The Role of Positive emotions and cognitions in achieving (or not achieving) physical activity

goals

Dr Tamasin Taylor (University of Auckland)

Positive emotions = Potentially important to increase our engagement in health goals

• The average person living in New Zealand is overweight (MoH, 2014).

• Only half of people living in New Zealand engage in the recommended amount of physical activity (MoH, 2012).

Physical Activity and Emotions

• Positive emotions increased through physical activity,

• People with higher levels of positive affect more likely to engage in physical activity (Kanning, & Schlicht, W., 2010; Reed & Ones, 2006; Berenbaum, 2002).

• But why?

The “Broaden and Build” theory of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 2000)

• cultivating positive emotions = broadening of our thought-action repertoires = increased ability for self-regulation

• positive emotions = ‘undoing effect’ of negative emotions

Physical Activity

Positive Emotions

(dopamine)

Higher levels of goal achievement/motivation/wellbeing

Strengthens areas in the brain

responsible for self-regulation

The Present Study

• Exploring the body-mind connection, how does exercise bring about changes in emotion states?

Name (Pseudonym)

Age Marital Status BMI EmploymentMembership length

Jenny 54 Divorced 24.9 Company director 3 years

Maree 36 Married 20.1 Stay at home mum 6 years

Susan 52 Married 18.6 Advisor 7 years

Annette 55 Married 43.23 Unemployed 10 years

Margaret 28 In a relationship 21.5 Paediatrics 2 years

Table 3.19 Participant Demographic Information.

Superordinate Themes Subordinate Themes1. Goal setting and pursuit 1. Formulating and Planning Goals

2.Not Achieving Goals 3.Social Goals/Social Support

2. Barriers 1. Internal vs. External Barriers2.Sickness, Injury and Tiredness3. Domestic Barriers

3. Motivation 1. Role Models2. Behavioural Reinforcement Cycle3. External to Internal 4. Changed Body Changed Mind

4. Physical Activity and

Emotions

1. Positive State-Emotion Release

2. Physical Activity as Therapy

5. Gendered Gym Culture 1. Female Bodies Female Minds   

Goal Setting and Pursuit, the reinforcement cycle

• MAREE: I think slowly as you are headed down your path you know I would set myself small goals at a time so I would only try to lose two kilos and um then once I got there I would move it down to another two, setting small goals and actually achieving them. It makes you feel good about yourself and you think, “hey I can do this that wasn’t so bad” and then you reset your next goal and um definitely makes you feel more confidence. Because you do it once and you think I can do that because I’ve done it so I can do it again (70).

Physical Activity and Emotions

• Major negative life events and state emotions

• JENNY: So when I first started exercising it was the incredible tightness and nausea and often the rapid pulse and arrythmicadia…that could all be part of that incredibly unhappy stressed person, and then the anger…usually it would trigger some form of grief. So that would be maybe the weeping and then it calms. (2)

A break from rumination

• MAREE: ...that one hour when you’re not thinking about anything else, it helps you to switch off of your everyday life, and I go for that sole reason, so that I’m not dwelling on that and thinking about that and getting wound up into a hole. Instead, I’m like in the moment of exercising and then when you come out happy at the other end it’s not such a deeper hole as it was to begin with. (91)

• ANNETTE: There’s that time beforehand where it’s almost like you’re changing gear moving from one thing to another then after the class its sort of like thank goodness that’s over um and I guess I have that feeling for a few minutes come down stairs have a shower and then after I’ve had the shower I’ll think oh well that’s really good now you know I feel warm, I feel good. (136)

Escape from Work and Domestic Stress

• SUSAN: …you might be doing a step class and involves kicking for example, kicking in the air and you could kick somebody that was really frustrating you in the air but it was so releasing just use this negative energy and just lose it. So then afterwards I would go back to the office, have something to eat and felt I could handle anything. (169)

Escape from Work and Domestic Stress

• MAREE: Yeah, rather than being angry and screaming at my kids, I can jump higher on the step box or punch harder in combat or lift heavier weights um that kind of thing. If I’m feeling a bit angry (giggles) I can get it out in a healthy kind of way. (48)

The “buzz”

• MAREE: ... I absolutely love the buzz you get from rpm (54)

• MARGARET: Seeing the physical changes as well and seeing them externally but also feeling them internally as well. Um yeah, that kind of buzz when you do have a good workout you feel like ‘yeah I feel like I really thrashed myself but it feels good to have done that”. (239)

‘Endorphins’

• MAREE: …the endorphin rush for me mentally um helps a lot um depression has run quite deeply in my family and I’m totally aware of those

• ANNETTE: Endorphins and what they do to you and how they leave you feeling happy and um yeah. (60)

‘exhilaration’ and ‘energised’ effect

• SUSAN: ...especially if it’s a body jam class anything goes, it’s fun and then after the class you feel exhilarated, and you feel tired, but you don’t feel you’ve sprained several muscles in the process. (164)

• MARGARET: I suppose it kind of switches where in my mind I’m tired when I come out but when I’m leaving I’m energised. (252)

The absence of positive emotions

• MAREE: I notice during the school holidays when I can’t get to gym how slowly my grumpiness builds up and I can also see how easy it is to get in the rut of “oh I can’t be bothered, oh it doesn’t matter”, and again, it’s all tied in with emotions and stuff as well. But because I can’t get there in the school holidays I feel it. (61)

• Relates to Pridgeon and Grogan (2012) and Crossely (1996)

Participant understanding of the process of mood change

• ANNETTE: physical activity improves your blood flow which improves your oxygen to your brain, so your brain’s working better…you get your endorphins going you which are like the happy hormones they’ve been termed. (110)

• MARGARET: I imagine there’s serotonin stuff going on after with your neurons firing, all that kind of stuff. There’s definitely that physiological response. (254)

• JENNY: I guess they make you feel happy because you set your goal and you’ve achieved it and yeah again that comes down again to the endorphins. I think also that you get from exercising will end in happiness because I never walk out of a workout grumpy (laughs) ever. (72)

Conclusion• Detailed accounts of cognitive and physiological changes

before, during and after physical activity.

• The reinforcing value of state positive emotions and undoing of negative affect

• The presence of a biological positive emotions mechanism (‘endorphins’/’buzz’/exhilaration)

Strengths, Limitations, Future Directions

• Provided detail and understanding of positive emotions ‘at work’.

• Limited qualitative study, only 5 participants, all female, limited ability to generalise

• Future studies could further examine positive emotions utility in increasing goal achievement/addressing the intention-behaviour gap

“I never walk out of a workout grumpy (laughs) ever”.