Walk on the bright side: Physical activity and affect in major depressive disorder.

Abstract

Although prescribed exercise has been found to improve affect and reduce levels of depression, we do not know how self-initiated everyday physical activity influences levels of positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) in depressed persons. Fifty-three individuals diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and 53 never-depressed controls participated in a seven-day experience sampling study. Participants were prompted randomly eight times per day and answered questions about their physical activity and affective state. Over the week, the two groups of participants did not differ in average level of physical activity. As expected, participants with MDD reported lower average PA and higher average NA than did never-depressed controls. Both participants with MDD and controls reported higher levels of PA at prompts after physical activity than at prompts after inactive periods; moreover, for both groups of participants, PA increased from a prompt after an inactive period to a subsequent prompt at which activity was reported. Depressed participants in particular showed a dose-response effect of physical activity on affect: longer duration and/or higher intensity of physical activity increased their PA significantly more than did short duration and/or lower intensity physical activity. Physical activity did not influence NA in either group. In contrast to previous treatment studies that examined the effects of prescribed structured exercise, this investigation showed that self-initiated physical activity influences PA. These findings also underscore the importance of distinguishing between PA and NA to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the effects of physical activity on affect in MDD.

Investigating the Effects of the Unified Protocol on Common and Specific Factors in a Comorbid Insomniac Sample: A Single-Case Experimental Design

“…Some studies have shown that even though temperamental variables reduce during treatment, the difference between treatment and control groups increases over time (53). Moreover, previous studies have indicated that changes in temperamental variables, such as positive affect, are related to the dosage of medication (54). Thus, in contrast with traditional concepts, various studies have shown that temperament may change over time and in response to treatment.…”

Inventory of Physical Activity Objectives – a new method of measuring motives for physical activity and sport

“…The type of goal allows us to distinguish between sport and physical activity (PA): sport performance vs. psychophysical health. Health-oriented physical activity increasingly attracts the interest of researchers, for the results suggest that PA has a beneficial influence not only on physical health, but also on mental health, e.g., in the case of people suffering from depression (Mata et al, 2012), anxiety disorders (Meng & D'Arcy, 2013), eating disorders (Joseph, Alonso-Alonso, Bond, Pascual-Leone, & Blackburn, 2011;Lipowski, Buliński, & Krawczyński, 2009) as well as in treatment of alcohol-dependent individuals (Lipowski, Szulc, & Buliński, 2015), or drug addicts (Lynch, Peterson, Sanchez, Abel, & Smith, 2013). Systematic engagement in physical activity is recommended not only to children (Gubbels, Van Kann, de Vries, Thijs, & Kremers, 2014), adolescents (Biddle & Asare, 2011), adults, and elderly people (Middelweerd, Mollee, van der Wal, Brug, & te Velde, 2014), but also to pregnant women (Guszkowska & Langwald, 2014).…”

Epilepsia y actividad física: conceptos desde la perspectiva de las ciencias básicas

“…Se ha demostrado el efecto positivo que tiene en humanos la actividad física sobre el estado de ánimo y el control de las crisis epilépticas (75)(76)(77). Ratas con depresión de la especie SwLo sometidas a actividad física se compararon con controles sin exposición al ejercicio.…”