Running head: EXERCISE SOCIAL EXPEREMENT

Physical Activitys Effect on Mood and Personality

Brian Young, and Landon Middleton
University of North Carolina at Charlotte

EXERCISE SOCIAL EXPEREMENT

Physical Activitys Effect on Mood and Personality

INTRODUCTION
Physical activity is any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that requires
energy expenditure (Casperson, Powell, Christenson, 1985, p.1). When exercising endorphins
and dopamine are realized into the brain. Dopamine is known as the pleasure chemical that is
released into the receptors of the brain, this explains the gratifying feeling after exercising. Then
endorphins that are released by pituitary glands make the body feel exhilarated and enlightened
(Roberts, 2013, p.1). During this study physical activity will be used to determine it effect on the
mood and personality of the host after exercise in the morning before class.
Running comes with numerous benefits that can improve anyones day. A key factor
from running is that it reduces stress. As humans, all know how stressful lives can be at a certain
point, but with a little exercise, stress can be a lot easier to deal with. It also boosts happy
chemicals. Running can make you feel better about the day. As said before, when running, your
brain releases endorphins. It gives the brainpower needed to cope with everyday difficulties,
even anxiety. The more you exercise, the more chemicals are released from running, which in
turn, the calmer you will be throughout your day.
Other benefits include helping with addiction from drugs, alcohol, sex, and food. Short
sessions of running or exercising can help distract drug and alcohol addicts, making them deprioritize cravings. Tending to become more relaxed throughout the day. If you are up moving
around 5 to 6 hours before sleep, it raises the body temperature. Just before you go to sleep, the
temperature of your body will decrease allowing signals from the brain to send signals that it is
bedtime. Running sharpens memory and allows you to get more done. It helps you to stable and

EXERCISE SOCIAL EXPEREMENT

boost memory, especially when in school. All of these benefits are used for college students and
adults because humans all have experienced these challenges before.
Increasing physical activity is a goal of all humnas. Although the health benefits of
physical activity are documented, older adults and college students are less physically active than
any other age group. The purpose of this study was to examine barriers and facilitators to
physical activity and exercise among people (Belza, Walwick, Schwartz, LoGerfo, ShiuThornton, Taylor, 2004 p.1-4).

PARTICIPANTS
Participants include two or three different people who are too busy to exercise during the
day but have the desire to do so. Along with that, the subjects sleeping schedule needs to be off
for the social experiment to work properly. Plan your day as you would any other day. Make sure
to go to sleep late and wake up late. Then every other day, change it up by waking up early to
exercise and then making sure to go to sleep early. For example, get up early on Monday and
Wednesday and run, then just wake up early on Tuesday and Thursday. Each participant will
need to repeat this for a whole week. All of these different factors need to be present in order for
the experiment to show valid results.
MEASURES
Each participant will have to be honest with their documentation because there is no solid
scientific evidence that goes into this experiment. It is all based on how the participant feels
throughout the day. Before they start the experiment, the participant needs to make 5 by 12
spreadsheet. The rows are Monday through Friday and the columns are 12 hours during the day,

EXERCISE SOCIAL EXPEREMENT

the other 12 hours are sleeping hours that will not count towards the final results. In each of these
boxes the participant will need to record two different numbers ranging on a scale from one to
five. The first number is to record how tired or drowsy the subject feels, and the second number
is to record how social the participant feels throughout the day. Five being amazing, the best they
have felt all day; and one being awful, and the worst they have felt all day. Record both for each
hour.
PROCEDURES
Starting on Monday, the participant will need to wake up at 8:00 am and run for
approximately one hour. The participant will still need to record how he/she feels while running.
Then from that point on, the participant will go on through their normal day remembering to
record how they feel at every hour. Once the participant has completed 12 hours of documenting
results, further analysis will be required to describe the overall stature of the participants day.
On Tuesday, the participant will wake up late and go about the day as he/she normally would.
The participant then will record how he/she feels at every hour. Then further information will be
required on how that specific day went. Average the numbers that were recorded at each hour
and have an accumulative result. Repeat this for the rest of the week.
RESULTS
After the week of getting up early and running to see if it changes the participants mood
and personality, the results were very conclusive. The subjects personality had changes through
the hours between 11:00 am to 7:00 pm with a much higher average of a 4.3 on how social the
subject feels and a solid 4.0 on the subjects drowsiness. This is much different compared to the
mornings in which we didnt run. For the same hours, it averaged a 3.7 on how the subject felt,

EXERCISE SOCIAL EXPEREMENT

and a 3.3 for the subjects drowsiness which is significantly lower. On the other hand, the time
left over which is from 8:00 am to 11:00 pm and then to 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm the numbers
switched. On mornings that we didnt run, the subjects mood was a 3.1 and the subjects
drowsiness was a 2.7 during the pre-mentioned hours. This is compared to the mornings in which
we did run, the results included an average of 2.5 on the subjects mood and an even 2.0 on how
drowsy he/she was. Comparatively speaking, the results speak for themselves.
Figure 1

Monday (run)
Tuesday (sleep)
Wednesday (run)
Thursday (sleep)
Friday (run)

