The “holy grail” for many people who cannot find motivation to exercise is entertain. However, instead of forcing yourself to enjoy running or that gym class you attended, the solution can be simpler: Simply combine training with your personality typeaccording to a study published on Tuesday (8) in the magazine Frontiers in Psychology.
This is because people with different personality traits appreciate different types of exercise, the study found.
More outgoing people, for example, prefer high intensity training sessions with other people, such as sports sports. Already those with high score in “neuroticism” – a metric that measures the emotional instability of someone – prefer private training without being observed, and with small breaks.
As for people with a high score in conscientiousness, they “were more likely to have a good physical form … and we think this is because conscious individuals are more likely to be motivated by the fact that exercise is good for them,” said the main co -author of the study, Flaminia Ronca, an associated science teacher at University College London.
“Personality determines which intensities and forms of exercise attract us … If we can understand this, then we can take the first step in engagement and exercise in sedentary individuals,” she told CNN.
These findings have important implications to encourage more people to exercise, especially since only 22.5% of adults and 19% of adolescents worldwide get those recommended by the World Health Organization, according to the study.
Focusing on personality types, health professionals can offer a “more personalized approach to exercise,” said Angelina Sutin, a professor at Florida State University who specializes in investigating the links between personality and health, and was not involved in the study.
“Usually … we tell people to exercise and we just say, ‘We know that high intensity interval training is good for you, so you should do it,'” he said.
“But for people with high neuroticism, they won’t do it, and we also know that low intensity exercise can also be beneficial. Knowing that someone has high neuroticism, recommending this kind of exercise, perhaps people are more likely to engage in him,” he added.
It is important to note that personality traits interact with each other, added Ronca. Some people punctuate high in both neuroticism and conscientiousness, which means that although they may find an anxiety-inducing exercise, they are much more likely to do so, because they know it is good for them, he said.
To reach their discoveries, Ronca and his colleagues in London first instructed the 132 study participants, aged 25 to 51, to fill a questionnaire revealing their personality traits. The study employed a commonly used model that conceptualizes someone’s personality through five traits – extroversion, neuroticism, kindness, openness and conscientiousness.
“… These are just descriptions of the way people behave in certain situations,” Paul Burgess, professor of neuroscience at UCL who co-lids the study, to CNN. “And the way people behave in certain situations is largely determined by their brain abilities, which they realize, they pay attention, what they can remember, how fast they can react.”
The researchers then performed physical fitness tests on the participants and randomly divided them into two groups. One group received a cycling plan and eight -week force, while the control group did 10 minutes a week of stretching exercises. Of the 132 original participants, 86 completed pre and post intervention tests on both sides of these eight weeks.
The study team found that while physical fitness improved in all personality types for those who completed the cycling and strength program, there was a striking difference in the pleasure of exercises. More outgoing people enjoyed the high intensity physical fitness tests, while more “neurotic” people liked home -based low intensity sessions.
Personality traits also influenced how exercise affected one’s stress levels. People with a high score in neuroticism had a significant reduction in self-remedied stress, much more than any other group, the study found.
“Those who would benefit the most of a stress reduction were the ones who really showed a decrease in stress after these eight weeks of exercise,” said Ronca. “And I think this is a very powerful message to give.”
Given the many benefits of exercise, including stress reduction, both Ronca and Burgess expect their discoveries to encourage people to find alternative forms of exercise outside the most traditional training they may not like.
“There is a danger, perhaps, that the focus becomes competitive sports and serious engagement at a time when young people are starting to have much more demands on them,” Burgess said. “There are many personalities who do not respond well to this kind of situation, which consider it quite stressful.”
