Latest news with #neuroticism
Washington Post
09-07-2025
- Health
- Washington Post
Hate exercising? Factoring in your personality type could help.
Having trouble making exercise fun? Try matching your workouts to your personality, according to a new study, which found that such traits are reliable predictors of the type and intensity of exercise people enjoy. The peer-reviewed study, published Tuesday in Frontiers in Psychology, found that extroverts tend to enjoy higher-intensity training, while conscientious people are likelier to engage in longer hours of regular physical activity. And people who scored high for 'neuroticism' on a pre-study questionnaire — which the authors associate with emotional instability — are likely to enjoy private and independent exercise programs.
The Guardian
08-07-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Extroverts and exercise: how personality affects our approach to the gym
Name: Gym personalities. Age: Genetically hardwired since ancient times. Appearance: Well, that depends on your personality. My personality is 'enjoys cake'. That doesn't sound very scientifically thorough, but it's a start. Do you enjoy exercise? On the basis that I'm not a masochist, no, of course not. Interesting. And why is that? Well, what if I'm at the gym and all the big men look at me? In that case I have good news and bad news. The good news is that you fit an established archetype. A study has determined that people with higher levels of neuroticism are less likely to exercise regularly. Tell me more about this study. University College London invited 132 volunteers to follow an eight-week exercise course, with questionnaires to fill in about their enjoyment levels. Who doesn't love a sweaty questionnaire? After that, they had their personalities assessed to see if they generally exhibited signs of extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism or openness. And all the neurotics hated the exercise? Kind of. All the neurotics felt shy about exercising in front of other people, and preferred to do light workouts in short bursts away from everyone. What about the others? Those who scored highly in extroversion loved high-intensity training such as weightlifting or spin classes. Finally, a scientific explanation for why spin classes are so obnoxious. However, they didn't have the best overall fitness. That went to those who scored highly in conscientiousness, because they possessed a better understanding of the long-term benefits of regular exercise. Aside from underlining how awful extroverts are, what's the point of all this? Well, it's understood that exercise is good for you. But perhaps the reason why people don't do it is because they're picking the wrong exercise for their personality type. When was the last time you went to the gym? Several years ago. There were lots of big men, and potentially some of them were aware of my existence. So that isn't the right exercise type for your personality. What if you bought some resistance bands and worked out at home every morning? Yeah, maybe I'd stick to that. There we go. And you should, especially if you consider yourself neurotic. The study showed that, of all the five main personality types, neurotics were the only group who experienced a significant reduction of stress after exercise. So exercise might make me less neurotic? It's certainly a possibility. And who knows, if you really start enjoying it, you might even become a little bit of an extrovert. I'm going back to bed. I suppose that's understandable. Do say: 'I should pick a workout that matches my personality.' Don't say: 'I hear that cowering at the state of the world burns a ton of calories.'
The Guardian
08-07-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Extroverts and exercise: how personality affects our approach to the gym
Name: Gym personalities. Age: Genetically hardwired since ancient times. Appearance: Well, that depends on your personality. My personality is 'enjoys cake'. That doesn't sound very scientifically thorough, but it's a start. Do you enjoy exercise? On the basis that I'm not a masochist, no, of course not. Interesting. And why is that? Well, what if I'm at the gym and all the big men look at me? In that case I have good news and bad news. The good news is that you fit an established archetype. A study has determined that people with higher levels of neuroticism are less likely to exercise regularly. Tell me more about this study. University College London invited 132 volunteers to follow an eight-week exercise course, with questionnaires to fill in about their enjoyment levels. Who doesn't love a sweaty questionnaire? After that, they had their personalities assessed to see if they generally exhibited signs of extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism or openness. And all the neurotics hated the exercise? Kind of. All the neurotics felt shy about exercising in front of other people, and preferred to do light workouts in short bursts away from everyone. What about the others? Those who scored highly in extroversion loved high-intensity training such as weightlifting or spin classes. Finally, a scientific explanation for why spin classes are so obnoxious. However, they didn't have the best overall fitness. That went to those who scored highly in conscientiousness, because they possessed a better understanding of the long-term benefits of regular exercise. Aside from underlining how awful extroverts are, what's the point of all this? Well, it's understood that exercise is good for you. But perhaps the reason why people don't do it is because they're picking the wrong exercise for their personality type. When was the last time you went to the gym? Several years ago. There were lots of big men, and potentially some of them were aware of my existence. So that isn't the right exercise type for your personality. What if you bought some resistance bands and worked out at home every morning? Yeah, maybe I'd stick to that. There we go. And you should, especially if you consider yourself neurotic. The study showed that, of all the five main personality types, neurotics were the only group who experienced a significant reduction of stress after exercise. So exercise might make me less neurotic? It's certainly a possibility. And who knows, if you really start enjoying it, you might even become a little bit of an extrovert. I'm going back to bed. I suppose that's understandable. Do say: 'I should pick a workout that matches my personality.' Don't say: 'I hear that cowering at the state of the world burns a ton of calories.'
Telegraph
08-07-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
Your personality type could dictate which workout is best
High-intensity workouts suit extroverts, but if you're a worrier, steer clear of the treadmill, research suggests. Experts from University College London (UCL) have found that personality types could help determine the type of exercise people enjoy. They used the Big 5 model, a psychological framework, to find participants' dominant personality traits. These are extroversion, how energetic and outgoing a person is; agreeableness, which reflects compassion and co-operativeness; conscientiousness, which includes attributes like orderliness and reliability; neuroticism, which includes people prone to stress and with a tendency for anxiety or mood swings; and openness, which describes a person's willingness to try new experiences. The study found several links between exercise type and personality traits, including extroverts' enjoyment of high-intensity exercise and the preference of those with the neuroticism trait for short bursts of activity rather than prolonged effort. Those with neuroticism preferred not to be monitored or have their heart rate recorded during the study, which researchers suggest could indicate a preference for space and independence while exercising. The experts measured strength and stress levels before assigning the 132 participants to an eight-week exercise programme of cycling and strength training, or to a resting control group. During the programme, participants were asked to rate their enjoyment of each exercise, before having their fitness level tested again once the session had been completed. Those who were conscientious tended to score more highly on aerobic fitness as well as core strength, and were generally more physically active, but they didn't seem to enjoy one particular type of exercise over another. The researchers said it was likely because they were driven by the health outcomes, rather than enjoyment, and exercising 'may be less about enjoyment than because it was good for them'. A sedentary population Dr Flaminia Ronca, of UCL's surgery and interventional science and the Institute of Sport, Exercise and Health, said: 'We found some clear links between personality traits and the type of exercise the participants enjoyed most, which I think is important because we could potentially use this knowledge to tailor physical activity recommendations to the individual – and hopefully help them to become and remain more active.' Dr Ronca added: 'We know that the global population is becoming increasingly sedentary. 'You often hear about people trying to become more active, but struggling to make lasting changes. 'In this study, we wanted to understand how personality can influence this to support the development of effective interventions for changes in health behaviour.' Those who were considered to be neurotic were the only group to see a significant reduction in stress levels after exercising. Prof Paul Burgess, from the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, said: 'We found that people who scored more highly in the neuroticism personality trait showed a particularly strong reduction in stress when they undertook the fitness training recommended in the study. 'This suggests that there may be particular benefits in stress reduction for those with this trait.'
Wall Street Journal
08-05-2025
- Health
- Wall Street Journal
I Thought I Needed Anxiety for My Job. I Was Wrong.
I recently took a personality test and decided I needed to change some things; some aspects of my personality seemed to be responsible for making me unhappy. A high level of neurotic anxiety was one of them. To help adopt a new mindset, I took intensive meditation class; the 'homework' involved meditating for 45 minutes a day. This was challenging because, as I confessed to my meditation teacher, I hated meditating. As an ultra-productive efficiency lover, I didn't like doing nothing for long stretches of time. But also, and more important, I wasn't sure I really wanted my anxiety to go away.
