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Aerobic exercise, mood states and menstrual cycle

Bond University

ePublications@bond

Humanities & Soc i al Sciences papers

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

1-1-1994

symptoms

Julie A. Aganof

University of Queensland

Gregory J. Boyle

Bond University___.#%,.5__,5)#_ ,+"#"1_1

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Recommended Citation

Julie A. Aganof and Gregory J. Boyle. (1994) "Aerobic exercise, mood states and menstrual cycle

symptoms"o, .

htp://epublications.bond.edu.au/hss_pubs/37

Aerobic exercise, mood states and menstrual cycle symptoms

By Julie A. Aganoff and Gregory J. Boyle

Based on a paper presented at the 28th Annual Conference of the Australian

Psychological Society, Gold Coast, Qld., 29 September2 October 1993.

Address correspondence to: Dr G.J. Boyle, Associate Professor of Psychology, Bond

University, Gold Coast, Qld 4229, Australia

This study examined the effects of regular, moderate exercise on mood states and

menstrual cycle symptoms. A group of female regular exercisers (N = 97), and a

second group of female non-exercisers (N = 159), completed the Menstrual Distress

Questionnaire (MDQ) and the Differential Emotions Scale (DES-IV) premenstrually,

menstrually and intermenstrually. Multivariate analyses of covariance (MANCOVAs)

revealed significant effects for exercise on negative mood states and physical

symptoms, and significant effects on all measures across menstrual cycle phase. The

regular exercisers obtained significantly lower scores on impaired concentration,

negative affect, behaviour change and pain. No differences were found between

groups on positive affect and other physical symptoms.

Introduction

Evidence exists for behavioral and somatic changes across the menstrual cycle [ 1, 2].

Some studies have found significant changes in mood states [3-7], while others have

found no significant changes [8, 9]. The premenstrual phase* occurs over at least 4

days prior to onset of menstruation [8, 10-12]. Up to 97% of women experience some

physical symptoms and mood changes premenstrually. Some 50% experience minor

changes premenstrually, while 35% experience symptoms and mood changes that

disrupt work, social and family life. Approximately 5-10% experience severely

debilitating symptoms that cause major disruptions to their lives [14].

Mood changes

such as anxiety, depression, confusion, emotional lability, irritability, loss of

concentration, lethargy, and aggression/hostility, have been associated with the

menstrual cycle [10]. Physical symptoms reported mainly during the

premenstrual/paramenstrual phases [14], include skin disorders, oedema, pelvic pain,

breast tenderness, headaches, muscle pain, weight increase and vomiting [15]. Corney

and Stanton [6] reported that 63% of women experienced symptoms and mood

changes up to 3 days after the onset of menstruation while 5% reported debilitating

effects continuing until the end of menstruation. All women reported their

symptoms/mood changes as lasting from 2 to 8 days premenstrually. Treatments

include administration of antidepressants and tranquillisers, hormonal treatments such

as oral contraceptives, counselling and psychotherapy [14].

*

The terms premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and premenstrual tension (PMT) have been used

interchangeably in the literature. There is no single definition of what is meant by premenstrual [8].

This paper uses the classification of Dalton [13] where PMS refers to the whole collection of physical

symptoms and psychological mood states while PMT refers to mood states only.

With regard to physical symptoms of dysmenorrhoea (painful periods), physical

exercise has been advocated as a therapeutic treatment [16-18]. However, surprisingly

little research has evaluated the effects of aerobic exercise on menstrual cycle

symptoms and mood states [19]. Metheny and Smith [18] measured positive and

negative affect and found that women who exercised regularly reported more positive

affect than non-exercisers. Gannon et al. [1] found that the length of time women had

been exercising correlated significantly with lower levels of menstrual symptoms.

Keye [20] reported lower levels of anxiety in women who exercised regularly

compared with non-exercisers, while Schwartz, et al. [21] found that women runners

reported a decrease in premenstrual symptoms.

Evidence suggests that aerobic exercise reduces negative affect [22-241 and except

for the Metheny and Smith [18] study, the evidence [l, 20, 21] suggests that women

who exercise regularly exhibit lower levels of negative affect and physical symptoms

across the menstrual cycle. This study tests the hypothesis that women who

participate in regular, aerobic exercise will report less negative affect and lower levels

of physical symptoms, throughout the menstrual cycle, than non-exercisers.

