The impact of physical fitness on resilience to modern life stress and the mediating role of general self-efficacy

Abstract

Substantial evidence shows that physical activity and fitness play a protective role in the development of stress related disorders. However, the beneficial effects of fitness for resilience to modern life stress are not fully understood. Potentially protective effects may be attributed to enhanced resilience via underlying psychosocial mechanisms such as self-efficacy expectations. This study investigated whether physical activity and fitness contribute to prospectively measured resilience and examined the mediating effect of general self-efficacy. 431 initially healthy adults participated in fitness assessments as part of a longitudinal-prospective study, designed to identify mechanisms of resilience. Self-efficacy and habitual activity were assessed in parallel to cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness, which were determined by a submaximal step-test, hand strength and standing long jump test. Resilience was indexed by stressor reactivity: mental health problems in relation to reported life events and daily hassles, monitored quarterly for nine months. Hierarchical linear regression models and bootstrapped mediation analyses were applied. We could show that muscular and self-perceived fitness were positively associated with stress resilience. Extending this finding, the muscular fitness-resilience relationship was partly mediated by self-efficacy expectations. In this context, self-efficacy expectations may act as one underlying psychological mechanism, with complementary benefits for the promotion of mental health. While physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness did not predict resilience prospectively, we found muscular and self-perceived fitness to be significant prognostic parameters for stress resilience. Although there is still more need to identify specific fitness parameters in light of stress resilience, our study underscores the general relevance of fitness for stress-related disorders prevention.

Keywords: Mental health disorders; Physical activity; Physical fitness; Self-efficacy; Stress resilience.

Fig. 1

Adapted LORA study design from Chmitorz et al., [48] with a selected baseline measurements: Physical fitness components, physical activity, self-perceived fitness and general-self efficacy and b the follow-up interim stressor-monitorings in 3-months intervals. Follow-up measurements are used to build up the stressor reactivity score (SR score) as an outcome

Fig. 2

Conceptual and statistical diagram of the mediation model for the direct and indirect effects of muscular strength on stress reactivity. Regression coefficients (fully standardised): a effect of muscular strength on general self-efficacy, b effect of general self-efficacy on stressor reactivity, c’ direct effect of muscular strength on stressor reactivity, c total effect of muscular strength, general self-efficacy on stressor reactivity. **p < 0.01. *p < 0.05