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Humanities & Social Sciences papers Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

1-1-1994

Aerobic exercise, mood states and menstrual cyclesymptomsJulie A. AganoffUniversity of Queensland

Gregory J. BoyleBond University, Gregory_Boyle@bond.edu.au

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Recommended CitationJulie A. Aganoff and Gregory J. Boyle. (1994) "Aerobic exercise, mood states and menstrual cyclesymptoms" ,, .

http://epublications.bond.edu.au/hss_pubs/37

Aerobic exercise, mood states and menstrual cycle symptoms

By Julie A. Aganoff and Gregory J. Boyle

Based on a paper presented at the 28th Annual Conference of the AustralianPsychological Society, Gold Coast, Qld., 29 September2 October 1993.

Address correspondence to: Dr G.J. Boyle, Associate Professor of Psychology, BondUniversity, Gold Coast, Qld 4229, Australia

This study examined the effects of regular, moderate exercise on mood states andmenstrual cycle symptoms. A group of female regular exercisers (N = 97), and asecond group of female non-exercisers (N = 159), completed the Menstrual DistressQuestionnaire (MDQ) and the Differential Emotions Scale (DES-IV) premenstrually,menstrually and intermenstrually. Multivariate analyses of covariance (MANCOVAs)revealed significant effects for exercise on negative mood states and physicalsymptoms, and significant effects on all measures across menstrual cycle phase. Theregular exercisers obtained significantly lower scores on impaired concentration,negative affect, behaviour change and pain. No differences were found betweengroups on positive affect and other physical symptoms.

Introduction

Evidence exists for behavioral and somatic changes across the menstrual cycle [ 1, 2].Some studies have found significant changes in mood states [3-7], while others havefound no significant changes [8, 9]. The premenstrual phase* occurs over at least 4days prior to onset of menstruation [8, 10-12]. Up to 97% of women experience somephysical symptoms and mood changes premenstrually. Some 50% experience minorchanges premenstrually, while 35% experience symptoms and mood changes thatdisrupt work, social and family life. Approximately 5-10% experience severelydebilitating symptoms that cause major disruptions to their lives [14]. Mood changessuch as anxiety, depression, confusion, emotional lability, irritability, loss ofconcentration, lethargy, and aggression/hostility, have been associated with themenstrual cycle [10]. Physical symptoms reported mainly during thepremenstrual/paramenstrual phases [14], include skin disorders, oedema, pelvic pain,breast tenderness, headaches, muscle pain, weight increase and vomiting [15]. Corneyand Stanton [6] reported that 63% of women experienced symptoms and moodchanges up to 3 days after the onset of menstruation while 5% reported debilitatingeffects continuing until the end of menstruation. All women reported theirsymptoms/mood changes as lasting from 2 to 8 days premenstrually. Treatmentsinclude administration of antidepressants and tranquillisers, hormonal treatments suchas oral contraceptives, counselling and psychotherapy [14].

*The terms premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and premenstrual tension (PMT) have been usedinterchangeably in the literature. There is no single definition of what is meant by premenstrual [8].This paper uses the classification of Dalton [13] where PMS refers to the whole collection of physicalsymptoms and psychological mood states while PMT refers to mood states only.

With regard to physical symptoms of dysmenorrhoea (painful periods), physicalexercise has been advocated as a therapeutic treatment [16-18]. However, surprisinglylittle research has evaluated the effects of aerobic exercise on menstrual cyclesymptoms and mood states [19]. Metheny and Smith [18] measured positive andnegative affect and found that women who exercised regularly reported more positiveaffect than non-exercisers. Gannon et al. [1] found that the length of time women hadbeen exercising correlated significantly with lower levels of menstrual symptoms.Keye [20] reported lower levels of anxiety in women who exercised regularlycompared with non-exercisers, while Schwartz, et al. [21] found that women runnersreported a decrease in premenstrual symptoms.

Evidence suggests that aerobic exercise reduces negative affect [22-241 and exceptfor the Metheny and Smith [18] study, the evidence [l, 20, 21] suggests that womenwho exercise regularly exhibit lower levels of negative affect and physical symptomsacross the menstrual cycle. This study tests the hypothesis that women whoparticipate in regular, aerobic exercise will report less negative affect and lower levelsof physical symptoms, throughout the menstrual cycle, than non-exercisers.

