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2026 Poster Session A

A14 - Differences in Human State Anxiety Changes in Treadmill vs. Outdoor Running

Endurance running is useful to humans as both a form of exercise to gain or maintain physical fitness and as a stress or anxiety coping mechanism.

2026 Poster Session A

A14 - Differences in Human State Anxiety Changes in Treadmill vs. Outdoor Running

Mentor: William Berg, Ph.D.

Endurance running is useful to humans as both a form of exercise to gain or maintain physical fitness and as a stress or anxiety coping mechanism. The physiological benefits of distance running are well studied, and include increased aerobic capacity, maintenance of skeletal muscle density, and reduced body mass index (Miller et al. 2019; Singh et al. 2022).

Among the distance running community, there are innumerable anecdotal reports that treadmill running does not confer the same psychological benefits as outdoor running. Some research exists that investigates the emotional effects of different exercise environments within the constraints of treadmill running, with results suggesting that nature-based themes promote post-run happiness, even if viewed while running on a treadmill (Yeh et al. 2017).

Only limited studies have investigated the differences in psychological effects of treadmill versus outdoor running. For example, Hooper (2003) reports that runners exhibited more positive perceptions and moods when running outdoors compared to on a treadmill. The current literature does not, however, investigate pre- to post-run state, or “in-the-moment”, anxiety changes nor does it evaluate the comparison of these changes between outdoor and treadmill runs.

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