When referring to life space, researchers usually mean the area in which individuals move in their everyday lives. Life space can be measured based on different approaches, by means of self-reports (i.e., questionnaires or diaries) or by more recent approaches of technology-based objective assessment (e.g., via Global Positioning System [GPS] devices or smartphones). Life space is an important indicator of older adults’ out-of-home mobility and is meaningfully associated with autonomy, well-being, and quality of life. Substantial relationships between life space and socio-demographic indicators, health, and cognitive abilities have been reported in previous research. Future research on life space in old age will benefit from a more comprehensive and stronger interdisciplinary perspective, from taking into account different time scales (i.e., short- and long-term variability), and from considering life space as a multidimensional measure that can be best assessed based on multi-method approaches with multiple indicators.
Article
Life Space in Older Adults
Markus Wettstein, Hans-Werner Wahl, and Michael Schwenk
Article
Loneliness and Health
Aparna Shankar
Loneliness or perceived social isolation is a subjective experience relating to dissatisfaction with one’s social relationships. Most research has focused on the experience of loneliness in old age, but levels of loneliness are also known to be high among teenagers and young adults. While poor health may be associated with increased feelings of loneliness, there is now considerable evidence on the role of loneliness as a risk factor for poor mental and physical health. Studies show that loneliness is associated with an increased risk of developing dementia and chronic diseases, and also with a higher rate of mortality. Risky health behaviors, a poor cardiovascular profile and compromised immune functioning have all been proposed as potential pathways through which loneliness may affect health. However, much still remains to be understood about these mechanisms.
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Methods of Health Behavior Change
Ildiko Tombor and Susan Michie
People’s behavior influences health, for example, in the prevention, early detection, and treatment of disease, the management of illness, and the optimization of healthcare professionals’ behaviors. Behaviors are part of a system of behaviors within and between people in that any one behavior is influenced by others. Methods for changing behavior may be aimed at individuals, organizations, communities, and/or populations and at changing different influences on behavior, e.g., motivation, capability, and the environment. A framework that encapsulates these influences is the Behavior Change Wheel, which links an understanding of behavior in its context with methods to change behavior. Within this framework, methods are conceptualized at three levels: policies that represent high-level societal and organizational decisions, interventions that are more direct methods to change behavior, and behavior change techniques that are the smallest components that on their own have the potential to change behavior. In order to provide intervention designers with a systematic method to select the policies, interventions, and/or techniques relevant for their context, a set of criteria can be used to help select intervention methods that are likely to be implemented and effective. One such set is the “APEASE” criteria: affordability, practicability, effectiveness, acceptability, safety, and equity.
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Personality and Health
Sarah E. Hampson
Although the belief that personality is linked to health goes back at least to Greek and Roman times, the scientific study of these links began in earnest only during the last century. The field of psychosomatic medicine, which grew out of psychoanalysis, accepted that the body and the mind were closely connected. By the end of the 20th century, the widespread adoption of the five-factor model of personality and the availability of reliable and valid measures of personality traits transformed the study of personality and health. Of the five broad domains of personality (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and intellect/openness), the most consistent findings in relation to health have been obtained for conscientiousness (i.e., hard-working, reliable, self-controlled). People who are more conscientious have better health and live longer lives than those who are less conscientious. These advantages are partly explained by the better health behaviors, good social relationships, and less stress that tend to characterize those who are more conscientious. The causal relation between personality and health may run in both directions; that is, personality influences health, and health influences personality. In addition to disease diagnoses and longevity, changes on biomarkers such as inflammation, cortisol activity, and cellular aging are increasingly used to chart health in relation to personality traits and to test explanatory models. Recognizing that both personality and health change over the life course has promoted longitudinal studies and a life-span approach to the study of personality and health.
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Physical Activity and Sleep
Sayaka Aritake-Okada and Sunao Uchida
Research indicates that both acute and chronic physical activity improve sleep. Effects on sleep include prolongation of total sleep time, slow wave sleep increase, rapid eye movement sleep decrease, wake after sleep onset reduction, and shortened sleep latency. However, detailed biological mechanisms of these effects have not been well elucidated.
