This study examined the effects of exercise combined with positive psychology (the IntenSati method) on mental well-being and interoception. Subjects were randomly assigned to IntenSati, exercise alone, positive affirmations alone, or a control group. Questionnaires before and after the intervention assessed mental well-being, hope, and self-esteem. An interoception task measured heart-beat detection accuracy. Results showed IntenSati, exercise, and affirmations improved favorable mood and hope more than the control. No condition improved interoception accuracy more than others. Combining exercise and affirmations did not have clearly synergistic effects on mental well-being beyond the individual effects of each.

1. Exercise and Positive Psychology and Its Effects on Mental Well Being
Valerie L. Dapsis, Andy J. Arnold, & Karen M. Dobkins
University of California, San Diego
• Does combining exercise and positive
psychology improve state mental well
being more so than exercise alone or
positive psychology alone?
• Does combining exercise and positive
psychology improve interoceptive
abilities on a heart beat perception task?
Main Questions
Exercise has been shown to help improve
general mental well being [1]. Positive
psychology and the use of affirmations has
also been seen to help improve mental
well being and self esteem [2]. The
purpose of the current study was to look at
the combinational effects of exercise and
positive psychology, using a new exercise
method called “IntenSati” that incorporates
high intensity aerobics with call-and-
response positive affirmations (started by
Patricia Moreno in NYC). We looked at its
effects on mental well being as well as on
interoceptive abilities, since the later is
thought to be related to mental well-being
[4].
Interoception is being aware of feelings in
the body, such as vasomotor activity and
internal sensations [3]. One of the most
common internal sensations studied is the
ability to detect one’s own heartbeats
(measured by comparing actual
heartbeats, over a specified amount of
time, using a heart rate monitor, with a
subject’s perceived number of heartbeats).
Introduction
Subjects
Methods Results Continued
Results
•The results from Positive High and Negative Low,
and the State Hope Scale suggest that there may be
positive improvements as a result of doing IntenSati,
Exercise and Affirmations, but there is not clear
evidence for synergistic effects of exercise and
affirmations, since Intensati did not differ much from
either the Exercise or the Affirmations condition.
heartbeat perception task. On three other scales: the
State Self Esteem Scale, Warwick Mental Well Being
Scale, and the Psychological Well Being Scale, there
was a main effect of Time (pre/post) (all p values less
than p=0.0006 and all F values greater than
13.2655), but no interactions between Time and
condition, also suggesting the lack of a synergistic
effect of Exercise and Affirmations (all p values
greater than p=0.0228, all F values less than
F=3.4630). (There was also no main effect of
condition for these three questionnaires (all p values
greater than p=0.0664, all F values less than
F=2.5433).) This suggests that all conditions had an
improvement, with no one condition having a greater
improvement than another.
Discussion
References and Acknowledgements
• We recruited subjects through UCSD
SONA for a 1.5 hour study.
[1] Stephens, T. (1988). Physical Activity and Mental Health in the United States and Canada:
Evidence from Four Population Surveys. Preventative Medicine, 17, pp. 35-47.
[2] Boyatzis, C.J., Kline, S., & Backof, S. (2007) Experimental Evidence that Theistic-Religious
Body Affirmations Improve Women’s Body Image. Journal for the Scientific Study of
Religion Vol 46, Issue 4, pp. 553-564.
[3] Craig, AD. (2003). Interoception: the sense of the physiological condition of the body. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, Vol 3,
No. 4, pp. 500-505.
[4] Dunn, B.D., Stefanovich, I., Evans, D., Oliver, C., Hawkins, A., & Dalgleish, T. (2010). Can you feel the beat? Interoceptive
awareness is an interactive function of anxiety- and
depression-specific symptom dimensions. Behaviour Research and Therapy, Vol 48,
Issue 11, pp. 1133-1138.
Special thank you to Winnie Tai, Mathu Kularajan, Madeline Ajakh, Caleb Murray, Hector Borges, and RD Marquiss for helping with
this study!
• Subjects were randomly assigned to one of four intervention
conditions: the IntenSati (IS) condition (30 minute exercise
class with call-and-response positive affirmations); an exercise
condition (30 minute exercise class, with the same moves as
IS but no affirmations); an affirmations condition, (30 mins,
with the same affirmations as IS, but done while seated); or a
control condition (30 mins watching a nature documentary).
• Subjects were asked to fill out mental well-being
questionnaires as well as perform an interoception accuracy
task (count their heartbeats) both before and after the
intervention they were assigned to.
• A difference score was calculated by taking the subject’s post
score minus their pre score, with a positive difference score
representing an improvement in mental well being
interoceptive abilities.
• A full factorial 4x2 ANOVA was done for all questionnaire data
and for heartbeat perception task data looking at the
significance of time (pre/post), condition, and the interaction
between condition and time.
• Also, since we included so many questionnaires and tasks,
our adjusted alpha was set to 0.005 due to a Bonferroni
correction, due to running 10 ANOVAs for the 10 questionnaire
pieces looked at.
Figure 1: Effects on 4 subscales of the Mood Scale: Positive High, Positive
Low (Favorable), Negative High, Negative Low (Unfavorable)
• For Positive High (Favorable): main effect of time F(1,51)=15.78,
p=0.0002, a main effect of condition F(3,51)=7.56, p=0.0003, and an
interaction between condition and time (pre/post) F(3,51)=16.79,
p<0.0001.
• IntenSati condition (p<0.0001), Exercise condition (p<0.0001), and
Affirmations condition (p=0.0002) showed larger improvements than the
Movie condition. The IntenSati condition also showed larger
improvements than the Affirmations condition (p=0.0048).
• For Negative Low (Unfavorable): main effect of time F(1,51)=5.00,
p=0.0297, no main effect of condition F(3,51)=1.7854, p=0.1617, and an
interaction between condition and time (pre/post) F(3,51)=5.06, p=0.0038.
• The interaction was driven by the fact that the IntenSati condition
(p=0.0007) Affirmations condition (0.0022), and the Exercise condition
(p=0.0110) showed less increases in unfavorable moods than the Movie
condition. In fact, all but the Movie control condition showed a decrease in
these negative moods.
Figure 2. (below to the right) : Effects on 2 subscales the State Hope
Scales: Agency (meeting goals) and Pathway (overcoming obstacles)
• For Agency: main effect of time (F1,51)=13.0978, p=0.0007,
no main effect of condition F(3,51)=0.8517, p=0.4722, and a
marginally significant interaction F(3,51)=3.7700, p=0.0161.
Since there was an interaction, the main effect of time needs
to be reinterpreted. Post-hoc t-tests showed that the
interaction was driven by the fact that the IntenSati
(p=0.007), Exercise (p=0.0091), and Affirmations (p=0.0065)
conditions showed larger improvements compared to the
Movie control condition.
• For Pathway: a main effect of time F(1,51)=13.4733,
p=0.0006, no main effect of condition F(3,51)=0.3545,
p=0.7861, and a marginally significant interaction
F(3,51)=4.3273, p=0.0086. Since there was an interaction,
the main effect of time needs to be reinterpreted. Post-hoc t-
tests showed that the interaction was driven by the fact that
the Exercise condition showed larger improvements
compared to the Movie condition (p=0.0016).
Figure 3. (right): Interoception heartbeat perception task
• There was no main effect of time F(1,51)=2.2797, p=0.1409,
condition F(3,51)=0.6027, p=0.6180, and no interaction
F(3,32)=0.51, p=0.68.
Figure 1 Figure 2
Figure 3