The Role of the Context of Physical Activity for Its Association with Affective Well-Being: An Experience Sampling Study in Young Adults

Abstract

Physical activity and being outdoors both improve affective well-being. However, little is known about the synergistic effects between them and the influences of contextual factors such as the life domain of physical activity (work-, chores-, leisure, or sports-related) or the type of the outdoor environment (green space, blue space, or city area) on mood. This study investigates the synergistic effects of physical activity and being outdoors as well as the potential role of contextual factors on mood. A total of 158 individuals aged 18–25 years (133 females) participated in a 14-day experience sampling study. Participants received seven prompts per day and answered questions about their physical activity, contextual factors, and affective well-being. Physical activity and being outdoors were associated with concurrent higher levels of positive and lower levels of negative affect compared to being physically inactive or being indoors, respectively. However, no synergistic effects were found. Being outdoors in a city area was associated with a less positive and more negative affect than being in nature. Work- and chores-related physical activity was associated with less positive affect and more negative affect compared to sports- or leisure-related physical activity. To foster positive affect, people should schedule leisure-related physical activity in nature.

Investigating associations between physical activity, stress experience, and affective wellbeing during an examination period using experience sampling and accelerometry

“…First, we consistently found physical activity to be associated with lower negative affect on days with stressful events, but not on days without stressful events. Previous studies found inconsistent results concerning the association of physical activity with lower negative affect, while the evidence for the association of physical activity with higher positive affect are rather consistent 15 – 19 . Our results suggest that these inconsistent findings by other studies may be explained by the circumstance that—in the sense of the stress-buffering hypothesis 30 —physical activity may only mitigate negative affect if a specific stressor occurred that elicits negative affect.…”

“…Fourth, the outcome variables affect and stress were assessed based on momentary states, which could, however, be influenced by contextual factors (e.g., current company, environment, or activity) of the respective situation that we did not collect or control for. Finally, we did not consider the domain in which physical activity was performed (i.e., leisure-time or work-related physical activity), which appears to be an important factor 15 .…”

Heart Rate Variability’s Association with Positive and Negative Affect in Daily Life: An Experience Sampling Study with Continuous Daytime Electrocardiography over Seven Days

“…Furthermore, we showed that physical activity operationalised as MET was accompanied by SNS dominance (higher LF/HF ratio, lower HRV-HF, and RMSSD). Prior research applying ESM found that physical activity also has acute beneficial effects on affective wellbeing [ 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 ]. Based on this notion, SNS activation could be a mediating factor of the effect of physical activity on affective wellbeing, specifically higher positive affect.…”

Why Being Social and Active Boosts Psychological Wellbeing: A Mediating Role of Momentary Positive Emotions

“…All participants gave written consent prior to taking part. Following recent ESM-studies on emotions and wellbeing (Li et al, 2022;Zheng et al, 2023), we recruited 111 participants through the University of XX (masked for review) psychological participant pool. We excluded five participants who responded to less than half of the prompts to allow for enough observations per participant to make within-person comparisons.…”