Effects of Emotional Exposure on State Anxiety after Acute Exercise
Smith, J. Carson
Abstract
Purpose: Despite the well-known anxiolytic effect of
acute exercise, it is unknown if anxiety reductions after acute exercise
conditions survive in the face of a subsequently experienced arousing
emotional exposure. The purpose of this study was to compare the effects
of moderate intensity cycle ergometer exercise to a seated rest control
condition on state anxiety symptoms after exposure to a variety of
highly arousing pleasant and unpleasant stimuli.
Method: Thirty-seven healthy and normally physically
active young adults completed two conditions on separate days: 1)
30-minutes of seated rest, and; 2) 30-minutes of moderate intensity
cycle ergometer exercise (RPE = 13; 'somewhat hard'). After each
condition, participants viewed 90 arousing pleasant and unpleasant and
neutral pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS)
for 30 minutes. State anxiety was measured before and 15 minutes after
each condition, and again after exposure to the affective pictures.
Results: State anxiety significantly decreased from
baseline to after the exercise and seated rest conditions (p = .003).
After the emotional picture viewing period, state anxiety significantly
increased to baseline values after the seated rest condition (p = .001)
but remained reduced after the exercise condition.
Conclusion: These findings suggest the anxiolytic effects
of acute exercise may be resistant to the potentially detrimental
effects on mood after exposure to arousing emotional stimuli.
(C)2012The American College of Sports Medicine
