University researchers are recruiting participants for a six-week preliminary study to analyze the relationship between exercise and chronic anxiety in women between the ages of 18 and 39.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, anxiety is a natural way to deal with stress and is characterized by worry and apprehension. Chronic anxiety is described as when an individual has exaggerated anxiety, despite the lack of stressful stimuli.

“A large number of studies have reported that people said they felt calmer and had less stress and anxiety after exercising,” said Patrick O’Connor, kinesiology professor and co-director of the University’s Exercise Psychology Laboratory. “In our study, we’re looking at whether exercise training [or multiple sessions of exercise] would help people with chronic anxiety feel better.”

The pilot study is funded by the College of Education, and the team will use preliminary results to submit to the National Institutes of Health to possibly fund a larger project. O’Connor said researchers are recruiting women to partake in the project, and eligible women will receive monetary compensation for their participation.

“Many studies have looked at the relationship between depression and exercise,” O’Connor said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “Anxiety is an even bigger mental health area that has not been studied extensively yet.”

He also said the study will look at anxiety and exercise training in women because in general, women are more likely to report it. During the course of the project, subjects will take part in interviews and participate in supervised exercise sessions twice a week for a total of two and a half hours per week, O’Connor said.

“We’re hoping that exercise training will result in positive effects on people’s moods,” said Matthew Herring, a doctoral student in exercise psychology who is co-principal investigator of the study. “The largest implication of the project is that we’re looking at two types of exercise training in the same population sample.”

Within the study, some participants will exercise by weight lifting, whereas others will exercise by cycling. Herring said in a telephone interview Thursday that the two different forms of exercise training will provide an opportunity to compare the effects of each form on anxiety.

Herring also said studying exercise training, or looking at several bouts of exercise instead of one, will allow researchers to see the cumulative effects of exercise.

Other faculty at the University, including Rod Dishman of the kinesiology department and Cynthia Suveg of the psychology department, will help with the study.

Marni Jacob, a psychology doctoral student who serves as the diagnostician and interviewer for the project, said she will conduct interviews under the supervision of Suveg.

“If exercise is shown to reduce anxiety in the current study, it may be considered a viable treatment option. Plus, it is relatively inexpensive and easily accessible,” Jacob said in an e-mail interview Wednesday. “However, additional research would need to be conducted to corroborate the findings, as well as help us to more clearly understand the mechanisms that are responsible for the reduction of anxiety.”

Additionally, Jacob said that chronic anxiety is caused by multiple variables and some people develop anxiety because of their temperament, whereas others develop it from experiencing a traumatic event. Both O’Connor and Herring said anxiety can be commonplace among healthy adults and they hope the study will provide people with more information about how to better manage personal stress and anxiety.

“This study is a great way for adults who experience anxiety to simultaneously work to improve both their physical and mental health at no cost to them,” Jacob said.

For more information:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=whnwaViaanmyJpaadHNIfw_3d_3d

Contact: Matt Herring: mph8@uga.edu