Please help me make a graph on Excel using numbers that could fit with the following information and please explain how you do it.

Introduction and Background

Does consistent daily exercise lead to lower stress levels compared to maintaining a sedentary lifestyle?

Understanding how physical exercise correlates with stress may have lasting effects on an individual's well-being. Using physical exercise as a stress management tool holds the potential to alleviate the daily impacts of stress experienced by society.

The conceptual Independent Variable is exercise habits (consistent daily exercise compared to sedentary lifestyle).

The conceptual Dependent Variable is stress levels.

Results from the three articles suggest that physical exercise has a positive impact on individuals' well-being.

A significant difference was not noticed between the Sprint Interval Training (SIT) and Continuous Aerobic Exercise Training (CAT) groups among individuals diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)even though these aerobic exercises showed a positive impact on individuals' well-being, including reducing depressive symptoms, enhancing mood, and improving sleep quality (Gerber et al.,2019).

Beginners participating in physical exercise led to a significant increase in happiness and life satisfaction compared to baseline measurements, suggesting a positive correlation between well-being and physical activity levels, although no significant change was observed in self-esteem (Iwon et al., 2021).

Consistent participation in a 6-week low- to moderate-intensity aerobic exercise program significantly reduced depressive symptoms and perceived stress among university students, suggesting its ability to alleviate the risk of increased anxiety levels, even though there were fluctuations in emotional states (Herbert et al., 2020).

Exercise Intensity: I predict there will be a main effect of exercise intensity, with higher intensity exercise resulting in greater reductions in stress levels compared to lower intensity.

Exercise Duration: I expect there will be a main effect of exercise duration, where longer durations of exercise will yield greater reductions in stress levels compared to shorter durations.

Interaction: I predict there will be an interaction between exercise intensity and duration on stress levels as higher intensity exercises combined with longer durations will have the greatest effect on stress reduction.

Hypothesis: Consistent daily exercise will lower stress levels when compared to individuals who maintain a sedentary lifestyle.

I predict there will be an interaction between exercise intensity and duration on stress levels as higher intensity exercises combined with longer durations will have the greatest effect on stress reduction.

Method

The study design is a 2 (exercise intensity: high intensity, low intensity) x 2 (exercise duration: long duration, short duration) between-subjects factorial design.

The dependent variable for this study will be stress levels.

Exercise Intensity: Participants will be randomly assigned to either the high-intensity or low-intensity exercise conditions.

High Intensity: High intensity (60-70% maximum heart rate) exercise sessions, 5 days per week

Low Intensity: Low intensity exercise sessions (40-50% maximum heart rate), 3 days per week

Exercise Duration: Participants will be randomly assigned to either the long duration or short duration exercise conditions.

Long Duration: 90 minute exercise, 5 days per week

Short Duration: 45- minute exercise, 3 days per week

I will measure physical activity intensity using heart rate monitors each participant will wear during the exercise sessions. I will perform a median split on participants' scores to create groups with high and low levels of exercise intensity and duration for analysis.

I will measure stress levels using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS; Cohen, 1983). The scores range from 0 to 25, where lower scores indicate lower perceived stress levels, while higher scores reflect higher perceived stress levels.

Expected Results

A 2 X 2 ANOVA will be utilized to assess the effects of exercise intensity and duration on stress levels.I anticipate a significant interaction between the two factors, combining to decrease stress levels, with F(1, 120) = 6.14 (p < .05).

Discussion

Consistent daily exercise is expected to result in lower stress levels than leading a sedentary lifestyle. Both exercise intensity and duration work together to decrease stress levels. Individual differences in stressors, coping mechanisms, and external factors may impact stress levels regardless of exercise habits. Relying solely on self-report measures for assessing stress may introduce biases and affect the validity of the results.