person's self-concept and through this effect enhance our self-concept. In this paper, I would like to focus specifically on how jogging can affect our psychological, physical, and overall well-being. It is interesting that the relationship between the mind and the body is interrelated. By looking at how jogging can enhance our well being, we can see this interrelationship at work. from my first paper, I showed that exercise had a positive affect on a person's self-concept and in this one, I would like to prove it.

Methods and Procedures

In order to gather data on how jogging influences a persons physical and psychological well-being, I decided to do by the self-study method. I also felt that because it was only supposed to be a pilot study, I should keep it simple. For my research, I decided to jog for a period of two weeks, 30-40 minutes (about 3-4 miles) regularly, ever other day. I used three 7 point self-rating scales to record my physical, psychological, and overall attitudes on my own well-being before and after jogging. In considering the considering the rating for my psychological well-being, I looked at the mood I was in and the basic emotional state that I felt. In rating my physical attitude, I considered the level of energy and vigor I felt my body was in and in an overall look at my well-being, I took into account both my physical and psychological states combined. This was done on a seven point self-rating scale, one being bad or negative, four being average and seven being good or positive. The reason I selected jogging for my research study was because it was one of the first main exercise concept to have started the fitness craze. It is also easily accessible to anyone who would like to jog. All of my jogging was done in the afternoon at about 2:00 p.m., when the suns rays has begun to cool. A day was skipped in between workouts in order for muscles to rest and according to some studies, 3 days a week is enough to get results. The data obtained from the study is put into graphs and analyzed.

Results

In looking at the data from tables 1, 2, and 3, psychological and overall attitudes had risen towards a more positive effect after jogging, but in table 2, my physical attitude either dropped or remained the same. Table I shows that on that 2 week period which I went jogging, my psychological attitude rose positively and above average after jogging as compared to before jogging figures. Table 2 shows that in the first week of working out, a negative effect was shown on my physical attitude, but on the level of each other. Table 3 showed that during the first week, my overall attitude remained about the same before and after working out, but in the second week, my overall attitude rose positively one point after working out. From this data we are able to state that jogging does have a positive effect on a persons psychological and overall attitudes, but doesn't have much of an effect on a persons physical attitude. We might also state that because both psychological and overall attitudes change towards the positive side after exercise, we might assume that a person's psychological attitudes might affect a person's overall attitude. The positive point to note about physical attitude is that on a day to day basis, it rose towards a positive level and remained at that level. In general, jogging shows a positive effect on well-being.

Reliablity and Validity

The reliability of this paper cannot be considered valid because each measurement can't be quantitatively defined. Each measurement is based on my own interpretation or opinion and each day this interpretation can change. Therefore, each attitude might be measured differently. The internal validity of this experiment cannot be assured because not everything can be controlled in a field project. Also, it was difficult to compare the experimental group when no control group was used. The use of a self-rating scale might have made measuring attitudes too oversimplified. I also might have effected the findings by being biased because I knew what I wanted to find. No matter how much I wanted to be objective about this study, I still might have biased it unknowingly. The external validity of this experiment could be considered valid because it does agree in general with other findings that jogging can have a positive effect on a person's well being. But because the sample is not a representative one, I can't say that it is externally valid.

When looking at the experiment many factors could and probably did affect my final results. The first factor, which might have affected the outcome, is the short period of time which I allotted for the experiment. A longer period of time might have resulted in a more valid finding. Variables such as pressure from exams or paper might have affected my psychological attitude. Starting to jog again, for the sake of this experiment might have caused a negative attitude towards this study. Even the days that I went jogging could have a great affect on my attitude. For example, people feel happier on weekends and days off, but gloomy when they have to go back to work. Factors such as environmental conditions can cause a person to change their attitudes, a rainy day might cause a person to feel glum, but a sunny day can bring happiness.

Physical attitudes might have changed, if I were in a better condition when I started this experiment or the tennis playing which I do, along with this jogging might have made me more exhausted than usual. Even the amount of sleep I had and the times I went to bed, could influence the way I felt. Lastly, I believe that the diet I consumed could have affected the way I felt. Many factors can account for a number of changes which could have occurred during this experiment.

Although there are many faults with my experiment, I would like to believe that it is a valid conclusion to the relationship between jogging an well-being. I can only state that the result of other experiments even though it could not be considered very valid of reliable. In looking at my findings, I do believe that it is as objective as I can make it, and hope that this could show that jogging does affect attitudes towards a more positive level. I also hoped that this experiment is able to show the value of exercise is not only for a person's physical well-being, but also for their psychological well-being. It is for those who have never or haven't recently exercised that this report might be important to.

Afterthoughts

In doing this report, I have found that the exercising helped me realize the importance of it. It gave me a sense of accomplishment in completing each workout and also showed me how out of shape my body is in. Even though the research was over simplified, I did notice a change in the way I felt about myself. I liked doing a self study, but I still believe that a survey might have gotten more valid and reliable results. I also realized that in this study, I should have been more specific in measuring each attitude. Overall, I am satisfied with the outcome of this experiment, but not with my methods. I think that the next time I do this type of report, I should try to place more control over different kinds of variables. Things such as pulse rate, distance measurement and running at different times of the day to ensure the highest benefits. More importantly, diet should be looked at as a key factor to controlling the well-being of an individual. I would advise anyone ding a self report to constantly keep a complete account of attitudes or feelings which could affect the outcome of the experiment. I must also stress the importance of planning every part of the experiment.

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