The School of Nursing at the University of West Georgia is conducting a study on how to reduce the stress levels of college students.
The study will consist of current UWG students and faculty and will occur over a period of four weeks. Participants will be expected to walk three times a week and have the option of therapeutic, or labyrinth walking.
“The purpose of this study is to basically compare labyrinth walking to therapeutic walking, in terms of whether therapeutic walking decreases stress or walking the labyrinth decreases stress,” said Alexis Moody, UWG nursing student and organizer of the study.
The study will require participants to monitor their stress levels, using a virtual analog scale. Participants will measure their stress levels before and after their walk on the first, sixth and 12th time. The virtual analog scale will indicate whether the participants’ stress levels are too high if it measures to the far right or have no stress at all if it measures far left.
“The study will require all of our participants to be broken up into four groups and each group will participate in either labyrinth or therapeutic walking,” said Moody. “The difference between the two styles is that therapeutic walking is any type of walking that relaxes the mind, the body and spirit. This can range from walking around a trail, in your neighborhood or a trail.”
“Labyrinth walking will occur right outside of the Nursing Building,” Moody said. “Participants can walk at any time that they would like.”
At the conclusion of the study, comparisons will be made between the participants’ stress levels before their first time walking to their stress levels after their 12th walk.
“This study will benefit college students in the long run because we’re actually looking at interventions to decrease stress among college students,” said Moody. “Overall we just want to see a reduction in stress in college students because stress is very prevalent.”
