Characteristics of the Activity-Affect Association in Inactive People: An Ambulatory Assessment Study in Daily Life

Abstract

Acute and regular exercise as well as physical activity (PA) is related to well-being and positive affect. Recent studies have shown that even daily, unstructured physical activities increase positive affect. However, the attempt to achieve adherence to PA or exercise in inactive people through public health interventions has often been unsuccessful. Most studies analyzing the activity-affect association in daily life, did not report participants’ habitual activity behavior. Thus, samples included active and inactive people, but they did not necessarily exhibit the same affective reactions to PA in daily life. Therefore the present study investigated whether the association between PA and subsequent affective state in daily life can also be observed in inactive individuals. We conducted a pilot study with 29 inactive university students (mean age 21.3 ± 1.7 years) using the method of ambulatory assessment. Affect was assessed via electronic diary and PA was measured with accelerometers. Participants had to rate affect every 2 h on a six item bipolar scale reflecting the three basic mood dimensions energetic arousal, valence, and calmness. We calculated activity intensity level [mean Metabolic Equivalent (MET) value] and the amount of time spent in light activity over the last 15 min before every diary prompt and conducted within-subject correlations. We did not find significant associations between activity intensity and the three mood dimensions. Due to the high variability in within-subject correlations we conclude that not all inactive people show the same affective reactions to PA in daily life. Analyzing the PA-affect association of inactive people was difficult due to little variance and distribution of the assessed variables. Interactive assessment and randomized controlled trials might help solving these problems. Future studies should examine characteristics of affective responses of inactive people to PA in daily life. General assumptions considering the relation between affect and PA might not be suitable for this target group.

Physical Activity Increases after an Affectively Arousing Daily Life Event

“…These studies generally confirm that increases in positive affect or energetic arousal during daily life are preceded by increased bodily movement (Schwerdtfeger et al, 2008; Kanning, 2012; Kanning et al, 2012; Bossmann et al, 2013; Dunton et al, 2014), but find that increases in negative affect or tense arousal during daily life are preceded by either increases (Powell et al, 2009; Kanning, 2012; Kanning et al, 2012) or no change (Schwerdtfeger et al, 2008; Bossmann et al, 2013; von Haaren et al, 2013) in bodily movement, rather than decreases as observed in laboratory studies. These and other studies of similar design also find that bodily movement follows, as well as precedes, affective arousal (Powell et al, 2009; Schwerdtfeger et al, 2010; Dunton et al, 2014).…”

The Shape of Change in Perceived Stress, Negative Affect, and Stress Sensitivity During Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

“…Participants rated the extent to which they experienced their day as being busy, demanding, hectic and out of control on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 ( not at all ) to 5 ( extremely ). Similar measures of perceived daily stress have been used previously (von Haaren et al, 2013). A daily perceived stress score was calculated by taking the mean of the four items (range 1 to 5).…”

The Lausanne–Geneva cohort study of offspring of parents with mood disorders: methodology, findings, current sample characteristics, and perspectives

“…Other postulated endophenotypes include physiological and biological underpinnings of mood disorders such as the dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis [13,49,50], by measures of the cortisol level which is implicated in stress management, structural neuroanatomical abnormalities assessed using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) [51][52][53][54][55][56][57] or of the circadian activity pattern, which can now be objectively assessed using accelerometers [58]. Through the parallel use of Ecological Momentary Assessments (EMA) relying on cell phones or micro-computers, correlates of activity, including the subjective levels of energy and mood [59][60][61] as well as food intake or the quality of sleep [62,63], can simultaneously be registered avoiding recall bias of retrospective assessments by questionnaires. Although the establishment of activity patterns is of high interest regarding the development of mood disorders, to our knowledge there is only one study of the offspring of parents with mood disorders to date to have reported data on EMA [64].…”