Problems related to athletesʼ mental health have been observed recently. Private self-consciousness concerning psychological problems can be divided into rumination and reflection. According to previous research, athletes that reflect on their issues have more positive mental health outcomes. Moreover, athletesʼ body awareness can help attenuate rumination and promote reflection. Therefore, this study aims to clarify the influence of body awareness on rumination and reflection. We conducted an online survey of 375 members of a university athletic team. The survey used the Japanese version of the Rumination-Reflection Questionnaire and the Body Awareness scale. The results showed that “Bodily Distress” was positively associated with rumination, while “Awareness of Bodily Feeling” was positively associated with reflection. Reducing athletesʼ awareness of bodily distress and increasing awareness of bodily feeling leads to attenuation of rumination and promotes reflection. The effects of body awareness on rumination and reflection varied by gender and years of competition. Therefore, it is necessary to account for gender and years of competition when conducting a psychological evaluation of athletes to attenuate rumination and promote reflection.

This study aimed to examine the relationship between physical activity, including lifestyle activities, exercise habits, and resilience in a sample of middle-aged Japanese adults (N=1,270; 604 men, 666 women; mean age=45.6 years, SD of age=8.5, age range=30-59 years). Considering the problems with previous methods of adjusting for confounding factors, this study used a propensity score to aggregate multiple covariates into a single variable and stratify on that single variable. Each group’s respondent data bias was adjusted by inverse probability weighted estimation using propensity scores, and the results confirmed the balance of covariates between the two groups of physical activity (without and with the physical activities) compared in this study. The weighted regression analysis results showed that among physical activities, both lifestyle activities and exercise habits were positively related to the innate and acquired factors of resilience. These results suggest that both lifestyle activities and exercise habits may be associated with both genetically innate and acquired factors of resilience.