Upper Secondary School Students’ Experiences of How Exercise Breaks Affect their Well-being and Ability to Study: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

School exhaustion among upper secondary school students has increased at an alarming rate in recent years. There is evidence that this exhaustion affects students’ ability to study, and that students experience their studies as burdensome. Distance learning has further weakened students’ ability to study. This study aimed to describe upper secondary students' experiences of how exercise breaks affect their studying and well-being. The data were collected through thematic interviews with 15 first-year upper secondary students in the spring of 2021. The data were analyzed by inductive content analysis. The results indicate that exercise breaks positively influenced students’ subjective experiences of their studying ability and well-being. This insight could be relevant to planning secondary education, teacher training, and school health care, along with the development of services to support well-being among upper secondary students.