Being Active Now Improves Your Mood and Energy Later
If you notice a client’s mood is a little low, try getting up and moving around during your coaching session. According to research findings from Johns Hopkins University, the physical movement could help boost their mood and energy later on, which could be beneficial for coaching clients who want to get to work on their coaching plan and actions.
For the study, researchers monitored a group of participants over the course of two weeks to see how sleep, motor activity and mood might affect each other.
The 242 participants, ages 15 to 84, with the average age of 48 years, wore devices on their nondominant wrists to automatically record minute-to-minute activity. They also reported their assessed mood and energy levels in an electronic diary at four time-points throughout the day—in the morning, at lunchtime, at dinnertime and before bed. They used a seven-point scale ranging from “very happy” to “very sad” for mood and from “very tired” to “very energetic” for energy.
On average, the researchers found that:
- A higher activity level at one time-point was associated with improved mood and increased perceived energy at the next time-point during the day
- Increased energy at one time-point was associated with increased activity at the next time-point
- More activity in the day was associated with less sleep that night
- More sleep was followed by less activity the next day
These associations were controlled for current mood, energy and activity levels.
Fifty-four of the participants had bipolar disorder, and the researchers are planning to apply their findings to interventions that could offset depressive episodes in people with bipolar disorder.
The findings were published in JAMA Psychiatry.
Lisa Cunningham (USA)
Lisa Cunningham is director of marketing content and communications for ICF. She holds a master’s degree in professional writing with a focus on web content development from Chatham University and a bachelor’s degree in English writing and communication from the University of Pittsburgh.
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