Background: Negative emotions in college students are a significant factor affecting mental health, with suicide behaviors caused by negative emotions showing an annual increasing trend. Existing studies suggest that physical exercise is essential to alleviate negative feelings, yet the intrinsic mechanisms by which it affects negative emotions have not been fully revealed.Objective: Negative emotions in college students represent a significant issue affecting mental health. This study investigates the relationship between physical exercise and negative emotions among college students, incorporating sleep quality and self-rated health (SRH) as mediators to analyze the pathway mechanism of how physical exercise affects students’ negative emotions.Methods: A cross-sectional study design was utilized, employing online questionnaires for investigation. The scales included the Physical Activity Rating Scale-3 (PARS-3), the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21), the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and the 12-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-12), resulting in the collection of 30,475 valid questionnaires, with a validity rate of 91%. Chain mediation tests and Bootstrap methods were applied for effect analysis.Results: The proportions of university students engaged in low, medium, and high levels of physical exercise were 77.6, 13.1, and 9.3%, respectively. The proportions of students experiencing “very severe” levels of stress, anxiety, and depression were 4.5, 10.9, and 3.6%, respectively. Physical exercise was significantly positively correlated with self-rated health (r = 0.194, p < 0.01), significantly negatively correlated with sleep quality (r = −0.035, p < 0.01), and significantly negatively correlated with stress, anxiety, and depression (r = −0.03, p < 0.01; r = −0.058, p < 0.01; r = −0.055, p < 0.01). Sleep quality was significantly negatively correlated with self-rated health (r = −0.242, p < 0.01). Mediation effect testing indicated that sleep quality and self-rated health partially mediated the relationship between physical exercise and negative emotions, with total effect, total direct effect, and total indirect effect values of −1.702, −0.426, and − 1.277, respectively.Conclusion: College students primarily engage in low-intensity physical activity. Sleep quality and self-rated health mediate the impact of physical exercise on students’ negative emotions. A certain level of physical activity can directly affect students’ emotional states and indirectly influence their negative emotions via sleep and self-rated health. Regular engagement in physical activities primarily positively impacts emotional states by enhancing mood stability and overall emotional resilience.

Background: Self-efficacy is an important component of the mental well-being of college students. This study aimed to evaluate the development and the correlation between physical fitness (PF), exercise behavior, and self-efficacy in college students. To examine whether PF in individual college students can predict self-efficacy, and whether exercise behavior mediates this relationship.Methods: This was an observational study of 1923 randomly selected college students (50.5% girl). Measures included the Physical Activity Rating Scale, the Self-Efficacy Scale, and PF testing.Results: Self-efficacy was weakly correlated to both PF (r = 0.240) and exercise behavior (r = 0.248). In regression analysis, PF explained 24.7% of the variance in self-efficacy, increasing to 29.4% when exercise behavior was considered. Therefore, the predictive effect of PF on self-efficacy is partially realized through healthy exercise behavior.Conclusion: Physical fitness can predict self-efficacy among college students, with exercise behavior being an important mediation of this relationship. Strategies to improve positive exercise behaviors and PF could improve students’ self-efficacy and overall mental health.

Objective: This study investigates the association between physical exercise and emotion regulation abilities among college students, introducing self-efficacy as a mediating variable to analyze the pathway mechanism through which physical exercise affects emotion regulation abilities. Methods: A cross-sectional study design was employed, utilizing a stratified random sampling method to survey three colleges in Jiangsu Province, China. Physical Activity Rating Scale, Physical Activity Self-efficacy Scale, and Emotional Intelligence Scale were used to measure the college student population. Regression analysis and mediation tests assessed whether self-efficacy mediates the relationship between physical exercise and college students’ emotion regulation abilities. A total of 5,430 valid questionnaires were collected. Results: The distribution of college students’ physical activities was 77.0% for low, 13.1% for medium, and 9.3% for high levels. Physical activities were significantly and positively correlated with self-efficacy and emotional management abilities (r = 0.298,0.105;P<0.01), and self-efficacy was significantly and positively correlated with emotional management abilities (r = 0.322, P<0.01). Situational motivation and subjective support under self-efficacy were 0.08 and 0.255, respectively, and the adjusted R² was 0.107. Self-efficacy played a fully mediating role between physical activities and emotional management abilities, with a total effect value of 0.032. The values of the direct and indirect effects were 0.003 and 0.029, accounting for 8.95% and 90.74% of the total effect, respectively. Conclusion: The physical exercise behavior of college students is primarily characterized by low intensity. Physical exercise among college students can positively predict their ability to regulate emotions. Self-efficacy fully mediates the relationship between physical exercise and emotion regulation ability among college students. College students can indirectly influence their ability to regulate emotions through physical exercise and self-efficacy.

