The effects of moderate aerobic exercise and satyanda yoga on long-term stress, selected cognitive and somatic measures, and learning of a motorskill in response to an acute stressor

The purpose of this investigation was to compare the effects of a 10 week training program of moderate aerobic exercise and satyanda yoga on long-term stress, selected cognitive and somatic measures, and learning a motor skill in response to an acute stressor. The subjects were 44 female (mean age = 19.5yrs) undergraduate students from the University of Wollongong who were considered to be of below "average" fitness and had no formal stress management experience. All subjects based on their scores on the Jenkins Activity Survey were categorised as Type B. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of four groups: (1) a moderate aerobic exercise group in which subjects participated in a 10-week fitness program consisting of weight training and aerobic/floor stations; (2) a group which practised 10 weeks of satyanda yoga techniques; (3) a placebo group which met once per week for 10 weeks to attend weekly lunch time musical performances; and (4) a no stress control group which underwent initial testing without being exposed to the acute stressor, prior to and at the end of a 10 week period. Immediately before and after the 10 week intervention, the subjects' aerobic fitness, mood state as determined by the Profile of Mood State (POMS), heart rate, blood pressure, and motor performance on the pursuit rotor apparatus in response to acute psychological stress were assessed. The acute psychological stressor involved two components: (1) competing with a confederate for ten, 20-second trials on the pursuit rotor apparatus, and (2) experiencing bogus negative feedback rating performance as "poor" on eight of the ten trials. The control group completed the motor task without competing with a confederate or receiving bogus negative feedback. Analyses of variance (ANOVAs) on the POMS measures showed that the moderate aerobic exercise group significantly decreased long-term cognitive levels of tension. The effects of the treatments on cognitive responses to acute stress were assessed in a series of MANCOVAs, where the change from resting to final POMS, pre and post intervention were the dependent measures and initial group differences served as the covariate. The exercise group recorded a significant decrease in confusion to the stressor after the intervention, whereas the yoga group responded with greater anger. Not surprisingly, subjects in the moderate aerobic training condition displayed significantly better improvements in aerobic fitness than subjects in all other conditions. As a result, a series of ANOVAs revealed the aerobic group showed significantly greater reductions in absolute heart rate at rest and at recovery from stress than subjects in the other conditions. An ANCOVA where initial group differences served as the c o v a r i a t e on the change from pre to p o s t i n t e r v e n t i o n b a s e l i n e l e v e l s of d i a s t o l i c b l o o d p r e s s u r e r e v e a l e d s i g n i f i c a n t l y lower resting diastolic b l o o d p r e s s u r e in the e x e r c i s e and yoga g r o u p s . F i n a l l y , the groups did n o t d i f f e r in their m o t o r skill a c q u i s i t i o n . T h e s e data s u p p o r t the contention that an aerobic c o m p o n e n t is a n e c e s s a r y c o m p o n e n t of an exercise regimen for improving p s y c h o l o g i c a l and p h y s i o l o g i c a l health and in coping with acute m e n t a l s t r e s s .