Among Disabled, Exercise Can Boost Moods Of Those With Most-Negative Traits

June 4, 2003

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Mounting evidence suggests exercise can improve one’s mood. Now University of Florida researchers have found physical activity provides significant emotional benefits to those whose personalities are naturally more negative, anxious and depressed.

In the first study known to analyze the relationship between exercise and emotional reactions of disabled people, UF researchers found those who scored high on neuroticism measures – those who tend to be more anxious, apprehensive and sad, lonely or dejected – got much bigger emotional boosts from exercising than those who scored lower. The researchers chose the disabled because they represent an under-researched population that is far larger than most people realize, with some 54 million people reporting disabling conditions in the United States alone.

The study also found that the link between physical activity and mood was independent of good and bad daily events recognized to influence frame of mind, such as job performance, work and personal relationships. The study provides a truer picture of the role exercise alone plays on mood reactions, because it is the first one known to control for and eliminate things that might influence daily mood, such as positive and negative daily life events.

“We found that regardless of the events they experienced on any given day, they had an increased positive mood and a decreased negative mood on a day they exercised more. And that was pretty powerful,” said Peter Giacobbi Jr., an assistant professor of sport and exercise psychology at UF‘s College of Health and Human Performance.

And while the benefits of exercise showed up among all personality types, the researchers were surprised at how striking the gains were among those who scored highest on measures of neuroticism.

The results suggest physical activity could have profound benefits for those who tend to have more psychological or emotional difficulties.

“From our standpoint, the individuals who scored high on neuroticism are the ones who are most likely to feel poorly about themselves, to have negative emotions. They’re the ones that are most likely to have difficulty adjusting to situations and to have difficulties coping with stress. So that’s why we were particularly interested in the influence of exercise on those individuals, because those are people who really, if anything, could benefit the most from exercise,” said Giacobbi, who will present the study’s results Thursday at the annual meeting of the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity in Savannah, Ga.

“For many individuals, exercise can be an effective treatment for mood disorders and psychological distress, and these results suggest support for that,” he said.

An estimated 54 million people report disabling conditions in the United States, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, due to accidents, old age, diabetes, cancer and other diseases. About 11,000 Americans sustain debilitating spinal cord injuries each year, and Giacobbi says the disabled represent a “vastly under-researched population.”

“They are a minority in the technical sense, but it’s the only minority you and I could become a member of at any time,” he noted.

The researchers set out to learn whether exercise, daily events and personality in the physically disabled predicted mood. The team also wanted to know whether people with certain personality dispositions were more likely to benefit from exercise.

The participants were recruited through the National Wheelchair Basketball Association from around the United States and Canada. Of the 92 recruited, 13 women and 35 men completed the daily questionnaires assessing physical activity, mood and daily life events for eight consecutive days. The participants, who ranged in age from 18 to 44, all were physically active on a regular basis, with most reporting participation in sport and exercise activities three to five times a week.

Using the information participants provided, researchers analyzed and controlled each of the variables in order to assess the relationships independently, Giacobbi said.

Researchers say their next step is to study how exercise could provide emotional benefits to inactive disabled individuals.

“It’s very widely established that exercise is beneficial for your physical health, but the evidence here suggests it can also lead to more positive mood states, which is correlated with mental health and life satisfaction,” he said. “So I think the benefits of exercise should be extended into the mental-health arena a little bit more feverishly. Medical doctors and psychologists should be promoting the mental and physical health benefits of exercise more frequently. I think that I would put exercise as a prevention and treatment method for many mild forms of mental illness up against most pharmaceutical agents.”

Giacobbi collaborated with Brent Hardin of the State University of West Georgia, and UF colleagues Heather Hausenblas, an assistant professor of exercise and sport psychology; Samuel Sears Jr., an associate professor of clinical and health psychology in the College of Health Professions; graduate student Amber Stegelin; and former UF student Nancy Frye, now at C.W. Post Long Island University. The study was funded by the UF Division of Sponsored Research.