Acute effects of exercise on attentional bias in low and high anxious young adults

- Acute exercise enhances subjective mood; effects on attentional bias are unclear.
- The impact of exercise on attentional bias may depend on type of stimuli presented.
- Trait anxiety did not modify the effects of exercise on attentional bias.

ObjectiveTo examine the effects of an acute bout of exercise on attentional bias, mood, and memory in young adult females who differ in anxiety.MethodsSixty-four participants between the ages of 18-34 years completed two experiments involving tests of attentional bias, mood, and memory before and after a cycling protocol or seated rest control condition. Participants were categorized into low-trait anxious (n = 29) or high-trait anxious (n = 35) groups and randomly allocated to experimental conditions. For both experiments, participants completed the assessments before and following 20 min of moderate intensity exercise or seated rest. Experiment 1 examined word-based attentional bias, while Experiment 2 utilized picture-based attentional bias tests.ResultsAcute moderate exercise did not alter word-based attentional bias. Exercise decreased picture-based attentional bias, but failed to reach statistical significance (p = 0.057). Enhancements in participants' mood post-exercise were observed; effects of exercise on memory were inconsistent.ConclusionThe effects of acute exercise on attentional bias seems to depend on stimulus type. Results suggest that exercise has a greater impact on picture-based attentional bias pre- to post-exercise (Experiment 2) compared to word-based attentional bias (Experiment 1). Moderate intensity exercise improves measures of total mood disturbance, anger, confusion, state anxiety, vigor and tension. This suggests that exercise may have a greater impact on subjective mood measures compared to the attentional processes associated with anxiety.