Exercise offers better benefits for its believers

People who believe beforehand that exercise will benefit them actually get more benefits out of it—they enjoy the exercise more, improve their mood more, and reduce their anxiety more than people who are less optimistic about it, according to a study published August 9, 2016 in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine.

Researchers also determined that people can be positively or negatively influenced about the benefits of exercise before engaging in it. These results indicate that previous expectations affect exercise-induced psychological and neurophysiological changes in a self-fulfilling way.

For this experiment, researchers at the University of Freiburg in Germany enrolled 76 men and women, 18 to 32 years old, and randomly assigned them into four groups. Before performing 30 minutes of exercise on a bicycle ergometer, the participant groups viewed different presentations that either showed or didn’t show the positive health benefits of cycling.

In addition, the researchers asked participants whether they already believed in the positive effects of physical activity. The subjects also filled out questionnaires about their well-being and their mood before and after the exercise. Furthermore, the researchers measured the participants’ brain activity on electroencephalogram (EEG).

After the exercise, the participants with more positive habitual expectations consistently demonstrated greater psychological benefits—more enjoyment, better mood, and less anxiety—than people without positive expectations.

“The results demonstrate that our belief in how much we will benefit from physical activity has a considerable effect on our well-being in the manner of a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said psychologist and lead investigator Hendrik Mothes, PhD student and Assistant Researcher at the University of Freiburg’s Department of Sport Science.

The study also revealed a neurophysiological difference: The participants with greater expectations and those who had seen a film about the health benefits of cycling beforehand were more relaxed on a neuronal level, as demonstrated by a greater increase of alpha-2 power on EEG.

Physiologically, all participants had decreased blood pressure after exercising, regardless of their expectations.

The researchers predict that these results would likely translate to other endurance sports like swimming or jogging.

“Beliefs and expectations could possibly have long-term consequences,” Mothes noted. “They can be a determining factor on whether we can rouse ourselves to go jogging again next time, or decide instead to stay at home on the couch.”