Decreased physical activity with subjective pleasure is associated with avoidance behaviors

The main hypothesis for the relation between physical activity and mental health is that autonomous motivation, such as subjective pleasure for the activity, plays an important role. However, no report has described empirical research designed to examine the role of subjective pleasure in the relation between objectively measured physical activity and psychological indexes. We used accelerometers to collect data indicating participants' physical activity intensity during a week. Participants recorded their subjective pleasure of activity per hour. In 69% of them, the individual correlation coefficients between physical activity and pleasure in an hour (an index of Physical Activity-Pleasure; PA-PL) were positive (r = 0.22, 95%Cl = [0.11–0.38]), indicating that pleasant sensations increased concomitantly with increasing physical activity. Conversely, 31% participants exhibited negative values of PA-PL, which means that the increase in physical activity had the opposite effect, decreasing pleasure. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that avoidance/rumination behaviors decreased significantly with increased PA-PL (β = −6.82, 95%CI: [−13.27 to −0.38], p < .05). These results indicate that subjective pleasure attached to the PA is more important than the PA amount for reducing depressive behavior.