Exercise Makes The World A Less Scary Place

Yet another comforting thing that exercise does: it makes the world a little less scary. No, it doesn’t change the world, but according to research conducted at Queen’s University, it changes our perception of the world. Science Daily reports that researchers at the school used point-light depictions of a human form that could be interpreted by the person seeing it as either approaching (threatening) or walking away (non-threatening). People who are socially anxious tend to see such ambiguously directed figures as facing towards them.  Yes, you guessed it: the researchers found that people who either walked or jogged on a treadmill for 10 minutes perceived these ambiguous figures as facing towards them less often than those who simply stood on the treadmill. And yes, it is possible that the exercisers also felt more confident that they could outrun the threat.