METHOD

Subjects and procedure

Two health and fitness clubs were contacted and 124 regular exercisers volunteered to

participate in the study (volunteers were requested at the end of aerobic exercise

sessions). A total of 97 out of 124 women who indicated that they were regular

exercisers (at least 5 hr per week) at the health and fitness clubs completed the

questionnaires. Exercising women ranged in age from 15 to 48 yr (M = 26.35 yr; SD

= 6.44 yr). Of the 27 women who did not return questionnaires, five became pregnant,

seven stopped exercising and 15 either could not be contacted or misplaced the

questionnaire. In addition, 159 healthy, but generally non-exercising women aged

between 16 and51 yr (M = 21.23 yr; SD = 6.88 yr) were recruited from various

sources, including undergraduate students. Questionnaires were handed out to

volunteers during a short briefing session. Participants were instructed to fill out the

DES-IV and MDQ scales on three separate occasions (menstrually, premenstrually

and intermenstrually). Aside from age, demographic information including

contraceptive pill use, marital status, number of children and amount of regular

weekly exercise was also collected.

Measures

The Menstrual Distress Questionnaire or MDQ [10, 11] is a forty-seven-item self-

report instrument, scored on a five-point Likert-type scale. The eight MDQ subscales

assess menstrual cycle symptoms such as cramps, headache and backache, mood

states such as depression and irritability, and behavior changes such as difficulty in

concentrating and decreased efficiency. Evidence of reliability and validity has been

provided by Boyle [25, 26]. The Differential Emotions Scale or DES-IV [27], is a

thirty-six-item self-report measure of twelve fundamental emotions. Boyle [4] has

provided evidence supporting the reliability and validity of the DES-IV. To enable a

clear and parsimonious examination of the effects of exercise on physical symptoms

and mood states across the menstrual cycle, individual MDQ and DES-IV subscales

were grouped according to higher-order factors identified by Boyle [27].

In investigating the factor structure of the MDQ, Boyle had reported two second-order

factors: a Psychological Factor-loading on the impaired concentration, behaviour

change, negative affect, and control subscales; and a Physical Symptoms Factor-

loading on the pain, water retention, autonomic reactions and arousal subscales.

In an investigation of the factor structure of the DES-IV instrument, Boyle [27]

reported three second order factors: Extraversion-loading on interest, joy, and surprise

subscales; Hostility-loading on sadness, anger, disgust, and contempt; and

Neuroticism-loading on hostility, fear, shame, shyness, and guilt subscales. These

higher-order factors are used in the present study to facilitate interpretability of

findings, by providing a more parsimonious account of the links between exercise,

menstrual-cycle phase and mood-state changes. As the higher-order factors load on an

increased number of items, they are necessarily more reliable than the primary MDQ

and DES-IV subscales.

RESULTS

Median test-retest reliability coefficients across the respective menstrual cycle phases

for the higher-order factors were 0.57 (premenstrual/menstrual), 0.53 (premenstrual/

intermenstrual), and 0.48 (menstrual/intermenstrual), and for the primary subscales-

median coefficients were 0.55, 0.43, and 0.42 respectively (see Table I). Median

internal reliability coefficients for the higher-order factors were 0.83 (premenstrual),

0.83

(menstrual), and 0.78 (intermenstrual), respectively. As both instruments

measure state variables, the test-retest reliabilities are moderate only, as would be

expected if the MDQ and DES-IV subscales are truly sensitive to variability across

cycle phases. However, the physical symptom variables were less stable across the

menstrual cycle than were psychological and mood-state variables (median

coefficients being 0.8 1 (Psychological), 0.53 (Physical), 0.84 (Hostility), 0.78

(Extraversion), and 0.89 (Neuroticism).

Given the mixed design (2 between groups x 3 occasions), preliminary ANOVAs

checked differences between groups on several independent variables including age,

contraceptive pill use, and menstrual distress between the exercise and non-exercise

groups, as these variables have been associated with menstrual cycle symptoms [I,

281.

The groups differed significantly only on age [two-tailed t(254) = - 5.99, p