The Effects of Participating in Recreational Games on Health Markers and Reaction Time in Middle-aged Tribal Women

Abstract

Background: Taking part in recreational activities, especially outdoors, can greatly improve physical health. People, who take part in park activities such as walking, hiking, or skiing, schedule fewer office visits, maintain lower body fat percentages, and have lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Although recreational games was proven to be a useful physical activity to stimulate some health benefits, we do not know if there are significant benefits of recreational games played on a smaller area with fewer players in the middle-age population. Because exercise is known to increase blood flow and oxygen to the skeletal muscles and the brain, it was inferred that exercise would also affect an individual’s reaction time. Aims: The present study aimed to investigate whether recreational games could improve health and reaction time of middle-aged tribal women after 16 weeks of training. To determine this, twenty subjects gave baseline blood pressure, heart rate, and simple reaction time measurements. Methodology: Twenty healthy middle-aged tribal women aged 50–55 were randomized in a group to involve in recreational games training (n = 20; age: 52.4 ± 2.48 years). The participants performed 3 training sessions of 40 min per week. Results: Results from a repeated measure ANOVA indicated a time interaction (pre training, mid training and post training) for Blood Pressure (Systolic), Blood Pressure (Diastolic), Resting Heart Rate and Reaction Time (Audio) in favor of the participants. The results concluded that Recreational games can be an effective training modality to stimulate a decrease in resting HR and reaction time with small improvements in systolic and diastolic Blood Pressure. Conclusion: To participate in Recreational games only three times per week shows helpful health-related adaptations and decreased reaction time, means there was significant improvement in health markers and reaction time abilities, which may be an affirmative impact to the reduction of the risk of developing lifestyle diseases and is beneficial to people in their daily live.