Altering Affective Responses and Emotional Reactivity Through Acute Bouts of Aerobic Exercise With and Without...

Although the beneficial effects of acute aerobic exercise (AE) and mindfulness (MF) on emotional well-being are well-documented, whether these two intervention modalities can be combined to maximize these benefits remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate the combined effect of AE and MF on affective responses and emotional reactivity. Using a within-subject crossover design, self-reported affect was assessed from 30 adults (15 male) aged 18-25 before and after a 30 min session of mindful AE (MF-AE), non-mindful AE (NM-AE), and seated rest on three separate days in counterbalanced order. Following each intervention, emotional reactivity was measured by the late positive potential (LPP) of event-related potential (ERP) during a computerized picture-viewing task consisting of neutral and pleasant/unpleasant emotional content. Analysis indicated no between-condition differences in affect at the pretest, while there was increased positive affect for MF-AE and NM-AE conditions compared with rest at posttest. Although LPP amplitudes did not differ between conditions, greater negative (LPP_unpleasant-LPP_neutral) compared to positive (LPP_pleasant-LPP_neutral) emotional reactivity was observed with small-to-moderate and moderate-to-larger effect sizes following the NM-AE and rest conditions, respectively. However, this reactivity-related difference was absent following the MF-AE condition. Subsequent analyses indicated reduced dominance of negative reactivity during both the early (400-1200 ms) and later (1200-2000 ms) post-stimulus windows following the MF-AE condition, while this mitigation effect emerged only during the later window following the NM-AE condition. In addition to the AE-induced acute benefits to self-reported affective outcomes, performing MF during AE may accelerate the elimination of the tendency in reacting to negative emotion-eliciting stimuli.