The Beneficial Effects of Exercise on Mood Improvement
Research conducted in the past investigating the relationship between exercise and mood has revealed that there is a "possible relationship between exercise... and mood..."(Berger and Owen, 1998, p. 611). In research conducted by Harte and Eifert (1995), test subjects generally reported feeling less anxious, depressed, angry, hostile and fatigued after their exercise session. Further research conducted by Berger and Owen obtained that different levels of exercise intensity were associated with mood benefits. Moreover, Mack, Huddleston and Dutler (2000) reported that "being involved in light physical activity did not result in negative mood..." (p. 913). This suggested that exercise might have a positive association with mood. Overall most of the studies concluded that physical activity is associated with beneficial mood changes. Thus one may assume that there quite possibly exist a relationship between exercise and mood. Previous research conducted by Berger and Owen hypothesized that there was an optimal exercise association with mood benefits (p.613). Moreover, their results showed that the test subjects did indeed report feeling better after exercising (p.614). In an effort to further understand whether this oc
To examine whether a relationship exist between the length of a exercise, intensity of exercise and the mood felt by a person, a mood survey will be conducted by asking a university population to fill out a written survey handed out in first period allowing us to collect a large sample of individuals. We will randomly select 1000 students survey and plot them on a graph to see if there is a correlation between exercise length, intensity and mood. Each individual will be asked to fill in how many times per week they engage in physical activity, for how long each session and what activities they engage in and the intensity of the exercise. They will then be asked to rank how they feel by using the Profile of Mood states as described in Berger and Owen (1998). "The Profile of Mood States [is] an appropriate inventory for this study because it is sensitive to small fluctuations in mood and has sound psychometric properties" (Berger and Owen, 1998, p.614). The goal of this design is to determine if there is a correlation between the amount of exercise and the intensity of exercise a person is exposed to and the emotional impact it has on ones mood. It is expected that people who exercise more frequently will generally have a more positive outlook on mood. Thus a positive correlation may exist. However, previous studies conducted by Berger and Owen obtained that there was a shift "towards negative mood states associated with high-intensity exercise of long duration"(p.612). Hence this study hopes to find what sorts of correlation's there are between exercise duration, intensity, and mood. An increase or decrease in a person's mood will be operationally defined by the rating of each participant on the Profile of Mood states. And exercise will be operationally defined as the amount and intensity of physical activity one engages in. Clearly, the difference in life-style habits, eating and overall mood prior to the test will impact the results. The variables being measured will vary from person to person, thus careful examination of the data will be provided to determine whether there exists a correlation between exercise duration, intensity and mood. The experimental design will provide evidence for if there is a direct cause and effect relationship between exercise and mood enhancement. It is expected that there will be an increase in positive mood with weekly exercise. However some weakness of the design are as follows: it will be difficult to assess whether mood was directly influenced by exercise or if other extraneous or confounding variables pl
Some common words found in the essay are:
Berger Owen, Profile Mood, Assessment Scale, Scale Mack, Correlation Design, Dyer Crouch, Huddleston Dutler, Introduction Research, Harte Eifert, physical activity, exercise mood, relationship exercise, correlation design, et al, berger owen, research conducted, relationship exercise mood, mack et, al 2000, et al 2000, positive mood, mack et al, Emotional Assessment, conducted berger owen, increase positive mood,
Approximate Word count = 1730
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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