Past studies strongly suggest that the sleep-promoting effect of exercise could be multifactorial. Increase of slow wave sleep, which has been repeatedly reported, strongly suggests physical activity effects on central nervous system function. Physical activity also elevates body temperature, alters glucose, and impacts other metabolic regulations. Habitual exercise also alters autonomic nervous system predominance measured by heart rate variability.
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Physical Activity and Stress Reactivity
Stephen H. Boutcher
Cardiovascular disease has been estimated to be responsible for over 30% of deaths worldwide. The traditional cardiovascular risk factors of smoking, obesity, diabetes, physical inactivity, and family history predict about 50% of the variance of new cardiovascular disease cases; therefore, a number of other risk factors must contribute to cardiovascular disease development. One such factor is psychological stress, which has been identified as playing a role in the development of cardiovascular disease. The major research strategy for assessing the impact of psychological stress on cardiovascular disease development is to measure cardiovascular reactivity to laboratory mental stressors. Exaggerated mental stress-induced cardiovascular reactivity and slow stressor recovery have been associated with the development of cardiovascular disease.
In contrast to exposure to psychological stress, there is strong evidence that participation in aerobic exercise leads to a reduction in cardiovascular disease. Participation in regular aerobic exercise generally reduces the cardiovascular response to acute exercise; therefore, researchers have hypothesized that the ability of aerobic exercise to enhance cardiovascular health works partly by modifying the cardiovascular reactivity response to mental stressors. There is mixed evidence to suggest that chronic aerobic exercise decreases or increases cardiovascular reactivity to mental challenge in normotensive, healthy individuals. A decrease in reactivity, however, has been found in those studies that have examined individuals at risk of disease or diseased adults. The optimal volume and intensity of aerobic exercise that brings about maximum decreases in cardiovascular reactivity has yet to be determined. The impact of other forms of exercise on reactivity such as resistance exercise and interval sprinting exercise is starting to be assessed. The challenge for researchers in this area is to identify the mode of exercise that takes the least amount of time but brings about the greatest reduction of levels of stress-induced cardiovascular disease.
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Physical Activity, Physical Fitness, and Anxiety
Steven J. Petruzzello
A historically popular research topic in exercise psychology has been the examination of the exercise-anxiety relationship, with an ever-growing literature exploring the link between exercise and anxiety. In addition to its potential for preventing anxiety and anxiety disorders, an increasing number of studies have examined the utility of physical activity and exercise interventions for the treatment of elevated anxiety and clinical anxiety disorders. A National Institute of Mental Health “state-of-the-art workshop” in 1984 was the first significant call put forth that understanding the anxiety-reducing potential of exercise was important and required further investigation. Since the publication of the evidence that came out of that NIMH workshop in Morgan and Goldston’s 1987 book, “Exercise and Mental Health,” a great deal more has been learned yet key aspects of the relationship between exercise and anxiety remain unknown. There is a great deal of work that remains to make good on the “potential efficacy of exercise.”
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Physical Activity, Physical Fitness, and Quality of Life
Brian C. Focht and Ciaran M. Fairman
Health-related quality of life (HRQL) is a multidimensional subcomponent of quality of life involving subjective appraisal of various dimensions of one’s life that can be affected by health or health-related interventions. There is considerable evidence demonstrating that exercise consistently results in meaningful improvements in an array of HRQL outcomes. Advances in the conceptualization of HRQL and recent evidence identifying select moderators and mediators of the effects of upon HRQL outcomes have important implications for the design and delivery of exercise interventions. Taken collectively, contemporary findings support the utility of adopting a hierarchical, bottom-up approach to the investigation of the effects of exercise upon HRQL.
