Stressors and subjective cognition in daily life: Tests of physical activity and age as moderators.

Growing research indicates that daily stress is associated with poorer same-day cognitive performance, for example, memory and attention. However, it is unclear whether this relationship holds across diverse ages and engagement in physical activity (PA), or whether these factors might buffer the relationship between daily stress and subjective cognitive function. Ecological momentary assessment data were collected from adults aged 25-88 across British Columbia, Canada. For 14 days, participants (N = 204) wore a tri-axial physical activity monitor, reported stressor occurrence in mobile surveys 4 times per day, and rated their subjective attention and memory at the end of each day. Multilevel models evaluated daily stressor occurrence as a predictor of subjective attention and memory, with same-day PA engagement and age as moderators. Subjective attention and memory were lower on days when a stressor had occurred, compared to stressor-free days. Neither PA nor age moderated the within-person associations of daily stressors with subjective cognition. The lack of stress-buffering effects for same-day PA and age raises questions about the contexts in which PA promotes cognitive functioning and about age-related processes underlying stress and cognition. Future work could examine the mechanisms that might explain the link between daily stress and cognition function, as well as the associations of different intensity and forms of physical activity on stress across age groups.

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Conflicts of interest and Sources of Funding: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose. This research was supported by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada grant 435-2019-0608 (NLS), and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (NLS).