Brief moderate-intensity cycling, momentary nervousness, and mathematics performance in young adults
Kim Ouwehand, Myrto Mavilidi, Christine Van Nooijen, Oliver Lindemann, Mathilde de Koster, Mirko Schmidt, Liye Zou, Qian Yu, Bjorn B. De Koning, Fred Paas · 2026
Read Brief moderate-intensity cycling, momentary nervousness, and mathematics performance in young adults by Kim Ouwehand, Myrto Mavilidi, Christine Van Nooijen, Oliver Lindemann, Mathilde de Koster, Mirko Schmidt, Liye Zou, Qian Yu, Bjorn B. De Koning, Fred Paas (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13602317.txt.
Description
Kim Ouwehand and colleagues report a 2026 trial on whether a short bike ride calms nerves and lifts math scores. Math anxiety and test anxiety both track with weaker math results. The team asked if ten minutes of steady cycling could ease the tense feeling students get right before a test.
Sixty young adults were split at random into two groups. One group cycled for ten minutes, while the other sat quietly. Each person rated how nervous they felt before, right after, and after a thirty-two-item math test. Heart rate checks showed the cycling worked as planned. Nervous feelings did not drop in a clear way for the riders. Math accuracy did shift with how hard the sums were. The authors warn that higher starting nerves in the cycling group may explain part of the pattern.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Kim Ouwehand, Myrto Mavilidi, Christine Van Nooijen, Oliver Lindemann, Mathilde de Koster, Mirko Schmidt, Liye Zou, Qian Yu, Bjorn B. De Koning, Fred Paas |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 48 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |