A comparison of transient experiential wellbeing across health enhancing behaviours in the American Time Use Survey

TL;DR

This study compares how different health-enhancing activities affect people's momentary happiness and stress levels, finding that activities like arts and social events boost happiness more than physical activity or reading.

Contribution

The study provides new insights into how specific health-enhancing behaviors differentially impact transient emotional states, emphasizing the role of context and activity type.

Findings

Happiness was highest during receptive arts activities and lowest during volunteering and reading.

Pain and tiredness were higher during physical activity compared to other behaviors.

Activities done with others and outside the home were linked to more positive and less negative affect.

Abstract

Health-enhancing behaviours can support long-term subjective wellbeing. However, less research has examined experiential wellbeing (how people feel in the moment). By comparing experiential wellbeing during different health-enhancing behaviours, we could learn which dimensions of behaviours promote health. We included 11,144 participants from the American Time Use Survey who engaged in health-enhancing behaviours and reported levels of positive (happiness) and negative (sadness, stress, tiredness, pain) affect. Multilevel linear regression models tested how affect differed during eight behaviours. Social engagement was most common, followed by reading and physical activity. Attending sports events was least common. Pain and tiredness were higher during physical activity than other behaviours. Happiness was highest when doing receptive arts (attending performing arts, museums, watching dance, listening to music) and lowest when volunteering and reading. Results for sadness and stress were more variable. Activities that were done with others, outside the home, and that were very meaningful were associated with more positive and less negative affect. Overall, health-enhancing behaviours evoked complex emotional reactions, with positive and negative affect experienced simultaneously. Recommendations around health-enhancing leisure activities in Western countries focus on physical activity, but our findings support calls to include more activities alongside guidance on the context in which people engage.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-026-40985-7

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