An increasing body of research suggests that physical activity, exercise, and sports enhance a wide range of cognitive and affective wellbeing, including attention, executive functions, memory and learning, creativity, stress resilience, and mental health. Engaging in regular physical activity has also been associated with a reduced risk of many neurological and psychiatric disorders, notably dementia, major depressive disorders, and anxiety disorders. However, firstly, it is still unclear what kind of physical activity, exercise, and sports conducted on how long a timescale brings maximal benefits to a specific outcome for a specific population. Secondly, how findings reported so far can be incorporated into daily practice by the general public and in educational, neurological, and psychiatric contexts remain unaddressed. Thirdly, the underlying psychological, physiological, and neurobiological mechanisms through which physical activity, exercise, and sports promote cognitive and affective wellbeing remain to be clarified. Several potential mechanisms have been proposed, including the activation of the prefrontal cortices and the dopamine and serotonin neurotransmission, the release of neurotrophins, the enhancement of neural plasticity and neurogenesis, and the decrease of neuroinflammation and oxidative stress.
Physical inactivity is a key determinant of health across the lifespan. A lack of activity increases the risk of heart disease, colon and breast cancer, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, osteoporosis, anxiety and depression and others diseases. Emerging literature has suggested that in terms of mortality, the global population health burden of physical inactivity approaches that of cigarette smoking. The prevalence and substantial disease risk associated with physical inactivity has been described as a pandemic. The prevalence, health impact, and evidence of changeability all have resulted in calls for action to increase physical activity across the lifespan. In response to the need to find ways to make physical activity a health priority for youth, the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Physical Activity and Physical Education in the School Environment was formed. Its purpose was to review the current status of physical activity and physical education in the school environment, including before, during, and after school, and examine the influences of physical activity and physical education on the short and long term physical, cognitive and brain, and psychosocial health and development of children and adolescents. Educating the Student Body makes recommendations about approaches for strengthening and improving programs and policies for physical activity and physical education in the school environment. This report lays out a set of guiding principles to guide its work on these tasks. These included: recognizing the benefits of instilling life-long physical activity habits in children; the value of using systems thinking in improving physical activity and physical education in the school environment; the recognition of current disparities in opportunities and the need to achieve equity in physical activity and physical education; the importance of considering all types of school environments; the need to take into consideration the diversity of students as recommendations are developed. This report will be of interest to local and national policymakers, school officials, teachers, and the education community, researchers, professional organizations, and parents interested in physical activity, physical education, and health for school-aged children and adolescents.
This textbook focuses on the relationship between physical exercise and cognition, a very timely and important topic with major theoretical and practical implications for a number of areas including ageing, neurorehabilitation, depression and dementia. It brings together a wide range of analytical approaches and experimental results to provide a very useful overview and synthesis of this growing field of study. The book is divided into three parts: Part I covers the conceptual, theoretical and methodological underpinnings and issues. Part II focuses on advances in exercise and cognition research, with appropriate sub-sections on ‘acute’ and ‘chronic’ exercise and cognition. Part III presents an overview of the area and makes suggestions for the direction of future research. This text provides a cutting-edge examination of this increasingly important area written by leading experts from around the world. The book will prove invaluable to researchers and practitioners in a number of fields, including exercise science, cognitive science, neuroscience and clinical medicine. Key Features: Unique in-depth investigation of the relationship between physical exercise and brain function. Covers theoretical approaches and experimental results and includes chapters on the latest developments in research design. Examines the effects of both acute and chronic exercise on brain function. International list of contributors, who are leading researchers in their field.
There is no doubt that daily habits and actions exert a profound health impact. The fact that nutritional practices, level of physical activity, weight management, and other behaviors play key roles both in the prevention and treatment of most metabolic diseases has been recognized by their incorporation into virtually every evidence-based medical guideline. Despite this widespread recognition, physicians and other healthcare workers often cannot find a definitive and comprehensive source of information on all of these areas. Designed for physicians and other health care workers, Lifestyle Medicine, Second Edition brings together evidence-based research in multiple health-related fields to assist practitioners both in treating disease and promoting good health. Sections cover nutrition and exercise, behavioral psychology, public policy, and management of a range of disorders, including cardiovascular disease, endocrine and metabolic dysfunction, obesity, cancer, immunology and infectious diseases, pulmonary disorders, and many more.
This textbook covers topics in sport and exercise psychology for students of psychology and sport science, as well as for sport practitioners who want to understand topics in sport psychology in more detail and depth. The book is divided into two main parts: Theory and Application. The first part covers the theoretical facets of sport and exercise psychology, and the close link between theory and practice, divided into the sub-disciplines of psychology (cognition, motivation, emotion, personality and development, and social processes). The second part focuses on the applications of sport and exercise psychology in the context of performance and health. With contributions from scholars across the globe, the book offers an international and timely perspective on the key fundaments of sport psychology. Taken together, these chapters provide a challenging yet accessible overview of the larger field of sport and exercise psychology. This book is suitable for readers at different levels of competence, supported with didactic elements (learning objectives and learning control questions) to find the right learning level.
