Effects of Doing Physical Exercises on Stress-Coping Strategies and the Intensity of the Stress Experienced by University Students in Zabol, Southeastern Iran

People of all ages, experience stress and try to deal with it. Since, the emotional and physical pressures caused by stress are undesirable and annoying, people to do activities that are motivated to reduce their stress. All these activities that are performed to reduce stress called coping. In various theories of psychology refers to the role of exercise in emotional stability, strengthen confidence, flexibility and better exposure to problems. This research studied the effect of exercise on stress management strategies and has addressed the severity of stress experienced by university student. In this study, 120 students from University of Zabol were selected as sample, 60 of whom were athletes and 60 non-athletes. The questionnaire of coping strategies and the Life Events Scale of Pickle was given to them to measure coping strategies and intensity of stress experienced by them. Results from analysis of data showed that non-athlete students’ deal with stress using more sentimental oriented coping strategies and yet they report more intensity of daily stress. But athletes’ student used higher levels of problem oriented coping strategies and reported less intensity of stress. So it seems that exercise has effect in selecting efficient and appropriate coping strategies and reduces the intensity of stress.