Exercise reduces desire to smoke and visual attentional bias for cigarettes, but does exercise intensity make a difference?
| Author(s)
Hwajung Oh and Adrian H. Taylor
| | Presenter(s) |
Hwajung Oh PhD Student, Sport & Health Sciences, University of Exeter | Abstract Moderate intensity exercise reduces cigarette cravings and visual attentional bias (AB) for cigarettes in temporarily abstinent smokers (Taylor et al., 2007), but it is unknown if harder exercise is more beneficial. 15 male and 8 female abstaining smokers (age=23.9±4.8yrs, BMI 23.5±2.9, FTND=2.8(1.8)), in a counterbalanced design, did 15 min of moderate and vigorous intensity cycling and rest, on separate days. Initial and maintained AB to eight randomly presented pairs of cigarette/neutral 8.2sec video clips was assessed using an eye tracker (Pan/Tilt 504, ASL) pre and post-treatment at each session.
Self-reported cravings (Tiffany & Drobes, 1991) were assessed pre, mid and post-treatment. Fully repeated ANOVAs revealed a condition x time interaction for cigarette cravings, and initial and maintained AB. Post-hoc t-tests revealed that after vigorous and moderate exercise desire to smoke and initial AB (% of first fixation on cigarette images) were lower compared to rest. Only after vigorous exercise was maintained AB (% of dwell time on cigarettes) lower than after rest.
This is the first study to show that both moderate and vigorous exercise reduces cigarette cravings and initial bias to smoking images and that only vigorous exercise helps to maintain reduced AB towards smoking-related cues, using video clips.
| Source of funding: None
| Declaration of interest: None
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