The role of physical activity in resilience to psychological trauma

Abstract

Existing research indicates that exposure to psychological trauma can negatively impact individual mental health among a broad variety of domains. Additionally, although many victims are resilient to the psychological consequences of such trauma, those who do suffer from trauma-related pathology are often resistant to benefits associated with existing treatment. Because of its well-established associations with general mental health and positive impacts on many of the domains damaged by psychological trauma, exercise was examined as a possible moderator of the relationship between trauma exposure and adult mental health. Among a sample of 587 undergraduate college students, the results of multiple regression analysis indicated that psychological flourishing was moderated by the interaction between physical exercise and number of traumatic events, as well as by physical exercise and childhood maltreatment. In both models, the overall positive association between exercise and flourishing was gradually attenuated at higher levels of trauma. In the traumatic events model, greater trauma exposure predicted higher flourishing scores at low levels of exercise, but lower flourishing scores at high levels of exercise. In contrast, childhood maltreatment was consistently associated with lower flourishing scores, regardless of exercise participation. These results have a number of implications for future research and intervention, which are explored in the discussion section.