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Prevalence, Measurement, and Experience of Eating Disorders in Sport and Retirement
Trent A. Petrie
Although the specific prevalence rates may vary, eating disorders (ED) affect male and female athletes regardless of sport type and competitive level. Generally, rates of subclinical disorders are much higher than clinical ones, with the most frequent clinical classification being Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified. Further, EDs occur not only among active athletes, but are also found in samples of retired athletes as well. Existing research on the prevalence of EDs in athletes, however, has been limited due to its reliance on out-of-date diagnostic criteria, sometimes small samples, and a focus on point prevalence to the exclusion of examining how rates might change over time. Central to prevalence research and clinical assessments is the ability to accurately assess EDs in athletes. Although structured clinical interviews represent the most valid approach, they are time consuming and not often used in determining prevalence. Researchers have relied on self-report measures instead. Such measures include those developed initially in nonathletes, but used to study athletes (e.g., Questionnaire for Eating Disorder Diagnosis; Mintz, O’Halloran, Mulholland, & Schneider, 1997), and those specifically for athletes (e.g., Athletic Milieu Direct Questionnaire; Nagel, Black, Leverenz, & Coster, 2000). Most of these measures, though having adequate psychometric properties, are based on diagnostic criteria that are no longer in use, so additional research that employs prevalence measures that reflect DSM-5 criteria is needed with athletes. Most ED research in sport has used samples of active athletes; few studies have considered how the transition out of sport might affect athletes’ perceptions of their bodies, their relationship to food, and their approaches to exercise and being physically active. Retirement from sport generally is considered to be a developmental stressor and thus may exacerbate ED symptoms and body image concerns in some athletes. Yet, for other athletes, retirement may represent a positive transition in which they emerge from a sport culture, focused on weight and appearance, to reclaim themselves and their bodies. Initial qualitative findings appear to support each hypothesis in part, though longitudinal quantitative studies that track athletes from active competition through retirement are needed to understand the changes athletes experience in relation to their bodies, food, and exercise, and when such changes are most likely to occur.
Article
Progressive Neurological Conditions and Their Impact on Psychological Well-Being in Later Life
Nadeeka N. Dissanayaka
Progressive neurological disorders are incurable disorders with gradual deterioration and impacting patients for life. Two common progressive neurological disorders found in late life are Parkinson’s disease (PD) and motor neuron disease (MND). Psychological complications such as depression and anxiety are prevalent in people living with PD and MND, yet they are underdiagnosed and poorly treated.
PD is classified a Movement Disorder and predominantly characterized by motor symptoms such as tremor, bradykinesia, gait problems and postural instability; however, neuropsychiatric complications such as anxiety and depression are common and contribute poorly to quality of life, even more so than motor disability. The average prevalence of depression in PD suggest 35% and anxiety in PD reports 31%. Depression and anxiety often coexist. Symptoms of depression and anxiety overlap with symptoms of PD, making it difficult to recognize. In PD, daily fluctuations in anxiety and mood disturbances are observed with clear synchronized relationships to wearing off of PD medication in some individuals. Such unique characteristics must be addressed when treating PD depression and anxiety. There is an increase in the evidence base for psychotherapeutic approaches such as cognitive behavior therapy to treat depression and anxiety in PD.
Motor neuron disease (MND) is classified a neuromuscular disease and is characterized by progressive degeneration of upper and lower motor neurons is the primary characteristic of MND. The most common form of MND is Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and the terms ALS and MND are simultaneously used in the literature. Given the short life expectancy (average 4 years), rapid deterioration, paralysis, nonmotor dysfunctions, and resulting incapacity, psychological factors clearly play a major role in MND. Depression and suicide are common psychological concerns in persons with MND. While there is an ALS-specific instrument to assess depression, evaluation of anxiety is poorly studied; although emerging studies suggesting that anxiety is highly prevalent in MND. Unfortunately, there is no substantial evidence-base for the treatment of anxiety and depression in MND.
Caregivers play a major role in the management of progressive neurological diseases. Therefore, evaluating caregiver burden and caregiver psychological health are essential to improve quality of care provided to the patient, as well as to improve quality of life for carers. In progressive neurological diseases, caregiving is often provided by family members and spouses, with professional care at advanced disease. Psychological interventions for PD carers addressing unique characteristics of PD and care needs is required. Heterogeneous clinical features, rapid functional decline, and short trajectory of MND suggest a multidisciplinary framework of carer services including psychological interventions to mitigate MND. A Supportive Care Needs Framework has been recently proposed encompassing practical, informational, social, psychological, physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of both MND patients and carers.
