Acute aerobic exercise helps overcome emotion regulation deficits

ABSTRACT

Although colloquial wisdom and some studies suggest an association between regular aerobic exercise and emotional well-being, the nature of this link remains poorly understood. We hypothesised that aerobic exercise may change the way people respond to their emotions. Specifically, we tested whether individuals experiencing difficulties with emotion regulation would benefit from a previous session of exercise and show swifter recovery than their counterparts who did not exercise. Participants (N = 80) completed measures of emotion response tendencies, mood, and anxiety, and were randomly assigned to either stretch or jog for 30 minutes. All participants then underwent the same negative and positive mood inductions, and reported their emotional responses. Analyses showed that more perceived difficulty generating regulatory strategies and engaging in goal-directed behaviours after the negative mood induction predicted more intense and persistent negative affect in response to the stressor, as would be expected. Interactions revealed that aerobic exercise attenuated these effects. Moderate aerobic exercise may help attenuate negative emotions for participants initially experiencing regulatory difficulties. This study contributes to the literature on aerobic exercise’s therapeutic effects with experimental data, specifically in the realm of emotional processing.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotion regulation
• aerobic exercise
• depression

Acknowledgements

We thank Gregory J. Gozzo, Elizabeth D. Mahon, Gabrielle E. Milner, and Rodrigo A. Bravo for their assistance in carrying out this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Emily E. Bernstein http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8609-3153

Notes

1. Prior to examining data, we excluded 11 participants who experienced technical difficulties and were therefore unable to complete the mood inductions and subsequent questionnaires.

2. All reported predictors had variance inflation factors less than 10, suggesting that multicollinearity was not a significant issue. Furthermore, the main effects predictors that were reported (i.e. DERS-strategies, and DERS-goals) consistently had variance inflation factors below 2.5, which are acceptable even under more conservative guidelines.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Stimson Fund Research Grant from Harvard University awarded to the first author.