Introduction
In early 2020, Chinese residents experienced a nationwide COVID-19
epidemic that had an enormous negative impact on the mental health of
the general public (Chang, Huang, Zhao, Ma, Sun, Shi, & Fan, 2020). A
variety of psychological reactions emerged as workers were forced to
delay their return to work, students could not attend school, and the
general public was instructed to stay at home in a relatively confined
space for an extended period. Such a situation will inevitably have a
negative impact on the psychological state of residents and can easily
lead to the development of negative emotions, including anxiety,
depression, remorse, and anger, and may also produce hypochondriac,
compulsive, or even stress-related physical symptoms, thereby affecting
immune function.
Mood state is a weak, stable and long-lasting emotional state, that
affects all of a person’s mental activity (Lazarus, 1994). It is not a
specific experience related to a certain thing, but an emotional
tendency that affects the nature of all human experiences, that is, an
undirected diffuse emotional experience. Although scholars (Alpert, &
Rosen, 1990) have sought to distinguish the concepts of mood state and
emotion, some recent studies (Athanasou, 2019; Dergaa, Fessi, Chaabane,
Souissi, & Hammouda, 2019) do not do so; thus, it can be considered
that mood and emotion are very similar to each other to some extent.
Boredom is a negative emotional experience caused by a lack of activity
and loss of interest in daily life (Zhou, Wang, & Dong, 2012), and is
characterized by unpleasant feelings, lack of stimulation and low
physiological arousal (Danckert, & Allman, 2005). With the continuous
improvement of material and cultural living standards, people’s demand
for leisure time activities has increased correspondingly. If this
demand is not met, then boredom will arise. However, during the COVID-19
epidemic, people were confined to their homes, and in addition to
experiencing monotony and unchanging surroundings, they also had more
free time; thus, the emotional experience of boredom became more common.
According to a survey on the emotional state of Chinese and Americans
conducted by the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
boredom was the most common emotional state of Chinese people during the
epidemic. Tilburg et al. (2017) studied the difference between boredom
and other negative experiences and pointed out that the lack of a sense
of meaning and attention best distinguished boredom. Physical activity
(e.g., push-ups and aerobics) involves the stretching of muscles against
bones and the consumption of energy. It is a planned and repetitive
physical activity that promotes health and improves sport skills (Xia,
Ding, Zhuang & Chen, 2018).
Previous studies have shown that physical activity can promote
individual cognitive function (Cox, O’Dwyer, Cook, Vetter, Cheng,
Rooney, & O’Connor, 2016; Ekkekakis, 2003) and further play a positive
role in promoting psychological state, improving mood and regulating
emotions (Hyde, Maher, & Elavsky, 2013; Monteiro-Junior, Rodrigues,
Campos, Flávia, & Machado, 2017; Mishra, & Klasnja, 2017). Regular
participation in sports can cultivate positive emotions and dispel
negtive emotions, and regardless of the duration of the exercise, it can
effectively produce mood improvement (Crush, Frith, & Loprinzi, 2018).
Even a one-time sports activity can have positive emotional benefits
(Zhang, & Zhou, 2013). Zenko et al. (2016) tested a novel method for
improving the affective experience of exercise, to further complete the
research in this field. During the COVID-19 epidemic, the physical
activity that the average resident could engage in was restricted to
indoors, and it is unknown how much of an impact this home-based
physical activity can have on the mood state. Although physical activity
can directly affect mood state, there may be other variables that
intervene between physical activity and mood state. This problem
deserves further study and is of more practical significance in the
context of sheltering in place during the epidemic. Tsapelas
et al. (2009) suggest that
individuals with a tendency to be bored have more negative emotions than
other people. In addition, anxiety and depression, two negative
emotions, are strongly correlated with boredom, and their clinical
symptoms are very similar (Barbalet, 1999). Boredom also causes negative
emotions such as anxiety and depression (Chen, 2016), which have a
negative impact on people’s overall mental activity (Jin, Lu, Zhang,
Zhang, Liu, & Li, 2016). Zhou Hao et al. (2012) find a significant
correlation between boredom and individual behavior. They proposed an
external coping strategy for boredom – making changes, that is,
increasing the degree of novelty of stimuli and adjusting the difficulty
of tasks to increase the sense of excitement and control, thus
eliminating the state of boredom. Therefore, physical activity is an
effective way to reduce individual boredom experience, and can improve
the mood state, further playing a positive role in promoting the state
of mind.
Based on previous research (Wen, & Ye, 2014), a mediating model diagram
(see figure 1) was constructed to explore the mechanism affecting the
mood state of people living at home. In this study, in which people
confined to their homes during the epidemic period were taken as the
subjects, the effect of the epidemic severity level on boredom and mood
state were investigated and the effect of physical activity on mood
state improvement and the mediating effect of boredom were discussed to
provide a new perspective for the improvement of mood state in the
general public.