Today's guest article really boils down to balance. Exercise, when you get good at it is like oxygen. "You get too much you get to high. Not enough and you're going to die." Okay I borrowed that from this 70's hit song, but you get the idea and you can see an even clearer picture below.-NateSelf-Confidence Tied To Exercise 'high'
by MEDICAL TRIBUNE NEWS
NEW YORK, May 13 (Reuters Health) -- Part of the well-being or 'high' some people feel after a good exercise workout may be related to their sense of mastery over their exercise routines, report researchers in the May issue of the journal Health Psychology.
The findings suggest that increasing people's self-confidence about exercise may encourage them to stick to exercise regimens, the investigators conclude.
Edward McAuley, professor of kinesiology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and colleagues recruited 46 women undergraduates and divided them into two random groups. None of the young women exercised more than once a week and all were categorized as 'low-active.'
All were given individual fitness tests on a stationary bicycle. Regardless of how they actually performed, women in one group were told that their test results were excellent, while the other group was told that their performance was below average.
Several days later, the women were asked to exercise again, and each woman was reminded of how well or poorly she had done previously. At intervals during the 20-minute workout on the Stairmaster, researchers asked how the study participants felt.
McAuley's team found that women who believed they had performed well the first time responded far more positively than the women who had been told they had performed poorly.
The findings suggest that the exercise experience can be improved by providing information that enhances self-confidence, say the researchers -- and this may help people stick to an exercise program. 'That becomes important particularly if the enjoyment, the emotions that are expericenced in exercise, are implicated in getting people to do it again,' McAuley said in a statement.
SOURCE: Health Psychology;18:1-7.