M.Phil. (Biokinetics) / Stress is an integral part of daily living and supports the ability to adapt. However, chronic activation without the ability to express the physical response results in overloading the physiological and psychological systems. Since urban South Africans are sedentary and experience high levels of stress, they are developing stress related chronic conditions and hypokinetic diseases (obesity, hypertension, depression). This study is aimed at decreasing the chronic physical manifestations of the stress response through somatic awareness exercise and aerobic exercise. The present investigation made use of a quantitative, comparative experimental research design over an eight-week period using pre- and post-tests. Participants were measured for psychological stress via a perceived stress scale and the chronic physical manifestations were measured via heart rate, blood pressure and body sway. The number of volunteers in the present study was 102 and they were recruited from corporate environments in the Johannesburg area. Their ages ranged from 18 to 65 years. The sample consisted of females (n = 42; % = 75) and males (n = 14; % = 25); white (n = 39; % = 69.6), black (n = 12; % = 21.4) and Indian (n = 5; % = 8.9) participants and non-smokers (n = 41; % = 73.2) and smokers (n = 15; % = 26.8). Untrained individuals were divided into 4 groups: a somatic awareness exercise (n = 9), aerobic exercise (n = 15), combination of somatic awareness and aerobic exercise group (n = 8) and a control group (n = 15). The aerobic group participated in aerobic activity, somatic awareness group in somatic awareness exercise and the combination group participated in both aerobic- and somatic awareness exercises. Individuals who trained were placed in a separate exercise group (n = 9) and had to add somatic awareness exercises to their weekly routines.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:7554 |
| Date | 27 May 2013 |
| Creators | Das Neves, Michelle Karina Magalhaes |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | University of Johannesburg |
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