Reduction of Fear by Intense Aerobic Exercise Approaching Physical Exhaustion

doi:10.4236/psych.2012.38093

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Psychology

2012. Vol.3, No.8, 613-615

Published Online August 2012 in SciRes (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/psych) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/psych.2012.38093

Reduction of Fear by Intense Aerobic Exercise Approaching

Physical Exhaustion

Newell Heywood, Susan Sabado, Bernaden De Leon

2309 Langdale Avenue, Eagle Rock, California, USA

Email: [email protected]

Received May 2nd, 2012; revised June 10th, 2012; accepted July 7th, 2012

This pilot experiment was done to test the hypothesis that physical exhaustion can cause a reduction in a

person’s fear level. The efficiency of intense aerobic exercise approaching physical exhaustion has been

investigated as an effective part of therapy for reduction of an individual’s fear reaction. The participants

were 5 males and 5 females, aged 30 - 40 years old. Treatment sessions were conducted over a 1 week

period where subjects first took physical check-ups to determine their physical fitness to undergo intense

aerobic exercise. Subjects met in a gym within a one-week period with 3 sessions of intense aerobic exer-

cise, with a one day rest period after each session. They took pre-test and post-tests using the Fear Ques-

tionnaire to set their current fear levels respectively. Findings showed that there is a significant change

seen in the respondents in the reduction of fear through physical exhaustion by the use of intense aerobic

exercises 1.

Keywords: Endorphins; Physical Exhaustion; Strenuous Exercise; Reduction of Fear; Runner’s High;

Virtual Reality; Fear

Introduction

Why exhaustion? Exhaustion is a marker in the same way

that street signs mark locations. A member of this research

team observed that when flying terrified and facing his fear by

flying anyway he was never helped the next time he flew. The

next time he was still just as terrified as the time before. Then

in 1984 after attending the Fear of Flying clinic at San Fran-

cisco International Airport (SFO), where they were taught to do

relaxation exercises, the team member flew from SFO to Miami,

Florida, doing relaxation exercises until exhaustion set in and

the relaxation exercises couldn’t be done any more. At that time

he realized his fear had vanished. Later, on the internet he ran

across an article written by some soldiers who claimed they had

lost their “normal fears” after an exhausting bivouac. So that is

why exhaustion became a marker. Those observations of single

events, it turns out, have experimental evidence which back

their validity.

Ströhie et al. (2005) demonstrated in an experiment that

aerobic exercise is effective in treating panic and panic attacks.

An experiment performed in 2003 demonstrated that exercise

induces analgesia and sedation in the body (Sparling, Giuffrida,

Piomelli, Rosskoph, & Deitrich, 2003). Later in 2008 an ex-

periment of “runner’s high” revealed that long distance running

releases endorphins into the body and a euphoric-like state

happens (Boecker et al., 2008). Boecker’s subjects were tested

at rest and after 2 hours of endurance running (21.5 ± 4.7 km) =

(13.9 ± 2.9 mi).

So what is analgesia and sedation in the body that causes

euphoria? Endorphins are natural body chemicals that occupy

the same receptor sites that opium and marijuana occupy which

raises the threshold of pain however there is recent evidence

which suggests that the feeling of euphoria may also be caused

by some other neural function. Kut et al. (2011) call the other

function the “opioid-insensitive inhibitory circuit”. They gave

the endorphin suppressing drug, naloxone, to subjects who

were feeling pain and others feeling pain whose pain thresholds

were elevated by pleasure. The pain feeling group felt more

pain in the absents of endorphins and the pleasure feeling group

felt no pain increase in the absents of endorphins. It appears

that Kut and his cohorts may have discovered a new function of

physiology.

This experiment will try to explore the possible change in the

fear level of the respondents by using physical exhaustion as its

treatment method. Findings of this research could pave the way

in furthering our understanding of the possible effects of exer-

cise in alleviating certain mental health related problems.