Article
Psychological Aspects of Cancer Screening
Christian von Wagner, Wouter Verstraete, and Sandro Stoffel
Cancer screening aims to detect cancer before the appearance of symptoms. Applying a proactive and systematic approach, cancer screening programs invite every person in the target population automatically. Many countries have established guidelines that define criteria and principles on whether to implement screening programs for specific conditions. Despite the universal coverage of these programs, inequalities have been observed in their uptake based on various sociodemographic factors: gender, age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status (SES), educational level, and marital status. Behavioral science provides key performance indicators of these programs. Psychological factors such as perceived benefits (e.g., ability of the program to diagnose early or even prevent cancer) and barriers (e.g., opportunity costs relating to test attendance or completion), as well as people’s cancer and screening-related beliefs and perceptions of their own susceptibility to cancer, play a crucial role in cancer screening uptake. Furthermore, there is increasing awareness among professional bodies for the need to balance the public health benefits against individual costs, including financial and opportunity costs associated with participation and potential longer-term harms, such as receiving a cancer diagnosis that would never have caused any symptoms or problems). These recent developments have led to stronger emphasis on monitoring patient-reported experiences and ensuring that participation is based on informed choice. In addition, some of these issues have also been addressed by more fundamental changes to the screening paradigm such as more personalized approaches (using additional genetic and epigenetic information) to establishing eligibility criteria. The acceptability of using this information and its implication to offer more or less intensive screening and developing effective ways to understand the ability of the program to communicate this information are key challenges for the clinical, research and policy making community.
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Psychological Aspects of Tobacco Control
Jennifer McGowan and Lion Shahab
Worldwide, tobacco use is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. However, the health effects of smoking are reversible, making smoking cessation an important target for public health policy. Tobacco control is a field of public health science dedicated to reducing tobacco use and, thereby, to reducing cigarette-related morbidity and mortality. For tobacco control to be effective, it is necessary for policy makers to understand the personal and interpersonal factors which encourage people to smoke, factors which motivate smokers to quit (e.g., health, social pressure, cost), and the personal and population-level methods that are most effective at encouraging and prolonging attempts to quit. Research has identified that social norms, mental health, and individual personality factors are most associated with smoking uptake, so interventions which reduce social smoking (e.g., smoking bans, plain packaging) would be most effective at preventing uptake. Conversely, the use of cigarettes is maintained by nicotine addiction and attempts to quit are often motivated by health concerns, social pressure and the cost of tobacco products. As such, interventions that address physiological and behavioral addiction inherent in tobacco product use (e.g., nicotine replacement therapy combined with counselling), that create social pressure to stop (e.g., mass media campaigns), or that increase the cost of tobacco products are most likely to be effective at encouraging attempts to quit.
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Psychological Considerations for Children and Adolescents in Sport and Performance
Mary Fry and Candace M. Hogue
There is a large literature base within the field of sport psychology that provides tremendous direction to coaches and parents on how to structure youth sport so that young athletes develop sport skills and concurrently reap psychological benefits from their sport participation. Much of this research has employed Nicholls’ Achievement Goal Perspective Theory and a Caring Framework to (a) identity the processes children undergo as their cognitive development matures across the elementary years, allowing them to accurately judge their ability by adolescence, (b) formulate their personal definitions of success in sport (develop their goal orientations), and (c) note features of the team and overall sport climate created by coaches and parents. Of particular importance is athletes’ perceptions of the motivational climate prevailing on their teams. Athletes can perceive a caring and task-involving climate where coaches reward effort, improvement, and cooperation among teammates, make everyone feel they play an important role on the team, and treat mistakes as part of the learning process. In contrast, athletes can also perceive an ego-involving climate where the coach rewards ability and performance outcome, fosters rivalry among teammates, punishes mistakes, and gives most of the recognition to a few “stars.”
