Exploring the effects of COVID-19-related traumatic events on the mental health of university students in Brazil: A cross-sectional investigation.

University students are vulnerable to mental health issues during their academic lives. During the COVID-19 pandemic, university students faced mental distress due to lockdowns and the transition to e-learning. However, it is not known whether these students were also affected specifically by COVID-19-related traumatic events. This study examined the impact of COVID-19-related traumatic events on 2277 university students from two federal institutions of higher education in Brazil. The university students completed an online questionnaire covering demographics, lifestyle habits, health characteristics, COVID-19-related traumatic events, and depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms. The results showed that an increased intensity of COVID-19-related traumatic events was positively associated with stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms, and each specific type of event was associated with these symptoms. In addition, we found a negative association between these symptoms and male sex and age and a positive association with having or having had a history of cardiovascular, respiratory, neurological, or mental disorders or another disease diagnosed by a physician. In conclusion, this study emphasizes the heightened risk of mental health issues in university students in the face of COVID-19-related traumatic events. Women, young people and people who have or have had a history of disease were the most vulnerable to mental health issues during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Vagal Flexibility during Exercise: Impact of Training, Stress, Anthropometric Measures, and Gender.

We evaluated the effect of physical training, stress, anthropometric measures, and gender upon the reactivity and recovery of the heart rate variability (HRV) during a cardiorespiratory test. Professors (N = 54) were evaluated using the following: physical training: time, frequency, and length of physical exercise; resting heart rate (HR); maximum HR; and recovery HR; stress: stress symptoms, work stress, vital events, and perceived stress; anthropometric measures: body mass index, waist circumference (WC), waist-hip ratio (WHR), and fat percentage (FP); and HRV before, during, and after the test. The HRV decreased during and increased after the test. Increased recovery HR was associated with the decreased vagal output during the test, and decreased recovery HR was associated with the increased posttest vagal input. The higher the work control and stress symptoms of men and the higher the perceived stress for both genders, the lower the vagal output during the test. The lower stress symptom and work control of men and the lower work demand of women were associated with the posttest vagal increase. The increased WC and decreased WHR of men were associated with the lower vagal output during the test and the lower posttest vagal increase. The lower FP also was associated with the greater recovery.