Cycling and daydreaming

I came across an interesting research paper (Mickelwright et al., 2023) that got me thinking about exercise intensity and effort. The authors predicted that as we stepped up the intensity of exercise and the physical or psychophysiological effort demands of that activity increased, there would be an involuntary shift away from being able to attend to other things.

In this study, participants cycled with a progressive increasing load cycling task until they reached fatigue, and they did this on two separate occasions. On the second ride, the cyclist, were presented with one word every 4 s through headphones. They were instructed to listen to the words but, as with the first test, cycle until they could no longer continue. Participants rested for 15 min and then, without prior warning, were asked to recall the words that they had heard. This involved listening to the previously presented words mixed with an equal number of words they had not previously heard. Words were presented in a random order and the participants were tasked with identifying the words they had heard while cycling.

As predicted, errors increased in parallel with the increasing effort of the exercise, but the error rate increased gradually rather than at a certain exercise threshold. The authors offer two (there are possibly more) explanations. The first suggests that memory processes might be negatively affected by harder exercise.  That is, intense exercise somehow disrupts our recording of information into memory. Their second, and favoured explanation, was that attentional focus shifted with increasing intensity. There are various theories about our ability to multitask, but the basic premise of this explanation is that during lower intensity, comfortable exercise, the thinking of the individual can be dissociative. At lower intensities they are able to disconnect from the exercise and the effort involved, and allow their minds to wander and meander wherever their fancy takes them – or in this case process words. Once the intensity ramps up though – and fitness level clearly must have an impact here – their focus becomes more about the exercise and how they are feeling physically and physiologically. 

I guess that seems pretty obvious. When the exercise is hard they may not be thinking about heart rates or breathing rates, but I thinking this is hard, this is painful and I want to stop, or I am going to override this pain and press on.

Obviously there are many limitations with that study, but thought provoking (for me). It has me wondering about our modern day obsession with pushing individuals into intense exercise (for whatever reason?). Maybe by doing that we are robbing them of the opportunity to think, daydream, plan – thinking about how much the enjoy this activity. I am also wondering whether our habit of constantly asking for your ratings of perceived exertion or how you are feeling – are we unnecessarily asking you to focus internally and withdraw from your day dreaming and mental excursions? I am also curious about the ‘measured self’. If I am constantly checking my watch for heart rate and pace information (or other physiological responses), or even recording work efforts, am I not just being drawn away from random thoughts and reducing my opportunities for enjoyment?

See, I get to think about these things because I do not exercise intensely…..

Reference

Micklewright, D., Liew, B.X.W., Kennett, S. (2023) Redirected Attention and Impaired Recognition Memory during Exhaustive Cycling Has Implications for Information Processing Models of Effort-Regulation. Int. J. Environ. Res. PublicHealth 20,5905. https:// doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20105905