When athletes perceive a caring and task-involving climate on their teams, they are more likely to have fun, exert high effort, experience intrinsic motivation, have better interpersonal relationships with coaches and athletes, display better sportsperson-like values and behaviors, have better psychological well-being, and even perform better. In contrast, when athletes perceive an ego-involving climate on their teams they experience fewer adaptive and positive motivational outcomes and greater problematic outcomes (e.g., increased cortisol; greater endorsement of unsportsperson-like behaviors). Research has clearly identified the benefits of coaches and parents creating a caring and task-involving climate for young athletes, yet there are still many ego-involving climates in the youth sport world. A number of organizations are committed to helping coaches and parents transform youth sport culture into a positive arena where young people can develop their athletic skills and have a rewarding sport experience.
Article
Psychological Responses to Sport Injury
Britton W. Brewer
In addition to the disruptive impact of sport injury on physical functioning, injury can have psychological effects on athletes. Consistent with contemporary models of psychological response to sport injury, aspects of psychological functioning that can be affected by sport injury include pain, cognition, emotion, and behavior. Part of the fabric of sport and ubiquitous even among “healthy” athletes, pain is a common consequence of sport injury. Postinjury pain is typically of the acute variety and can be exacerbated, at least temporarily, by surgery and some rehabilitation activities. Cognitive responses to sport injury include appraising the implications of the injury for one’s well-being and ability to manage the injury, making attributions for injury occurrence, using cognitive coping strategies, perceiving benefits of injury, and experiencing intrusive injury-related thoughts and images, increased perception of injury risk, reduced self-esteem and self-confidence, and diminished neurocognitive performance. Emotional responses to sport injury tend to progress from a preponderance of negative emotions (e.g., anger, confusion, depression, disappointment, fear, frustration) shortly after injury occurrence to a more positive emotional profile over the course of rehabilitation. A wide variety of personal and situational factors have been found to predict postinjury emotions. In terms of postinjury behavior, athletes have reported initiating coping strategies such as living their lives as normally as possible, distracting themselves, seeking social support, isolating themselves from others, learning about their injuries, adhering to the rehabilitation program, pursuing interests outside sport, consuming alcohol, taking recreational and/or performance-enhancing substances, and, in rare cases, attempting suicide. Psychological readiness to return to sport after injury is an emerging concept that cuts across cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses to sport injury.
Article
Psychological Stress and Cellular Aging
Idan Shalev and Waylon J. Hastings
Stress is a multistage process during which an organism perceives, interprets, and responds to threatening environmental stimuli. Physiological activity in the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems mediates the biological stress response. Although the stress response is adaptive in the short term, exposure to severe or chronic stressors dysregulates these biological systems, promoting maladaptive physiology and an accelerated aging phenotype, including aging on the cellular level. Two structures implicated in this process of stress and cellular aging are telomeres, whose length progressively decreases with age, and mitochondria, whose respiratory activity becomes increasingly inefficient with advanced age. Stress in its various forms is suggested to influence the maintenance and stability of these structures throughout life. Elucidating the interrelated connection between telomeres and mitochondria and how different types of stressors are influencing these structures to drive the aging process is of great interest. A better understanding of this subject can inform clinical treatments and intervention efforts to reduce (or even reverse) the damaging effects of stress on the aging process.
Article
Relaxation and Recovery in Sport and Performance
Maximilian Pelka and Michael Kellmann
The sport and performance environment is highly demanding for its actors. Therefore, recovery from work and sports requires special attention. Without adequate recovery, optimal performance is not attainable. It depends, however, on the individual what adequate recovery actually is. An extremely demanding event for someone may not be as demanding for someone else. Every individual perceives his or her environment differently and therefore has to choose his or her response or prevention strategy accordingly. Monitoring one’s recovery-stress states might be a promising starting point to establish individual baselines and further regulate training or work intensities. Relaxation in terms of implementing systematic relaxation techniques seems to be an adequate approach. These techniques can be divided into muscle-to-mind and mind-to-muscle techniques focusing either on the training of one’s sensitivity to muscle tension or on the cognitive processes involved in relaxation. Whether the recovery process is finally successful depends on if the chosen methods fit the purpose of recovery (i.e., response to cognitive or physical demands), the setting/circumstance (i.e., time and place), and how comfortable one feels with the specific recovery strategy.
