The Acute Effect Of Mindful High-intensity Interval Training On Inhibitory Control, Attention, And Cognitive Flexibility

Abstract

PURPOSE: High-intensity interval training (HIIT) has been shown to have acute benefits to cognitive performance, however, the existing literature has exclusively focused on the exercise bouts while ignoring the recovery intervals, which typically consist of passive breaks. This is despite compelling evidence indicating additional cognitive gains resulting from exercise combined with cognitive engagement. Properly designed recovery intervals during HIIT can be an important opportunity to deliver mindful activity, a mental exercise of self-awareness and self-regulation that has acute benefits to attention and executive function. This study investigated whether a novel mindful HIIT intervention has acute facilitating effects on inhibitory control, attention, and cognitive flexibility performance. METHODS: Using a within-subject crossover design, 59 young adults (21 ± 0.9 yrs, 22 males, BMI = 24 ± 3) completed a 30-min bout of sedentary control and mindful HIIT on separate days in counterbalanced order. The mindful HIIT included a 3-min warm-up, 3-min cool-down, and 24-min main activity consisting of three 4-min bouts of body-weight exercise separated by three 4-min bouts of mindful recovery. During the main activity, participants achieved 76% of age-predicted (208-0.7*age) maximum heart rate (HRmax) and ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) = 15. Following each condition, participants completed the stroop, d2, and trial-making tasks to measure their inhibitory control, attention, and cognitive flexibility. RESULTS: No difference in inhibitory control during stroop task or in cognitive flexibility during the trial-making task was observed between mindful HIIT and control conditions (ts ≤ 1.53, ps ≥ .13, ds ≤ 0.20). Participants showed lower omission error count (t = 2.49, p = .02, d = 0.32), total error count (t = 2.34, p = .02, d = 0.30), and total error percent (t = 2.37, p = .02, d = 0.29) during the d2 task following the mindful HIIT compared with control condition. CONCLUSIONS: These findings provide the first empirical evidence that mindful HIIT is a feasible approach to induce acute facilitation of cognitive performance. Further, this acute mindful HIIT effect may be selective for facilitating attention but not inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility.