College brings up new opportunities, more work, and more distractions for many students. So staying on task and keeping up with grades can be a difficult tasks for many college students. An outlet is needed to decrease stress levels and be something other than school work that is constant in a college students life. Before doing any research I did not know if their was a correlation between working out and getting better grades, but knew that for many people working out helps calm themselves and re strengthens their mind in order to be more effective while doing school work afterwards.
A observational study was done in 2013 at Purdue University on the effects of working out in relation to getting better grades. “Students who worked out at Purdue’s gym at least once a week were more likely to earn a higher grade point average than students who visited less or not at all,” says Tricia Zelaya, assistant director for student development and assessment at Purdue’s Division of Recreational Sports. The data that was found was that students who went to the gym 16 times a month earned a GPA of 3.10 or higher while students who went at least 7 times a month had a GPA average of a 3.06. This was tracked by students using their ID cards to enter the gym and the scientists looking at the amount those students went to the gym and comparing their overall grades to it. With this being said third variables could still have been an affect such as, the duration of time each students spent at the gym and/or how hard their classes are that they are taking at the time of the study. This study could have been more reliable if we knew how many students were apart of the study. Working out is an outlet for these students. It causes them to be on a more strict schedule if they workout more often, possibly leading to a more scheduled homework and other school work schedule. Many college students need structure, especially new freshman, and working out on a schedule has them focusing and being more prepared and relaxed when it comes time for their school work.
This chart shows that the more a students goes to the gym the higher their overall GPA will be.
You might still be thinking well how can exercise essentially make one smarter? Well neurologists have looked into the “exercise hormone” Irisin. When Irisin is released during the exercise period it unveils an increase in levels of brain cognition and “increased the expression of BDNF(link is external) (brain-derived neurotrophic factor).” The neurotrophic factor is involved int the learning and memory processes of the brain, causing these processes to be heightened. In other words, exercise increases brain function and protects from decline in mental brain functions.
College students should take time out of their day, even for just an hour, and go to the gym. The long run benefits are very positive in that they help increase grades; I do not know a college student who would not want their GPA to be higher. Try going to the gym 4 times a week and see if you can see a difference in your grades and school work.
It was nice that you recognized some of the third confounding variables that could be responsible for the positive association between working out and grade point average, such as the difficulty of classes those who work out frequently may be taking. Another confounding variable popped into my mind when I thought about your post. What if it is not that exercise make you smarter, but that exercise provides more energy to expend on your classes and studying. In a study done by Patrick O’Connor and Tim Peutz from the University of Georgia, they found that low-intensity exercise were able to reduce fatigue symptoms by up to 65 percent.The study involved 36 volunteers who did not exercise regularly and reported persistent fatigue. The 36 volunteers were randomly divided into three groups: a moderate-intensity aerobic exercise group, a low-intensity aerobic exercise group, and a control group that did not exercise at all. It was found that the low-intensity exercise group had a mean decrease in fatigue by 65 percent while the moderate-intensity exercise group had a mean decrease in fatigue by 49 percent. There are still some worries with this study. For one, it is not specified how fatigue was measured, which makes it hard to know whether the conclusions to the study are valid. Also, this is not a random sample of a population, but instead a volunteer sample which can introduce bias. Finally, the sample size is in the grey area about whether or not it is big enough to extend the results to a larger population. However, these results can still probably be trusted. This is because there have been many other similar studies conducted that have found results consistent with O’Connor and Peutz’s findings.
This post really changed my mind on going to the gym! I hate going to the gym because I feel that I can get a lot of work done in that time and that when I get back I am stressed that it is already an hour later. I never thought of it as a positive thing and a way to relieve stress. Usually, it just causes me more stress. Now that I know there is a positive correlation between going to the gym and getting better grades I am going to try and go more. However, I think there are some third variables that come into play. For example, someone taking harder classes may need that time to study and someone taking easier classes can spend more time at the gym. It all depends on the classes, how long they stay at the gym for, and maybe even gender. Another experiment that could be performed is does gender play a role in this correlation.
The title of your blog lured me into reading it. I have been trying my best to workout in college but it is very hard with the tight schedule that I have. However, I had no idea that it had a relationship with getting better grades. This will honestly motivate me to try to go to the gym more. Another thing that working out does is increase a person’s mood. This can also relate to getting better grades because if a person is happier, they are more likely to try in school. A study found that happiness in school leads to better grades, and this happiness can be from working out. Here is the link to the study:
http://blogcritics.org/study-shows-happiness-in-school-leads-to-better-grades-but-should-we-care-about-the-grades/
Great Job on your blog, I really enjoyed reading it!
Thank you for your post. I think this post is interesting for all kinds of students. I always thought that balance between academic work and exercise is important to achieve better grades and the result of research in this post showed it is real. Before I read the whole post, I have no idea about why activities (which are not studying) have positive influences on grades, but definitely that “exercise hormone” make a connection between grade and exercise.
I think this post is very interesting especially to college students like me. Unfortunately I am guilty of not making time for exercise and the evidence that you provide is making me really regret it. Your evidence is compelling enough to make me want to change my behavior because if working out correlates with better grades, it is definitely something I want to participate in. I really like this post because it really had an impact on my thought process and makes me want to factor in time to exercise.
This blog post is really interesting! I was super active in high school with sports and dance so I worked out almost every day. I feel like when I worked out everything fell into place including my grades. Since I have gotten to college I find myself not working out and I feel like it has effected me negatively.