Article
The Roles of Psychological Stress, Physical Activity, and Dietary Modifications on Cardiovascular Health Implications
Chun-Jung Huang, Matthew J. McAllister, and Aaron L. Slusher
Psychological stress disorders, such as depression and chronic anxiety contribute to increased risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality. Acute psychological and physical stress exacerbate the activity of sympathetic-adrenal-medullary system, resulting in the elevation of cardiovascular responses (i.e., heart rate and blood pressure), along with augmented inflammation and oxidative stress as major causes of endothelial and metabolic dysfunction. The potential health benefits of regular physical activity mitigate excessive inflammation and oxidative stress. Along with physical exercise, complementary interventions, such as dietary modification are needed to enhance exercise effectiveness in improving these outcomes. Specifically, dietary modification reduces sympathetic nervous system activity, improve mitochondrial redox function, and minimize oxidative stress as well as chronic inflammation.
Article
Sociocultural Aspects of Sport Injury and Recovery
Diane M. Wiese-Bjornstal
The sociocultural aspects of sport injury and recovery include the broad landscape of social beliefs, climates, processes, cultures, institutions, and societies that surround the full chronological spectrum of sport injury outcomes, ranging from risk through to rehabilitation and retirement. A social ecological view of research on this topic demonstrates that sociocultural influences affect sport injury outcomes via interrelated sport systems extending from the intrasystem (i.e., within sports persons) through the microsystem (i.e., sport relationships), mesosystem (i.e., sport organizations), exosystem (i.e., sport governing bodies), and macrosystem (i.e., sport cultures). Affected sport injury outcomes include sport injury risks and responses during rehabilitation, return to play, and retirement from sport.
Some specific examples of sociocultural themes evident in research literature include personal conformity to the cultural expectation to play hurt, social conventions of behavior when sport injuries occur, institutional character or ethics when making return to play decisions, guidelines for the care of athletes prescribed by sport governing bodies, and the economic costs to society for sport injuries. Many elements of sport injury are affected by these sociocultural influences, such as the risk of injuries, rehabilitation processes, and career terminations. Continuing debates and discussions include advocacy for sport rule changes, bans on dangerous sports, institutional responsibility, and global sport safety efforts. These form the basis for recommendations about sociocultural interventions designed to reduce sport injury risks and optimize effective injury recoveries through social and cultural best practices.
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Stigma and Health
Katherine Nieweglowski and Patrick W. Corrigan
Stigma is a complex process that results from the interaction of stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. When applied to health conditions (e.g., mental illness, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, obesity), stigma can contribute to a lack of recovery and resources as well as devaluation of the self. People with stigmatized health conditions may be too embarrassed to seek treatment and others may not provide them with equal opportunities. This often results in discrimination in employment, housing, and health care settings. Strategies have been proposed to prompt stigma change with strategic contact between those with the health condition and everyone else likely to have the best effects.
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Stress and Coping Theory Across the Adult Lifespan
Agus Surachman and David M. Almeida
Stress is a broad and complex phenomenon characterized by environmental demands, internal psychological processes, and physical outcomes. The study of stress is multifaceted and commonly divided into three theoretical perspectives: social, psychological, and biological. The social stress perspective emphasizes how stressful life experiences are embedded into social structures and hierarchies. The psychological stress perspective highlights internal processes that occur during stressful situations, such as individual appraisals of the threat and harm of the stressors and of the ways of coping with such stressors. Finally, the biological stress perspective focuses on the acute and long-term physiological changes that result from stressors and their associated psychological appraisals. Stress and coping are inherently intertwined with adult development.
