The current paper described the combined results across four studies that assess the associations between a measure of various types of enjoyable activities ) and psychological and physiological measures associated with well-being
2009
Key concepts
Scholarcy highlights
- Considerable research has examined the health impact of damaging behaviors, such as smoking, physical inactivity, and medical noncompliance
- Consistent with study hypotheses, individuals who engaged in more frequent enjoyable leisure activities had better psychological and physical functioning
- The PEAT scores were not associated with cortisol slope perhaps because a flatter cortisol slope is found typically in chronically stressed or burned out populations, whereas Area under the curve varies with psychological function and mood
- body mass index, waist circumference, and blood pressure are tied to increased risk of early mortality and morbidity
- The frequent occurrence of enjoyable leisure activities may play some role in accounting for the morbidity and mortality associated with greater weight, fat distribution, and blood pressure
- We found preliminary evidence for this in our data: PEAT scores account for up to 50% of the association between socioeconomic status and physiological outcomes
- Because the analyses are cross sectional, we cannot conclude that these activities cause these outcomes as it is possible that good health encourages engagement in leisure activities
- Longitudinal studies testing these questions would prove invaluable as would research examining whether these enjoyable leisure activities predict better disease outcomes, or whether healthy individuals are able to engage in more leisure
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