Method

Research Design

This study employed a quasi-experimental approach called a

“Single group pre-test post-test design” in order to assess the

effectiveness of the exercise treatment with the given sample

participants. This particular design is composed of a single group

of participants who underwent the same evaluation measure-

ment followed by a treatment intervention given by the research-

ers. After each of three experiment interventions were done, a

post-test was immediately conducted to assess the effectiveness

of the intervention to the participants.

Participants

This study was undertaken with 10 participants, 5 males and

5 females, ages 30 - 40 years old. Based on available data and

relevant interviews, these respondents possessed significant

varying degrees and diversified types of fear. Their fears in-

clude certain insects, relationship with significant people, fears

N. HEYWOOD ET AL.

of the unknown or future life events and many others. The par-

ticipants were given honorariums to cover their expenses. The

possibility that participant expectancy effects influenced re-

ported fear reduction is a valid concern. Even though the ex-

perimental design wasn’t known to the participants they should

have been able to figure it out after the first experiment and that

possibility cannot be guarded against in such a simple experi-

ment.

Measures

Fear Survey Schedule Π (FSS Π) was developed by James H.

Geer to measure the responses to commonly occurring fears.

The instrument lists potential fear evoking situations and stim-

uli. A client rates his or her level of discomfort or distress. Each

item is rated on a 7 point scale of intensity of fear. Higher

scores indicate greater fear. The FSS Π is considered a very

reliable instrument with an internal consistency coefficient

of .94 using Kuder Richardson formula 20.

Procedures

The participants signed informed consent forms to show their

approval to join the experiment. Selection of participants was

done thru purposive sampling wherein all the participants have

fears as shown in the results by the Fear Survey. The ten par-

ticipants took complete physical and laboratory examinations to

determine their fitness to participate in the study. The tests were

administered by the researchers who are practicing psycholo-

gists while the physical examination was conducted by a medi-

cal doctor.

The intense aerobics exercise was instructed by different

aerobic experts in their respective fields and took place in the

35th floor of an air-conditioned gym. The respondents under-

went intense aerobic exercise sessions utilizing all equipments

inside the gym up to the point of their exhaustion (1 - 3/2 hr).

The 3 sessions lasted for two to three hours with an interval of

one day rest period after each session. They were pre-tested

before the exercise intervention was done to verify their current

fear levels and were post-tested after they signaled they were

exhausted, to determine the possible change of their fear level

respectively, using the Fear Questionnaire.

Statistical Analysis

The Mean and Standard Deviation values were used to pre-

sent the current anxiety level of the respondents as measured by

the FSS Π instrument. Also, One Way Repeated Measures

ANOVA was used to test for differences in the effect of ex-

perimental interventions on the same group of subjects by ex-

amining the changes in each individual. Examining the differ-

ences between the values rather than the absolute values re-

moves any differences due to individual responses, producing a

more sensitive and more powerful test.

Results

Table 1 presents the Mean and Standard Deviation results

from the initial pre-test up to the final post-test. Reflected from

the findings, the initial pre-test achieved a 162.60 (34.89) mean

rating which classifies the respondents as having very high

levels of fears. With the application of the exercise program,

results seen from post-test 1 mean of 143.30 (41.47), post-test 2

Table 1.

Mean and standard deviation findings.

Mean Standard Deviation Interpretation

Pre-test 162.60 34.89 very high

Post-test 1 143.30 41.47 high

Post-test 2 122.10 50.14 average

Post-test 3 109.10 50.71 average

mean of 122.10 (50.14) and post-test 3 mean of 109.10 (50.71),

there is a substantial decrease on the fear levels seen in the

respondents n from High to Average.

Discussion

This experiment was meant only to be a pilot study to alert

the psychological community of the reality of fearlessness pro-

duced by physical exhaustion. Its small budget dictated that

only ten experimental subjects be used without a control group.