This study aims to understand the status of depression and anxiety among Chinese university students through epidemiological investigation of a large sample size and provide a foundation for identifying individuals at risk of psychological crisis and developing targeted intervention strategies. Survey participants were selected using a multi-stage sampling approach, which incorporated elements of stratification and cluster sampling. The main participants consisted of 49,717 university students from 106 Chinese universities. Self-report questionnaires were used to assess depression and anxiety levels retrospectively. Of the 49,717 questionnaires collected, 41,620 were deemed valid after a rigorous data cleaning process, resulting in a validity rate of 83.7%. Among the respondents, 58.6% were female. The detection rates for depression, anxiety, and comorbidity of depression and anxiety among the students were 9.8%, 15.5%, and 6.5%, respectively. The detection rate of depression varied across different grades (V = 0.119) and locations of universities (V = 0.117). There were great differences in the detection rate of depression and anxiety symptoms among university students in terms of physical health (including self-rated health and vision) and health behaviors (including sleep, smoking and drinking), and physical health and healthy behaviors were important factors in the detection rate of depression and anxiety symptoms among college students. Psychological health issues among Chinese university students are relatively severe, with higher grade students exhibiting particularly concerning signs.

Due to the high incidence of smartphone addiction and its harmful effects on health in recent years, it has received widespread attention from society. This study aims to examine the association between smartphone addiction and sleep quality among college students, and assess the correlation with physical exercise in a non-interventional, cross-sectional study design. The study utilized data from the 2022 Chinese College Health Tracking Survey. A total of 4670 students participated in and completed the questionnaire. The test tools comprised the smartphone addiction tendency scale, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, and the physical activity rating scale. The average score of the college students’ smartphone addiction was 39.230±14.931, and the proportion of college students with average and or very poor sleep quality was 52.6%. Mobile phone addiction among college students is negatively correlated with physical exercise (r = -0.101, p<0.01), and positively correlated with sleep quality (r = 0.287, p<0.01. Physical exercise had a significant regulatory effect on the behavior relationship between smartphone addiction and sleep quality (ΔR² = 0.194, p<0.001). Smartphone addiction has a significant impact on college students’ sleep quality. The higher the tendency towards smartphone addiction, the poorer the sleep quality of college students. Physical exercise plays a regulatory role in the relationship between smartphone addiction and sleep quality of college students.

Objective: The study aims to examine how moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) affects the severity of depression symptoms among Chinese college students. Additionally, it seeks to analyze the mediating mechanisms involving self-rated health and general self-efficacy. Methods: The study utilized data from the 2023 Chinese College Health Tracking Survey and employed multiple linear regression and structural equation modeling techniques to investigate the impacts of MVPA on depression levels and its underlying mediating mechanisms among college students. The primary cohort comprised 49,717 enrolled college students from 106 universities in China. Results: A total of 41,620 valid questionnaires were collected (response rate: 83.7%), with females accounting for 58.6%. In the past month, approximately 30.2% of college students engaged in MVPA. Self-rated health (B = − 0.282, P < 0.001) and general self-efficacy (B = − 0.133, P < 0.001) significantly influenced college students’ depression scores. Even after controlling for other variables, participating in MVPA remained significantly associated with reduced depression scores (B = − 0.062, P = 0.002). The results of the structural equation model showed that MVPA not only directly decreased college students’ depression scores but also indirectly reduced the likelihood of depression occurrence by improving their physical health status and general self-efficacy. Conclusion: The lack of physical activity among Chinese college students is evident. Engaging in MVPA can reduce the likelihood of depression among college students. MVPA achieves this reduction by enhancing college students’ general self-efficacy and improving their physical health. The factors influencing depression levels among college students are multifaceted. For future interventions targeting college students’ mental health, comprehensive approaches that incorporate behavioral and psychological factors should be emphasized.