Abstract
Physical activity offers substantial mind-body health benefits and reduced mortality, yet many individuals are chronically underactive. Physical activity interventions may benefit from integrative approaches that join components of mindfulness and neurobiological models of behavior. Mindfulness increases one’s awareness of cognitions and physical sensations to potentially facilitate self-regulation, while neurobiological models such as the dual system model of health behavior offer guidance on improving physical activity intervention targets. This 2-phase study includes an initial development process to create brief (∼4 min) mindfulness informed guided imagery audio files that target distinct cognitive and affective processes to promote physical activity. In the second phase, participants completed a 2-week pilot intervention study to gather qualitative and quantitative data on intervention feasibility and acceptability. Participants endorsed the mindfulness informed guided imagery as easy to use, enjoyable and helpful. Over a 2-week intervention period participants reported positive shifts in behavior change, physical activity enjoyment, increased mindfulness during physical activity, and increased physical exercise self-efficacy and satisfaction. Interview data revealed that participants increased their frequency of physical activity and tended to experience positive affect during physical activity, engaged in future oriented thinking and were able to view physical activity in a more positive light. Findings support the feasibility and acceptability of an integrative online mindfulness informed guided imagery intervention to promote physical activity enjoyment and engagement. This study extends health behavior change intervention research and provides supporting evidence for a flexible and tailorable online mindfulness-based intervention.
Highlights
Physical activity has been shown to exhibit a wide range of physical health benefits, from improvements in mood (Rebar et al, 2015) to reduced risk for all-cause mortality (Lear et al, 2017)
Evidence supports implementation of physical activity interventions for improving individual and population level health (Gardner et al, 2016), there is significant heterogeneity among findings and a lack of clarity regarding what intervention techniques, or what psychological correlates to behavior change, are most effective or involved in influencing physical activity behaviors and attitudes (Howlett et al, 2019)
Four guided imagery scripts were drafted such that each script included mindfulnessbased intervention content that targets physical activity enjoyment and engagement: (1) episodic future thinking, (2) positive affect and reappraisal, (3) combined positive affect and reappraisal and episodic future thinking, or (4) a guided imagery control
Summary
Physical activity has been shown to exhibit a wide range of physical health benefits, from improvements in mood (Rebar et al, 2015) to reduced risk for all-cause mortality (Lear et al, 2017). Mindfulness is purported to influence health behaviors like physical activity through improved attention regulation (Holzel et al, 2011; Vago and David, 2012), the adoption of a non-evaluative stance to the present moment (Baer, 2003), and an increased willingness to experience and accept “negative” sensations (Arch and Craske, 2006) These processes interact to enhance selfregulation (Holzel et al, 2011) which may increase one’s capacity to maintain goal-directed physical activity behavior in the face of physical discomfort (e.g., labored breathing) and selflimiting judgements (e.g., “I can never be healthy/fit/active”). Interventions that incorporate mindfulness have the potential to make meaningful improvement in low engagement health behaviors such as physical activity
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