It’s obvious that such a small number doesn’t constitute scien-

tific proof and no valid conclusions can be drawn from it how-

ever other experiments, unknown to us at the time, demonstrate

that these experimental results are correct. The other experi-

ments demonstrate that physical exhaustion produces endor-

phins which cause body feelings of sedation, analgesia and

euphoria which are incompatible with fear. So it turned out that

not using a control group didn’t hurt the results of this experi-

ment, the results were exactly what they should have been.

Physical exhaustion, the state where a person can no longer

effectively continue doing exercises, was used as the end of the

intervention because other markers or procedures weren’t

known to us at the time. However there are other strategies that

can be used. Ströhie et al. (2005) demonstrated in an experi-

ment that aerobic exercise is effective in treating panic and

panic attacks. They used aerobic exercise for 30 minutes at

70% of maximum oxygen consumption however they made no

claims that endorphins were involved.

This experiment was performed in the third week of March,

2010, in the Fitness First health center on the 35th floor of the

Wynsum building in Manila and wasn’t published until 2012,

however in the intervening time we discovered the experiments

on runner’s high which greatly strengthens these findings.

Those studies have demonstrated that long distance running,

which we equate to physical exhaustion, releases endorphins

inducing analgesia and sedation in the body and a euphoric-like

feeling happens. Thus it appears that endorphins released into

the body by strenuous exercise cause a decrease in a person’s

fear and anxiety level which explains the success of this ex-

periment.

It’s obvious that slight or mild diseases and conditions re-

spond best to treatment whereas severe conditions respond less

favorably so. This holds true in the treatment of fear and anxi-

ety also, which is the subject of this report. Numerous studies

of cognitive behavioral therapy conclude that there is a small

percentage, 10% to 15%, of treated clients who get no relief

from their fears at all. Thus the people who have the least fear

get the best results from therapy and those who have the most

fear get none at all. The other anxious people lie somewhere

between those two conditions. Might it be possible that by us-

ing physical exhaustion to lessen a client’s fear, before expo-

sure therapy begins, that he may temporarily transcend out from

the untreatable group into the less fearful more successfully

614

N. HEYWOOD ET AL.

treatable group?

Another possible application of exhaustion reduced fear is in

the treatment of soldiers returning home with post traumatic

stress disorder (PTSD). The US army is using virtual reality at

Walter Reed Hospital in treating PTSD to revive soldier’s re-

pressed memories and thus make them amenable to therapy.

Obviously, fear related stress so powerful that it causes repres-

sion of memories belongs in the “get no relief” (GNR) group.

So when virtual reality revives their repressed memories, the

soldiers are still in the GNR group. Virtual reality therapy has

been reported to be 62% successful, (Reger et al., 2011). That

leaves 38% unsuccessfully treated. Perhaps endorphin releasing

strenuous exercise before virtual reality therapy begins will

improve their success rates. How long the fearlessness state

exists isn’t known and needs to be determined experimentally,

however endorphins in the body exist for a finite time so it

would be best to do the exposure therapy immediately after

exhaustion is produced.

Thus if people temporarily suspended or at least significantly

reduced their fears before therapy by using endorphin releasing

exercises then perhaps they would transfer out of the untreat-

able group and into the more successfully treatable group. An

interesting variation of this procedure would be to use the ele-

vated pain threshold activated by pleasure, in place of exhaus-

tion, as done by Kut and his associates to see what effect that

has. This experiment points to the need for more experiments to

clarify the exhaustion-reduced-fear phenomena.

Acknowledgements

Susan Sabado and Bernaden De Leon designed, performed

and wrote the experiment results. They are graduate psychology

students at The University of Santo Tomas in Manila. They are

also associated with the Philippine Mental Hospital in Manila.

Special thanks to Bella Z. Canuto who helped make this un-

dertaking possible.

Dr. Romeo Sabado gave the participants physical exams and

was present at all three sessions monitoring their health. He is

the resident neurologist at the Philippine Mental Hospital.

Newell W. Heywood Jr. originated, funded, wrote the intro-

duction and discussion, and had this report published.

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