METHODSubjects and procedureTwo health and fitness clubs were contacted and 124 regular exercisers volunteered toparticipate in the study (volunteers were requested at the end of aerobic exercisesessions). A total of 97 out of 124 women who indicated that they were regularexercisers (at least 5 hr per week) at the health and fitness clubs completed thequestionnaires. Exercising women ranged in age from 15 to 48 yr (M = 26.35 yr; SD= 6.44 yr). Of the 27 women who did not return questionnaires, five became pregnant,seven stopped exercising and 15 either could not be contacted or misplaced thequestionnaire. In addition, 159 healthy, but generally non-exercising women agedbetween 16 and51 yr (M = 21.23 yr; SD = 6.88 yr) were recruited from varioussources, including undergraduate students. Questionnaires were handed out tovolunteers during a short briefing session. Participants were instructed to fill out theDES-IV and MDQ scales on three separate occasions (menstrually, premenstruallyand intermenstrually). Aside from age, demographic information includingcontraceptive pill use, marital status, number of children and amount of regularweekly exercise was also collected.

MeasuresThe Menstrual Distress Questionnaire or MDQ [10, 11] is a forty-seven-item self-report instrument, scored on a five-point Likert-type scale. The eight MDQ subscalesassess menstrual cycle symptoms such as cramps, headache and backache, moodstates such as depression and irritability, and behavior changes such as difficulty inconcentrating and decreased efficiency. Evidence of reliability and validity has beenprovided by Boyle [25, 26]. The Differential Emotions Scale or DES-IV [27], is athirty-six-item self-report measure of twelve fundamental emotions. Boyle [4] hasprovided evidence supporting the reliability and validity of the DES-IV. To enable aclear and parsimonious examination of the effects of exercise on physical symptomsand mood states across the menstrual cycle, individual MDQ and DES-IV subscaleswere grouped according to higher-order factors identified by Boyle [27].

In investigating the factor structure of the MDQ, Boyle had reported two second-orderfactors: a Psychological Factor-loading on the impaired concentration, behaviourchange, negative affect, and control subscales; and a Physical Symptoms Factor-loading on the pain, water retention, autonomic reactions and arousal subscales.

In an investigation of the factor structure of the DES-IV instrument, Boyle [27]reported three second order factors: Extraversion-loading on interest, joy, and surprisesubscales; Hostility-loading on sadness, anger, disgust, and contempt; andNeuroticism-loading on hostility, fear, shame, shyness, and guilt subscales. Thesehigher-order factors are used in the present study to facilitate interpretability offindings, by providing a more parsimonious account of the links between exercise,menstrual-cycle phase and mood-state changes. As the higher-order factors load on anincreased number of items, they are necessarily more reliable than the primary MDQand DES-IV subscales.

RESULTSMedian test-retest reliability coefficients across the respective menstrual cycle phasesfor the higher-order factors were 0.57 (premenstrual/menstrual), 0.53 (premenstrual/intermenstrual), and 0.48 (menstrual/intermenstrual), and for the primary subscales-median coefficients were 0.55, 0.43, and 0.42 respectively (see Table I). Medianinternal reliability coefficients for the higher-order factors were 0.83 (premenstrual),0.83 (menstrual), and 0.78 (intermenstrual), respectively. As both instrumentsmeasure state variables, the test-retest reliabilities are moderate only, as would beexpected if the MDQ and DES-IV subscales are truly sensitive to variability acrosscycle phases. However, the physical symptom variables were less stable across themenstrual cycle than were psychological and mood-state variables (mediancoefficients being 0.8 1 (Psychological), 0.53 (Physical), 0.84 (Hostility), 0.78(Extraversion), and 0.89 (Neuroticism).

Given the mixed design (2 between groups x 3 occasions), preliminary ANOVAschecked differences between groups on several independent variables including age,contraceptive pill use, and menstrual distress between the exercise and non-exercisegroups, as these variables have been associated with menstrual cycle symptoms [I,281. The groups differed significantly only on age [two-tailed t(254) = - 5.99, p