Body awareness and responses to experimentally Induced pain

Abstract

PURPOSE. The aim of this study is to discuss personal and demographic factors that influence the relationship between physical activity and awareness of one's own body, as well as the pain response (threshold and tolerance of pain), situational anxiety and personality. In the study 38 healthy individual- volunteers, students in Trakia University - Stara Zagora were selected. All participants were divided into two groups: actively involved in individual or team sport (n = 19) and healthy normaly active subjects (non-athletes, n = 19). The age of the study participants ranged between 18 and 39 years, while the gender breakdown was as follows: men - 22 women – 16. Methods: Psychological Questionnaires: Body Awareness Questionnaire that asks subjects to rate, on a 4 point scale, the degree to which they were currently experiencing symptoms of sympathetic arousal, State Trait Anger Scale, and State Trait Anxiety Scale. Objective methods (cold pressure test) are used only to determine the pain sensation and pain tolerance thresholds. The results of investigation support significant differences between athletes and non-athletes in pain thershold, body awareness and anxiety. The study conclusions discuss body awareness as an increasing factor for pain resistance in athletes and as an integral part of the learning process among them.

Keywords

• Body awareness
• experimental pain
• cold pressor test
• pain tolerance
• pain threshold