Acute Exercise Prevents Angry Mood Induction but Does Not Change Angry Emotions

Exercise is well known to enhance a variety of mood states, but few studies have been specifically designed to investigate whether acute aerobic exercise alters feelings of anger. The goal of this study was to determine the magnitude of the effects of acute exercise on both angry mood and angry emotions.

Angry mood and angry emotions were assessed in 16 men with elevated trait anger who viewed a variety of emotionally evocative scenic pictures before and after 30 min of moderate- to vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise. Angry mood, captured by self-reports of state anger, angry emotions, as indexed by event-related brain activity (e.g., early posterior negativity and late positive potential), and self-reports of anger intensity were measured.

The results indicate that acute exercise both 1) reduces angry mood and 2) mitigates angry mood induction but does not change the intensity of angry emotions or the associated event-related potential responses to anger-inducing pictures in college-age men who have elevated trait anger.

Future studies should explore the mechanisms underlying the effect of exercise on preventing angry mood induction, consider alternative anger induction methods that might induce higher levels of angry emotions, and test the effects of chronic exercise training on anger and its expression.