Promoting exercise compliance: A cognitive-behavioral approach

Exercise is a stressor. It raises both heart rate and blood pressure. It re-routes blood flow toward working muscles and away from functions such as digestion and reproduction. It pexercise, individuals either flee-try to avoid-the stressor, which partially accounts for the low rate of long term compliance to exercise programs, or they get aggressive and determined-they "fight," primarily with themselves, to persist in the exercise or sport activity.ours energizing, sympathetic nervous system hormones into the blood stream and pushes the physiology of the body above normal limits into uncomfortable and sometimes even painful states. This challenge to the body, and the accompanying discomfort, acts as a catalyst for emotional and psychological, as well as physical, stress. The Cannon-Bard theory posits that responses to stress are the well-known "fight-or-flight" (Cannon, 1932) responses. Under the stress of exercise, individuals either flee-try to avoid-the stressor, which partially accounts for the low rate of long term compliance to exercise programs, or they get aggressive and determined-they "fight," primarily with themselves, to persist in the exercise or sport activity. In Biobehaviour Responses to Stress in Females: Tend-and-Befriend, Not Fight-or-Flight, Taylor, Klein, Lewis, Gruenewald, Gurung and Updegraff (2000) recently identified an alternative interpretation of the body's stress response. This stress response is described as the "tend-and-befriend" model, and early indicators show it may be a preferred pattern of stress response by females. This paper describes the tend and befriend model and suggests how it might be applied therapeutically to exercise and sport activities for women.(C) 2002 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.