Daily links between leisure activities, stress, and well-being during the transition to university

Abstract

Leisure activities engagement could promote freshmen’s well-being by providing social support and improving positive mood. Little is known about the day-to-day variability in leisure activities and stress and their links to daily well-being. Using a month-long daily diary design among 273 Canadian freshmen (M_age = 18, 73% female, 32% White), this study investigated the relations between daily leisure activities, stress, and well-being. Multilevel modeling revealed that daily leisure activities showed concurrent positive effects on daily well-being, whereas daily stress had negative effects. There were substantial inter-individual differences in these links, which were partly explained by coping orientations and person-average levels of stress. Engaging in more diverse leisure activities was related to better well-being. The findings demonstrate the immediate beneficial effects of leisure activities on well-being in everyday life and provide interventions with amendable targets to promote freshmen’s positive socioemotional development during their transition to university.

Data availability statement

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Acknowledgments

We thank all the participants and our research assistants. Study data were collected and managed using REDCap electronic data capture tools hosted and supported by the Women and Children’s Health Research Institute at the University of Alberta.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported partly by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada under Grant RGPIN-2020-04458 and DGECR-2020-00077; as well as Mitacs Accelerate under Grant IT18227.