Mg. Calvo et al., ANXIETY AND HEART-RATE UNDER PSYCHOLOGICAL STRESS - THE EFFECTS OF EXERCISE-TRAINING, Anxiety, stress, and coping, 9(4), 1996, pp. 321-337
The effects of a 12-week exercise-training program on cognitive, somat
ic, and behavioral anxiety and on heart rate responses to evaluative s
tress were scrutinized in 89 subjects randomly assigned to an experime
ntal (exercise) or a control group. The training program consisted of
exercises that were aimed to the improvement of the general physical f
itness (i.e., strength, flexibility, and endurance). Following the 12-
week training period, exercising subjects showed improved motor skill
capacity as well as higher VO2 max. In an anxiety inciting test situat
ion, that consisted of the video-taped delivery of a 5-min speech, a m
ental arithmetic and a fine motor task, exercising subjects showed mor
e favourable responses than control subjects in three ways: (a) they e
xhibited lower behavioral anxiety during the anticipation phase of the
three stressors, (b) they reported lower cognitive and somatic anxiet
y during the anxiety provoking situation, and (c) their heart rate rec
overed faster, in contrast to both their baseline heart rate and the c
ontrol subjects' heart rate, from the stress episode. These results de
monstrate that a fitness-oriented exercise program has anxiolytic prop
erties. They also provide a primary evidence that overt behavioral anx
iety, as opposed to the usually measured self-reported anxiety, may be
affected by exercise.