A112: Physical Exercise's Effect on Chinese Students' Negative Emotionsvia Sleep and Self-Rated Health

<bold>Background:</bold> Negative emotions in college students are a significant factor affecting mental health, with suicide behaviors caused by negative emotions showing an annual increasing trend. Existing studies suggest that physical exercise is an important means to alleviate negative emotions, yet the intrinsic mechanisms by which it affects negative emotions have not been fully revealed. <bold>Objective:</bold> Negative emotions in college students represent a significant issue affecting mental health. This study investigated the relationship between physical exercise and negative emotions among college students, incorporating sleep quality and self-rated health (<italic>SRH</italic>) as mediators to analyze the pathway mechanism of how physical exercise affects students' negative emotions. <bold>Methods:</bold> A cross-sectional study design was utilized, employing online questionnaires for investigation. The scales included the Physical Activity Rating Scale-3 (<italic>PARS-3</italic>), the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (<italic>DASS-21</italic>), the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (<italic>PSQI</italic>), and the 12-Item Short Form Health Survey (<italic>SF-12</italic>), resulting in the collection of 30,475 valid questionnaires, with a validity rate of 91%. Chain mediation tests and Bootstrap methods were applied for effect analysis. <bold>Results:</bold> The proportions of university students engaged in low, medium, and high levels of physical exercise were 77.6%, 13.1%, and 9.3%, respectively. The proportions of students experiencing "very severe" levels of stress, anxiety, and depression were 4.5%, 10.9%, and 3.6%, respectively. Physical exercise was significantly positively correlated with self-rated health (<italic>r = 0.194, P &lt; 0.01</italic>), significantly negatively correlated with sleep quality (<italic>r = -0.035, P &lt; 0.01</italic>), and significantly negatively correlated with stress, anxiety, and depression (<italic>r = -0.03, P &lt; 0.01; r = -0.058, P &lt; 0.01; r = -0.055, P &lt; 0.01</italic>). Sleep quality was significantly negatively correlated with self-rated health (<italic>r = -0.242, P &lt; 0.01</italic>). Mediation effect testing indicated that sleep quality and self-rated health partially mediated the relationship between physical exercise and negative emotions, with total effect, total direct effect, and total indirect effect values of -1.702, -0.426, and -1.277, respectively. <bold>Conclusion:</bold> College students predominantly engaged in low-intensity physical exercise, which serves as an effective means to prevent negative emotions. Sleep quality and self-rated health mediated the impact of physical exercise on students' negative emotions. A certain level of physical activity can directly affect students' emotional states and indirectly influence their negative emotions through sleep and self-rated health.