8:00 AM 9:00 AM 10:00 AM 11:00 AM 12:00 PM 1:00 PM 2:00 PM 3:00 PM 4:00 PM 5:00 PM 6:00 PM 7:00 PM 8:00 PM AVERAGE:
1,1
2,3
3,4
3,4
3,4
5,5
5,5
5,5
4,5
3,4
3,3
3,3
2,3
(3.2,3.8)
1,1
3,3
3,3
3,3
3,4
3,4
3,3
3,3
3,3
4,2
4,3
4,3
4,3
(3.2,2.9)
1,1
1,3
3,4
3,5
3,5
5,5
5,5
5,5
4,4
4,3
3,2
2,2
2,2
(3.2,3.5)
1,1
4,2
3,3
3,4
3,4
4,5
5,4
3,4
3,5
3,4
3,4
3,3
3,3
(3.2, 3.4)
1,1
2,4
4,4
4,5
4,5
5,5
5,5
5,4
4,4
3,3
3,3
2,3
2,3
(3.4, 3.8)
(Tired, Mood)

Figure 2

SUBJECT'S PERSONALITY
1

14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Morning Without Running
(Tuesday, Thursday)

Morning With Running

(Monday, Wednesday)

EXERCISE SOCIAL EXPEREMENT

Figure 3

SUBJECT'S DROWSINESS
1

18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Morning without running
(Tuesday, Thursday)

Morning With Running

(Monday, Wednesday)

DISCUSSION
The results and data were very compelling and shows how the body not only works but
how it responds when it comes to physical activity. As the data shows, no matter what day it
was, the subjects mood was nearly lackadaisical in the mornings whether he/she ran or not. The
subjects personality was much better on days that the subject ran which makes sense because of
the endorphins that were released into the subjects brain after exercising. This makes the body
feel exhilarated and enlightened which leads to being more energetic and more awake as the day
goes on. In comparison, when they body wakes up for no reason, like at 8:00 in the morning, the
lack of sleep causes the body to become tired and broken-down. Yet, as the day progressed the

EXERCISE SOCIAL EXPEREMENT

mood and personality improved as expected. As college students, energy is in short supply
which means there are limitations to study. There is one major goal of this study and hat was to
develop a short and easy that can be simple to test. That is a huge part of recording information
for test like these (Katz, Cushman, Reynolds, Njike, Treu, Katz C., Walker, Smith, 2010, p. 1-4).
The reasoning to why the subjects were more awake in the afternoon on days in which
they did not run are very straightforward. When the body is involved in running or any physical
exercise in general, it uses a lot of energy and in order to become more alert but body needs to
restore that energy. There are different ways it can do this. Over time the body makes more and
more energy but to gain energy faster the body needs to consume some sort of food whether it is
protein or a substance that has a high sugar content This came into conflict with the subjects
schedule because he/she would have to go to class directly after, leaving him/her no time to
consume energy and rebuild what the body lost during physical activity. This causes the subjects
to be more tired during the afternoon compared to the mornings in which the subjects did not run
(Topolski, LoGerfo, Patrick D., Williams, Walwick, Patrick M., 2006, p. 5-6)
Now to look at the facts and data and apply it to a reasonable conclusion, figure 2 and
figure 3are great diagrams. Figure 2 shows the majority of the time, the subjects felt mostly
threes and fours which means that they never really felt amazing or perfect throughout the days
in which they did not run. Comparing this to the days that the subjects that did run, the average
way they felt was more fours and fives. Even though on days that the subjects did not run had
less threes, the data still shows that that the average drowsiness for the subjects was the same
besides on Fridays. That was mostly because the subjects were happier that the week was ending
and the subjects were getting used to getting up at 8:00 am and running.

EXERCISE SOCIAL EXPEREMENT

In conclusion, based on days that we did run, the subjects had more fives which means
the subjects felt better throughout the day. Even though the subjects averaged the same
drowsiness, the mood on days that the subjects did run, were significantly higher. So, based on
the data collected, if participating in physical activity in the morning, the endorphins and
dopamine that is released into the brain will significantly increase your mood through the day.

EXERCISE SOCIAL EXPEREMENT

9
References

Belza B., Walwick J., Schwartz S., LoGerfo J., Shiu-Thornton S., Taylor M. (2004). Older adult
perspectives on physical activity and exercise: voices from multiple cultures. Preventing
Chronic Disease. 1(4), 1-2.
Topolski T. D., LoGerfo J., Patrick D. L., Williams B., Walwick J., Patrick M. B. (2006). The
rapid assessment of physical activity (RAPA) among older adults. Preventing Chronic
Disease. 3(4), 1-4.
Katz D. L., Cushman D., Reynolds J., Njike V., Treu J. A., Katz C., Walker J., Smith E. (2010).
Putting physical activity where it fits in the school day: preliminary results of the ABC
(activity bursts in the classroom) for fitness program. Preventing Chronic Disease. 7(4).
1-5.
Casperson C. J., Powell K. E., Christenson G. M. (1985). Physical activity, exercise, and
physical fitness: definitions and distinctions for health-related research. Public Health
Reports. 100(2), 5-6.
Roberts A. M. (2013). Health junkie: hormones and chemicals released due to exercise.
Popsugar. 1(1), 1.