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Exercise May Ward off Anger
Preliminary Findings Suggest Exercise
May Mitigate an Angry Mood
By Charlene Laino
WebMD Health News
If
you're about to have a meeting with your boss that
you just know will tick you off, go out and take a
quick jog first.
So
suggests an exercise scientist whose small
preliminary study showed that prior exercise may
mitigate an angry mood.
The
findings need to be replicated in much larger
numbers of people before any firm recommendations
can be made, says Nathaniel Thom, PhD, a contractor
to the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego,
who performed the study while at the University of
Georgia.
But,
he tells WebMD, it appears "exercise acted like a
drug, protecting against angry mood induction,
almost like taking aspirin to prevent a heart
attack."
The
findings were presented at the annual meeting of the
American College of Sports Medicine in Baltimore.
Slideshows Evoke Anger
The
study involved 16 high-strung college-age men who
were easily angered.
Before and after 30 minutes of moderate-intensity
cycling, participants viewed a slideshow of pictures
known to evoke anger (Ku Klux Klan, Hitler,
malnourished children) mixed with images designed to
induce fear, pleasantness, or no emotions.
Then, before and after 30 minutes of quietly
resting, they watched the slideshows again.
At
various points in the study, the men were asked to
rate how angry they felt on a 20-point scale, where
higher numbers equal more anger.
Exercise Helps to Mitigate Anger
After exercising, the men's average anger rating
after viewing the slides went up slightly, to about
7 points compared with about 6.3 points before
viewing the slides, but the difference was so small
it could have been due to chance.
But
after resting, scores jumped from about 8 points
before the slideshow to about 10 points after the
slideshow, a significant difference.
"After exercising, watching the pictures didn't make
the men more angry, while after rest, they did,"
Thom says.
However, some of the findings were not consistent.
Exercise did not reduce the intensity of anger. When
they rated their anger on a standardized 0 to 9
point scale, where higher numbers equal more intense
anger, the men had an average score of about 4.2
points before exercise, compared with about 3.9
points afterward, a difference was so small it could
have been due to chance.
Also, there were no changes in brain activity when
the men viewed the violent pictures after exercise.
Exercise May Boost Serotonin Levels
Although the study was not designed to determine how
exercise might mitigate anger, Thom notes that anger
and aggression are associated with low levels of the
calming mood chemical serotonin.
The
selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
commonly used to treat mood disorders, which boost
serotonin levels in the brain, decrease aggressive
behavior, he notes, and animal studies suggest
exercise may increase serotonin levels in the brain.
Sports physiologist Michael R. Bracko, EdD, director
of the Institute for Hockey Research in Calgary,
Canada, tells WebMD that just the distraction
offered by exercise can have a calming effect.
"A
group exercise class or weight lifting can take your
mind off things," thereby relieving angry emotions,
he says.
Thom
acknowledges that much more work is needed. But if
it does pan out, "there's a huge public health
benefit," he says.
This
study was presented at a medical conference. The
findings should be considered preliminary as they
have not yet undergone the "peer review" process, in
which outside experts scrutinize the data prior to
publication in a medical journal.
©
WebMD. All rights reserved.
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"A group exercise class or weight
lifting can take your mind off things," thereby
relieving angry emotions." |
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