The fourth edition of Advances in Sport and Exercise Psychology provides advanced psychology students with a thorough examination and critical analysis of the current research in sport and exercise psychology.
Attitudes are evaluations of people, places, things, and ideas. They help us to navigate through a complex world. They provide guidance for decisions about which products to buy, how to travel to work, or where to go on vacation. They color our perceptions of others. Carefully crafted interventions can change attitudes and behavior. Yet attitudes, beliefs, and behavior are often formed and changed in casual social exchanges. The mere perception that other people—say, rich people— favor something may be sufficient to make another person favor it. People’s own actions also influence their attitudes, such that they adjust to be more supportive of the actions. People’s belief systems even change to align with and support their preferences, which at its extreme is a form of denial for which people lack awareness. These two volumes of The Handbook of Attitudes provide authoritative, critical surveys of theory and research about attitudes, beliefs, persuasion, and behavior from key authors in these areas. This second volume covers applications to measurement, behavior prediction, and interventions in the areas of cancer, HIV, substance use, diet, and exercise, as well as in politics, intergroup relations, aggression, migrations, advertising, accounting, education, and the environment.
Physical activity and exercise were receiving a great attention as a strategy of prevention and treatment of affective and some anxiety disorders. Many studies have showed the efficacy of exercise in major depression and at depressed episode of bipolar patients, as well as, some authors shows the benefits of exercise in some anxiety disorders like Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Panic. Despite their efficacy, little is known concerning the main mechanisms related to the antidepressant and anxiolytic effects of exercise. Several studies in an animal model using Neurotrophic Factors, Oxidative Stress, Immunologic response and other biological markers reveal promising results. However, few studies were conducted in clinical samples. Additional to the antidepressant and anxiolytic effects, exercise appears improve QoL in major depressed, bipolar and anxiety patients. Theoretically, this increase may be associated with cognitive improvements, improvements at sleep quality, physical functioning, as well as other psychological issues as self-esteem, self-concept, and general well-being. The propose of this topic is to address the novelty and most recent research, related to antidepressant and anxiolytic effects of physical activity and exercise in patients with affective and anxiety disorders, as well as the issues associated with QoL improvement.The topic is looking for: – Clinical trials using exercise and physical activity as a treatment affective and anxiety disorders. – Studies investigating the optimal prescription factors (dose, volume, intensity, setting, frequency) associated with antidepressant and anxiolytic effects of physical activity and exercise for affective and anxiety disorder patients. – Original studies, comprehensive reviews, hypothesis and opinions concerning the mechanisms of antidepressant and anxiolytic effects of physical activity and exercise in affective and anxiety disorder patients. – Original studies, comprehensive reviews, hypothesis and opinions concerning other benefits of physical activity and exercise like : cognition, weight gain prevention and QoL in affective and anxiety disorder patients. – Translational research. – Studies of cost-efficacy analysis.
Up to date the scientific discussion about how frequency and regularity of physical activity can be increased is dominated by social-cognitive models. However, increasing evidence suggests that emotions and feelings have greater influence on physical activity than originally assumed (Rhodes, Fiala, & Conner, 2009). Generally speaking, humans possess an evaluative system with a basic action tendency to approach pleasurable events and to avoid aversive ones (Cacioppo & Berntson, 1999). Evaluative responses to a behavior and associated emotional states may influence a decision regarding whether or not to repeat being physically active. Generally, behavior associated with positive evaluations has a higher probability of being repeated than behaviors without such an association. On the contrary, an association with negative evaluations tends to decrease the probability of repeating to be physically active. Hence, evaluative responses to physical activity or the related situation can be an important aspect in the process of physical activity maintenance (McAuley et al., 2007). Several social-cognitive models of behavior change and maintenance were recently extended to take the influence of affective responses into account, in a way that variables already included in the models (e.g. outcome expectancies or attitudes) were more clearly articulated into their cognitive and affective components. For example, with regard to Social Cognitive Theory, Gellert, Ziegelmann and Schwarzer (2012) proposed to distinguish between affective and health-related outcome expectancies, and in the Theory of Planned Behavior, researchers suggested to differentiate between cognitive and affective attitudes (Lawton, Conner, & McEachan, 2009). The results of these and other studies suggest that affective components make a unique contribution to the explanation of the physical activity behavior (Brand, 2006). Other examples come from social cognition research, where it was shown that automatic evaluative responses are part of our everyday life and that they decisively influence health behavior (Hofmann, Friese, & Wiers, 2008). Accordingly, there is evidence that people who exercise regulary hold more positive automatic evaluations with exercise than non-exercisers (Bluemke, Brand, Schweizer, & Kahlert, 2010). Although significant progress has been made in showing that evaluative responses to physical activity and associated emotional states are important predictors of physical activity underlying psychological processes are far from being fully understood. Some important issues still remain to be resolved. Which role play affective states compared to concrete emotions when influencing physical activity? How do affective states and emotions interact with cognitive variables such as intentions? Are evaluative processes before, during or after physical activity important to predict future physical activity? Do negative and positive evaluations interact antagonistically or rather synergistically when physical activity as a new behavior shall be adopted? Future research will help us to resolve these and a lot of other so far unresolved issues.
