Although previous studies have investigated the influence of physical activity on psychological well-being in adults, few have addressed the relationship between exercise and mental health in the workplace. This brief review of the literature aimed to determine the influence of exercise on the mental health of employees. Although the reviewed studies were cross-sectional, relatively small-scale and lacked measurement consistency, their findings nevertheless showed that exercise is likely to significantly improve mood and sleep. Recreational physical activities also help to reduce chronic stress among employees. On the other hand, being sedentary for long periods is associated with worse mental health. These findings suggest that physical activity enhances psychological well-being, and that constant recreational and sport activities effectively promote better mental health in the workplace.

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Generalized self-efficacy（GSE）is a belief that a person can successfully perform the behavior in question， and a person who has high GSE will adopt positive coping behavior in a difficult situation. Although a sports activity might contribute to enhance GSE, there are only a few studies that focused on the association between GSE and sports activity in adolescents. The purpose of this study was to compare GSE between male adolescents who belonged to sports club and those who did not belong to it, and investigate associated factors of GSE in sports activity characteristics. 　The study subjects were 186 junior high and 1169 high school male students in Fukuoka, Japan. We conducted the investigation in a physical education class using a self-reported questionnaire. We evaluated GSE by using the generalized self-efficacy scale. Participants were divided into following 2 groups based on whether the subjects belonged to a school extracurricular sports activity or a community sports club: belong to sports club（junior high school: n = 143, high school: n = 519）and do not belong to sports club（junior high school: n = 43, high school: n = 650）. 　We used ANCOVA adjusted for grades to compare the GSE between the two groups. A multiple regression analysis was used for investigating the associated factors of GSE in the group that belonged to the sports club. The independent variables were grades, sports activity days, regular player or not, perceived exertion in daily activity, sports type, and social support. Social support was evaluated by using the athletic social support scale, which assesses perceived social support from coaches, parents, or peers in sports activity. These analyses were conducted separately for junior high school and high school subjects. 　In both junior high and high school subjects, GSE was significantly higher in the group which belonged to a sports club than the other group. There was a significant association between GSE and sports activity days（β = 0.20）and social suppor（t β = 0.34）in junior high school subjects. As for high school subjects, GSE was significantly associated with grade（s β = －0.12）, regular playe（r β = 0.13）, team sport（s β = 0.14）and social suppor（t β = 0.28）. 　This study indicates that belonging to a sports club contributes to improving GSE in male adolescents. Since social support showed high standardized partial regression coefficient for both junior high and high school subjects, it is important to enhance social support in a sports activity to improve GSE.

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Purpose of this study was to investigate whether the difference in leisure-time physical activity（LTPA）pattern affects one-year after incident of poor subjective sleep quality（SSQ）in Japanese workers. Study data were obtained from a health check-up program in Tokyo, Japan in 2013. Participants of the study consisted of 3621 workers who met the following criteria: 1）not diagnosed with history of mental illness including depression, 2）not using the hypnotic and 3）not complaining of poor SSQ. LTPA was evaluated using International Physical Activity Questionnaire long version and participants were divided into 4 groups with criteria of ≥ 10 METs-hour/week: 1）not engaging in LTPA, 2）engaging in LTPA but not meeting the criteria, 3）meeting at ≤ 2 days（weekend warrior） and 4）meeting at ≥ 3 days（regularly active）. A question concerning SSQ in Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index was used and participants who answered “fairly bad” or “very bad” were defined as poor SSQ. Logistic regression analysis was performed adjusting for age, gender, body mass index, economic status, non-working days, alcohol consumption, smoking status, psychological distress and non-LTPA（model 1）. An additional analysis adjusting for the above confounders and LTPA was performed using data from participants meeting the LTPA criteria（model 2）. Participants who engaged in ≥ 10 METs-h/wk of LTPA at ≥ 3 days significantly reduced incident of poor SSQ compared with people with not engaging in LTPA（OR = 0.57, 95%CI = 0.42–0.78）. In model 2, regularly active workers significantly reduced incident of poor SSQ compared with weekend warrior（OR = 0.62, 95%CI = 0.41–0.96）. In Japanese workers, to maintain good SSQ, engaging in LTPA regularly/habitually and obtaining ≥ 10 METs-h/w would be more effective than practicing like a weekend warrior.

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