Zhang GB, Zheng HY, Zheng WB. Personalized exercise interventions for doctoral students’ mental health: A step beyond one size fits all. World J Psychiatry 2026; 16(10): 116119 [DOI: 10.5498/wjp.116119]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Wen-Bin Zheng, MD, Professor, Department of Radiology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, No. 69 Dongxia North Road, Jinping District, Shantou 515000, Guangdong Province, China. hwenb@126.com
Research Domain of This Article
Psychiatry
Article-Type of This Article
review-article
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This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Psychiatry. Oct 19, 2026; 16(10): 116119 Published online Oct 19, 2026. doi: 10.5498/wjp.116119
Personalized exercise interventions for doctoral students’ mental health: A step beyond one size fits all
Geng-Biao Zhang, Hong-Yi Zheng, Wen-Bin Zheng
Geng-Biao Zhang, Hong-Yi Zheng, Wen-Bin Zheng, Department of Radiology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, Shantou 515000, Guangdong Province, China
Author contributions: Zhang GB and Zheng HY contributed to the writing and editing of the manuscript; Zheng WB designed the overall concept and outline of the manuscript. All authors approval the final manuscript.
AI contribution statement: During the preparation of this manuscript, we used AI-based writing assistance tools including Doubao and DeepSeek for language polishing and grammar proofreading. No other AI tools such as ChatGPT, Grammarly, or DeepL were used. The entire content of the main text was independently conceived, designed, and written by the authors. AI tools were not used to generate any original content of the manuscript.
Supported by the Provincial Science and Technology Innovation Strategy Special Project Funding Program, No. STKJ2023042; Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, No. 2024A1515011698; Scientific Research Project of Traditional Chinese Medicine Bureau of Guangdong Province, No. 20261190, and Medical Scientific Research Foundation of Guangdong Province, No. B2025713.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Corresponding author: Wen-Bin Zheng, MD, Professor, Department of Radiology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Shantou University Medical College, No. 69 Dongxia North Road, Jinping District, Shantou 515000, Guangdong Province, China. hwenb@126.com
Received: November 5, 2025 Revised: December 23, 2025 Accepted: January 7, 2026 Published online: October 19, 2026 Processing time: 339 Days and 5.5 Hours
Abstract
The global mental health crisis among doctoral students, characterized by a high prevalence of stress, anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders, demands effective, sustainable interventions. By comparing a regimen of “personalized menu-style targeted exercise” with a traditional Tai Chi intervention and found targeted exercise to be more effective in alleviating psychological distress and improving sleep. This review highlights the study’s innovation in developing a symptom-specific, choice-based prescription model, methodological strengths/limitations, and implications for university mental health services. It also guides future research directions toward developing personalized exercise interventions for high-stress academic populations.
Core Tip: Some studies demonstrating that personalized, menu-style targeted exercise tailored to symptom profiles (e.g., team sports for depression, resistance training for sleep disorders) outperforms Tai Chi in improving doctoral students’ mental health. By addressing gaps in prior “one-size-fits-all” exercise interventions. This review evaluates methodological strengths and limitations, emphasizing the integration of individual choice with empirical evidence. The review also discusses practical implications for university mental health services and outlines future research directions for precision exercise in psychiatry.
