Stress in College Students and How Athletics Play a Role

Stress affects individuals often, and it may become a part of their everyday lives. Too much stress can be detrimental to the body, causing an individual’s immune system to weaken, possibly triggering depression, anxiety, and high blood pressure. College students undergo daily stressors in both their school work and their social lives. Adults go through different kinds of stress, such as paying bills. The purpose of this review is to evaluate mind and body stress by determining the differences in coping behaviors between college student-athletes and non-athletes, in addition to their cortisol levels and symptoms of psychopathology. The studies used in this review of literature examine multiple ways to cope with stress across different genders within the college setting. The methods in these studies used a collection of saliva samples, multiple questionnaires to assess stress levels and coping behaviors, in addition to 90-minute sessions on cognitive behavioral skills and relaxation responses. Overall, the results showed an increase in cortisol levels 30 minutes after waking up. For coping methods, many individuals use listening to music, exercising, and even meditation to relieve some of this stress. Finding what calms individuals will help decrease stress, and for many athletes, that is exercising, while non-student athletes would rather listen to music. For further research, considering different types of environments such as warmer versus colder states and higher versus lower economic status would help determine different stressors