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Mood improvements following exercise and quiet rest in bulimic women
Author(s) -
Glazer A. R.,
O'Connor P. J.
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of medicine and science in sports
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.575
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1600-0838
pISSN - 0905-7188
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0838.1993.tb00365.x
Subject(s) - mood , heart rate , aerobic exercise , physical therapy , sitting , anxiety , physical fitness , treadmill , blood pressure , medicine , physical exercise , depression (economics) , psychology , psychiatry , pathology , economics , macroeconomics
The purposes of this investigation were to assess selected mood state responses to a single session of both aerobic exercise and a quiet rest condition in bulimic women and to determine their physical activity and fitness levels. Nine outpatients who met DSM‐III‐R criteria for bulimia nervosa and 9 age‐, weight and gender‐matched non‐bulimic controls were studied. Self‐reports of physical activity and objective measures of physical fitness, including V̇o 2 peak, maximal treadmill time, and resting heart rate, were obtained. Bulimics had an above‐average level of physical fitness (V̇o 2 peak = 46.5 ± 9.3 ml·kg −1 ·min −1 ) that did not differ significantly from the controls. Subjects completed 2 randomly assigned, counterbalanced sessions involving 20 min of submaximal walking at 70% of peak V̇o 2 and on a separate day sitting quietly for 20 min. Fifteen minutes before and 10 and 20 min following both conditions, heart rate, blood pressure and mood state were measured. The bulimics exhibited significant reductions in anxiety, depression and systolic blood pressure following both the submaximal exercise and quiet rest conditions. The bulimic women experienced improvements in mood in association with vigorous walking exercise that were equal in magnitude to those occurring with quiet rest and had levels of physical fitness that were above average, but clearly did not engage in excessive exercise. The findings suggest that both acute exercise and quiet rest have transient psychological benefits for bulimic women.