Psychological Responses to Exercise

The psychological effects of chronic exercise on personality functioning and mood have been widely studied. Although there do not appear to be any specific personality types associated with specific kinds of exercise (e.g., joggers vs. weight lifters), active individuals tend to have higher self-esteem and greater selfconfidence than sedentary individuals. Athletes (with the exception of marathon runners) are more likely to be extroverted and less neurotic than nonathletes.

Athletes also tend to have less anxiety, depression, anger, and fatigue and more vigor than their nonathletic counterparts. Interventional studies have shown exercise to improve self-concept, self-esteem, and self-efficacy.

The type A personality is a behavioral complex that has been shown to be associated with increased risk for premature cardiovascular disease. Type A individuals are more competitive, hard driving, impatient, and aggressive than their more easy-going type B counterparts. Although type As are not more likely to be physically active than type Bs, type A behavior has been shown to be reduced by exercise training, including both jogging and weight lifting.

There is increasing evidence that chronic exercise results in improved mood and psychological wellbeing. Cross-sectional studies have demonstrated that active individuals report less anxiety and depression and better emotional well-being relative to their sedentary counterparts. Longitudinal studies also have reported that negative mood states can be reduced with regular exercise.

A number of interventional studies have demonstrated that increasing physical activity results in reduced levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. It has been shown that sedentary individuals are more likely to be depressed than active people and that individuals who increase their activity levels have no greater risk for depression than people who maintain higher activity levels. Moreover, active people who become sedentary may increase in their risk for depression by 50%.

Studies also have investigated the relation between exercise and physiological stress responses. A number of cross-sectional studies have demonstrated that physically fit or physically active individuals exhibit lower cardiovascular responses to physical and mental stressors compared to unfit or sedentary individuals.

Because regular exercise results in physiological adaptations that may affect responses to psychological challenges, interventional studies also have examined the effects of exercise training on cardiovascular and neuroendocrine responses to laboratory stressors such as mental arithmetic and public speaking.

The results of these studies have shown that heart rate and blood pressure responses to these mental stressors are attenuated after 12-16 weeks of exercise and that aerobic exercises (e.g., jogging or biking) are generally more effective than anaerobic exercises (e.g., strength training) in reducing psychophysiological stress responses. The extent to which these altered physiological responses to laboratory tasks generalize to stressors during daily life, however, has not been examined.

The acute effects of exercise also have received attention. It has been hypothesized that the chronic adaptations associated with exercise result from the accumulated effects of individual bouts of exercise over time. Consequently, investigators also have examined the acute effects of exercise on various measures of stress.

Studies of the short-term effects of exercise provide evidence for the mood-enhancing benefits of acute aerobic exercise. Correlational and experimental studies have demonstrated reduction in depression, anxiety, tension, and anger following a single bout of exercise. However, the intensity level at which exercise is beneficial is unclear.

Some studies have found benefits from low- to moderate-intensity exercise and negative consequences of high-intensity exercise (e.g., greater increases in tension and fatigue); however, other studies have demonstrated reductions in psychological tension following moderate to intense exercise but not mild exercise. Acute aerobic exercising also has been shown to attenuate cardiovascular responses to laboratory stressors in several studies, although the data are too limited to draw definite conclusions.