(PS7-31) Emotion Regulation in the Face of Compulsive Exercise and Suicidal Ideation: Implications for Negative Affect During Aerobic Activity

Introduction: While exercise is commonly considered an adaptive emotion regulation strategy, overreliance on exercise to reduce negative affect among individuals with eating disorders (EDs) can lead to problematic, compulsive exercise patterns. Individuals with EDs, and particularly those reporting compulsive exercise, frequently report co-occurring suicidal ideation (SI), which may also serve as an emotion regulation function. The current study assesses whether current compulsive exercise and history of SI interact with emotion regulation to predict negative affect during self-paced aerobic exercise among individuals with ED symptoms. 

Methods: Participants include a pilot sample of young women (data collection ongoing) aged 14-22 years presenting with restrictive ED symptoms (n = 17). Participants self-reported their reasons for exercise engagement using the Compulsive Exercise Test (CET) and were interviewed using the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS) to assess for SI. Participants also self-reported their emotion dysregulation using the Difficulty in Emotional Regulation Scale (DERS). To test the role of maladaptive strategies and their relationship to ED-relevant emotion regulation during exercise, participants drank a calorically dense milkshake, followed by 30 minutes of self-paced exercise during which they indicated how crummy they felt using an affect scale at each five-minute interval of exercise. Initial estimations of moderation included two linear regression models with main effects for emotion regulation, compulsive exercise, and SI, along with interactions (compulsive exercise x emotion regulation and SI x emotion regulation) predicting change in negative affect (feeling crummy), which was assessed using the difference between the 30-minute and baseline affect reported. 

Results: 5/17 participants met the clinical cut-off for compulsive exercise and 8/17 participants indicated a history of SI. In the first model (compulsive exercise), an interaction effect indicated emotion dysregulation was strongly associated with a reduced change in negative affect (β1 = -1.47) during exercise for those reporting compulsive exercise. In the second model (SI) heightened emotion dysregulation was also associated with a reduced change in negative affect (β1 = -0.94) during exercise for those reporting SI. Future analysis will include further clarification of effect size estimates and significance testing as power increases. 

Conclusion: Initial examination of compulsive exercise, SI, and emotion regulation suggests emotion dysregulation, in the context of compulsive exercise, was more strongly associated with a reduced change in negative affect while a similar association was observed among individuals reporting SI, underscoring the importance of emotion dysregulation in shaping affective responses during exercise.