Effects of Aerobic and Anaerobic Exercise on Anxiety

1. Effects of Aerobic and Anaerobic Exercise on Anxiety Kari Brown, Zach Oglesby, and Keith Padgett

2. Introduction • Many people use exercise as a way to reduce stress and anxiety. • Some causes of anxiety among people today are anticipation of what lies ahead, increase in the need for technology, money and other materialistic things, and just feeling out of control (Comadena, 1999) • People who exhibit more anxiety are put at higher risk of coronary heart disease (Pozuelo & Zheng, 2008). • Although exercise in general helps decrease anxiety levels, high-intensity has been shown to be a better means of lowering anxiety levels of longer periods of time (Norris, Carrol & Cochrane, 1990) • We are trying to find whether aerobic or anaerobic exercise will produce greater reductions in anxiety.

3. Research Questions Effect on anxiety level Does high intensity exercise lead to less anxiety than low intensity exercise? Is there a trend within our participants that disagrees with the idea that aerobic exercise is more effective at lowering anxiety levels than low-intensity or no exercise at all?

4. Research on Exercise Lowering Anxiety • Norris, Carroll, & Cochrane, (1990). The effects of aerobic and anaerobic training on fitness, blood pressure, and psychological stress and well-being. • All exercise contributed to lower levels of anxiety than no exercise at all. • There was also a difference found between aerobic exercise and anaerobic exercise. There was a more significant change in the well-being of a person who participated in aerobic exercise than anaerobic exercise.

5. Hypothesis • We hypothesize that aerobic exercise is a more effective means of lowering the amount of stress and anxiety of a person than anaerobic exercise.

6. Participants • 24 Total Participants • Participants were Freshmen - Seniors from Hanover College that signed up outside of room 147 • Signed up in groups of three • 71% Male and 29% Female • 96% Caucasian  4% African American  0% Other

7. Materials • Track in Horner Center • P90X Yoga video • Randomized Beck Anxiety Scale divided into two sections • Three yoga mats

8. Beck Anxiety Scale The Participants had to fill out a survey that consisted of 21 symptoms related to anxiety and rate them on a scale of 0 to 3 (0 meaning “not at all” and 3 meaning “severely- it bothered me a lot”). The anxiety scale was split in half to measure the effects of exercise on anxiety before and after the conditions. For Example: • Numbness or tingling • Feeling hot • Wobbliness in legs • Unable to relax • Fear of worst happening • Dizzy or lightheaded • Heart pounding/ racing • Face flushed • Hot/cold sweats

9. Procedure • Before exercise is undergone participants are given the first half of the Beck Anxiety Scale. • 1 Control group and 2 Experimental groups • One experimental group runs six laps on the Horner Center indoor track. • The other experimental group does ten minutes of the P90X yoga video that consisted of beginner level stretches that required some flexibility but kept the heart rate fairly low. • Control group reads through an Esquire magazine for ten minutes. • Second half of the Beck Anxiety Scale is given. 

10. Restating the Hypothesis • We hypothesize that aerobic exercise is a more effective means of lowering the amount of stress and anxiety of a person than anaerobic exercise.

11. Results • Anxiety was analyzed using a 3 (condition: low, high, or control) by 2 (time: pre vs post) mixed factorial design with repeated-measures on the second factor • The expected interaction between time and condition was not significant, F(2,21) = .811, p = .458 • Low intensity group, anxiety increased from 4.63 to 5.38 • Control group, anxiety increased from 4.00 to 6.78 • High intensity group anxiety decreased from 6.43 to 6.29simple main effects indicated that there was no significant change between time 1 and time 2 in any condition at p = .09 - .94

12. Graph Figure 1. Mean changes in anxiety scores for low intensity, high intensity, and control groups.

13. Interpretation of Findings • We hypothesized that higher intensity  exercise would decrease a person's anxiety more than lower-intensity exercise or no exercise would.  • Our results show that while high intensity exercise resulted in a greater decrease in anxiety than low intensity exercise or our control group, these results were not significant.

14. Limitations • Many of the participants noticed it involved exercise of some sort causing a selection effect. Also, there was not a wide variety of people involved due to only using Hanover students. • Yoga is more flexibility-oriented which could be a confounding variable because it could be causing anxiety rather than the person actually having anxiety. • Only had one session for each person so results could be insignificant. • Splitting the Beck Anxiety Scale randomly can cause the scale to be less effective – It is not designed to be split and measures over the past month rather than measuring anxiety twice in the same day

15. Future Directions • In the future, we could do a longer study with more participants and relate exercise’s effect on anxiety to reducing coronary heart disease.