Effect of sleep, breakfast and physical activity on test anxiety and psychological distress

Abstract

Introduction: Student psychological distress, emotional disorders, burnout and suicidal ideation are a bitter reality of our present day competitive educational system. Stress is heightened during examination periods. The essentiality of predictors is to find coping techniques to reduce test anxiety and psychological distress, simultaneously maintaining healthy stress and a healthy body, which is needed to drive performance. Material and methods: A cross-sectional study of female medical students for test anxiety and psychological distress was done on, the effects of sleep the night before examination, breakfast consumption before exam and students involvement with exercise or sports. Westside test anxiety scale and Kessler’s psychological distress K10 scale was used to assess the test anxiety and psychological distress along with self-reporting of breakfast consumption, involvement in exercise or sports and sleep duration in the night before exam. Results: This study shows significant negative correlation of test anxiety and psychological distress with duration of sleep. The mean test anxiety and psychological distress were higher with less sleep but odd ratio was not significant. The odds ratio of high Psychological distress were significantly lesser with physical activity Exp(B) 0.562 (95%CI 0.333, 0.949) and with breakfast consumption Exp(B) 0.456 (95%CI 0.268, 0.777). The odds ratios for high test anxiety with exercise and breakfast consumption are lower but not significant. Conclusion: Educational institutions should teach students on the beneficial effect of sleep, breakfast and exercise to reduce academic stress which can enhance students’ performance.