L27 - Exercise & Psych Well-Being 2: Anxiety

• Anxiety:

  • Is a response of stress (when feel like don't have ability to overcome that stress)
  • “ State of worry, apprehension or tension that often occurs in the absence of real or obvious danger ”
  • Shows both psychological & physiological responses
  • Experience in brain; increase HR & BP
• Anxiety:

  • When are constantly worried, afraid or panicking about things that might happen or for no reason at all
  • During 2020 lockdown - 15.6% of NZ respondents reported moderate to high anxiety; younger fared worse
  • Mental health issue with prevalence in NZ
• Anxiety:

  • Research examines
  • Clinical anxiety
  • In terms of chronic exercise for it to improve (similar to depression)
  • Non-clinical anxiety
  • Not a disorder (not chronic), lesser severity, can have one off session to decrease anxiety
  • Anxiety more complicated than depression, has many different types/disorders
• Anxiety:

  • Treatment
  • Medication, therapy
  • PA?
  • Don’t necessarily need increased fitness just increase PA
• PA & Anxiety:

  • Correlational studies - Prevention
  • Those who spend > total time in moderate to vigorous PA → 15–34% lower chances of presenting anxiety symptoms
  • Being regularly PA provides a buffer against anxiety symptoms & disorders
  • But those with > anxiety symptoms are less likely to be PA OR Active people use PA as a means of regulating anxiety?
  • What came first, cause & affect relationship not fully established
• PA & Anxiety:

  • RCT Intervention Evidence
  • Clinical populations
  • Similar in non-clinical
  • Variability in data, some respond better than others
  • Non-clinical populations
  • PA has a significant, small-medium reductive effect on anxiety
• PA & Anxiety Study Problems:

  • Fewer studies on anxiety and PA relationship (conclusions less confident)
  • Can't make strong conclusions as different ExRx have different effects/results
  • Lot of methodical flaws in study
  • Small sample size
  • Some already low levels of anxiety (need anxious people to show effect)
  • Not enough research for it to be recommended
• PA & Anxiety Study Problems:

  • Don't use control groups (need them to see that PA is better), something else could have effect
  • Expectation effect - come into study with expectation (participants & researcher) - just report what researchers want
  • Hard to blind someone to exercising vs not exercising
  • Control by having another exercise condition (eg yoga) as control group
• Acute PA & Non-Clinical Anxiety:

  • Aerobic Exercise
  • State anxiety after exercise
  • Anxiety reduction lasts 2-4 hrs post-exercise
  • Effects of exercise similar to quiet rest or relaxation BUT exercise effects lasted longer
• Acute PA & Non-Clinical Anxiety:

  • Expectancy bias is inevitable in almost all studies
  • Can’t blind them to/from exercise
  • Muscle strengthening exercise
  • High intensity (>70% 1RM) less likely to reduce anxiety than moderate or low (50-70% 1RM)
• Acute PA & Non-Clinical Anxiety

  • Intensity: Moderate intensities more beneficial, high may cause increase anxiety (but this could be a measurement issue)
  • Way measure anxiety
  • Physiological responses such as increase HR, BP
  • Higher arousal is being assumed to be anxiety
  • High intensity = physiological systems experience when anxious, could negatively reflect them (psych)
  • Duration: Seems to be unimportant; but a “minimally effective dose of exercise” still to be established
  • PA guidelines? guidelines seem to work for depression
• Acute PA & Non-Clinical Anxiety:

  • Strong conclusions for this
  • Graph above 0 to right = pos affect to exercise
  • What we don’t know is greater than what we do know
  • Optimal ExRx & minimal dose
• PA & Affect:

  • Affect is a general overview of how we feel
  • Takes into account our moods & emotions
  • Moods: not specifically connected to situation or event
  • Longer lasting
  • Emotions: response/reaction to something/situation
  • Negative affect = feeling bad/unpleasant
  • Positive affect = feeling great/pleasant; generally feeling awesome
• PA & Affect:

  • Promoting psychological well-being
  • Affect is easily measured (feeling scale)
  • Can use across exercise experience (before, during, after) to show affect
  • Can also use in control groups (non-exercising)
• Influence of exercise intensity on affect:

  • Exercise intensity has the strongest influence on how we feel during exercise
  • Intensity = strongest effect on affect
  • To maximise psych well-being we need to understand the exercise intensity = affective response relationship
• Influence of exercise intensity on affect:

  • Study 1:
  • Average of all participants
  • Feel more positive after
  • Individual response
  • Half had neg response
  • Half had pos response
  • So average was cancelled out
• Influence of exercise intensity on affect:

  • Study 2:
  • Compared moderate vs high intensity + individual differences
  • Average moderate intensity not much change (42% pos response)
  • High intensity average = mostly neg response (79%)
  • Post-ex rebound → feel better after exercise
• Influence of exercise intensity on affect:

  • After exercising, we feel better than we did before - regardless of the exercise intensity
  • All intensities make us feel good after
  • NO universal exercise intensity will produce the most positive affect during exercise in all individuals - it’s a complicated relationship
• Influence of exercise intensity on affect

  • Importance of COGNITIVE APPRAISAL
  • Of physiological symptoms
  • Focus on attention
  • If comfortable less physiological response & vice versa
  • High intensity physiological symptoms so intense cause neg affect in most (focus on how feeling)
  • Of psychological factors
  • Your ability (self confidence, sense of achievement)
  • Your motivation (what do I want to get out of this?)
  • Need to match intensity to individual cognitive appraisal
  • Cognitive appraisal differs with exercise experience
  • At HIGH intensity exercise, physiological symptoms dominate
  • Why feel negative
• Importance of Cognitive Appraisal:

  • Why “prescribe”? Let people choose!
  • Reduce variability more have positive affect
  • Intensity is physiologically beneficial & ‘most’ feel good
  • 26% didn’t know what intensity so didn’t feel good
  • Affected if you get your prescription wrong even by 10%
  • Enough to have neg affect
  • Reminded to feel good → more pos response (+ve), intensity the same (64-76% HR max)
• Importance of Cognitive Apprasial study:

  • 1 reminded to feel good (affect more positive) - telling/reminding them increases affect(tricks psych)
• Why does affect matter?

  • It’s a component of psychological well-being
  • Has a motivational force: people do things that make them feel good & avoid what makes them feel bad
• 
  

  Why does affect matter?

  • Neg experience = neg affective forecasting
  • That run was horrible I won't be doing that again
  • Pos experience = pos affective forecasting
  • I felt great during that weight class. Sign me up for the next one!
  • More important for inactive people; 1 bad experience has more effect to put untrained off of exercise
• 
  

  Why does affect matter?

  • Affective forecasting: thinking about how you will feel to decide whether or not to participant
  • If remember feeling shit will think will next time; more pos if had pos experience
  • Only influenced from how felt during not after
  • Need to ensure exercise makes people feel good!
  • More important for inactive people; 1 bad experience has more effect to put untrained off of exercise
• Affective forecast & response from one exercise session to the next:

  • With experience our forecast may get more accurate
  • When 1st come in assume the worst - neg forecast
  • But as get better/more pos experience get more pos affective forecasting
  • With experience most (but not everyone) feel ‘ better ’ at the same intensity
• Affective forecast & response from one exercise session to the next:

  • Individual variability
  • Some felt better on 2nd time round; some had neg experience
• Why is this all important:

  • Understanding the psych benefits of PA is as important as knowing the physical benefits
  • The exercise intensity - affective response relationship is complicated
  • All intensities have the potential to reduce affect during exercise → implications for PWB & motivation
  • Understand the individual’s experience of exercise - how are they appraising it? Can you alter that appraisal?