If you have ever worked in a garden, you have certainly seen the impact a little fertilizer can have on plants. They can go from droopy to perky, from thin to luscious in a short period of time. Believe it or not, the brain has a fertilizer too.
On a basic biology level, the brain needs oxygen to function properly. Aerobic movement means we are pumping more oxygenated blood through the body and this means there will be more bloodflow and oxygen into the brain, thereby enhancing the brain’s abilities. Even something as simple as standing after sitting for an extended period can raise the heart rate 5-8% in just seconds — and increase blood flow to the brain which is one of the reasons smart watches signal for us to stand.
MRIs have shown that children who are more aerobically fit have more compact fibrous white matter in their brains than children who are less aerobically fit. It is the white matter than plays a a key role in attention and memory and the more fibrous and compact, is is the better both memory and attention will be. White matter is also directly associated with more efficient brain activity because it makes up the nerve axons that carry signals around the brain.
A Finnish study of twin boys in their 30s found that the twin who exercised regularly had more gray brain matter. Gray matter is responsible for muscle and self control (think disciplinary issues) but it is also responsible for seeing, hearing, sensory perception, memory, speech and decision making. In essence, executive brain function.
Naperville High School Coach and PE teacher, Paul Zientarski, grew tired of seeing the same children finding excuses to sit out in his PE classes while his athletes participated and continued to improve their skills. In 2003 he changed the PE program to a fitness based program where kids were given heart rate monitors and 45 minutes a day on the school track. They competed only against themselves by downloading the data from the heart rate monitor and tracking it. The result of this programming change produced a population of high schoolers of whom only 3% were overweight v. the national average which, at the time, was 33% overweight. Not one Naperville IL high schooler was obese. More importantly, this high school participated in the international math and science exam (TIMSS) as its own country. To understand how this test works, the U.S. generally scores in the low to mid teens. Naperville High scored #1 in science and # 6 in math. They had not changed their curriculum, they had only changed their PE by instituting a fitness based, aerobic centered program. They had witnessed first hand how exercise builds brain cells, not new learning.
The Naperville teachers had realized that there was more success in the classroom so they created a new program, Learning Readiness PE (LRPE,) with a similar fitness based, aerobic centered design, and placed in the class period just before language arts. Students struggling in language arts were placed in the new LRPE class and saw a 52-56% improvement in language arts skills in the first semester compared to their peers who were not enrolled in LRPE. The next semester a math component was added with a resulting 93% improvement.
As other schools began to pick up and implement LRPE, they too saw greatly improved test scores. But it wasn’t long before administrators began to see another benefit of LRPE: behavior referrals and challenges were dropping.
This brought about a whole new wave of LRPE schools, but these were not schools looking for improved test scores, rather they were in the midst of behavior crises and needed a solution. A Charleston SC school with the worst behavior record in the locality implemented LRPE and in just four months saw an 83% drop in behavior referrals. A school in North Ontario Canada also picked it up and placed their 25 most difficult boys in the program. They too saw amazing results: the semester before LRPE those boys had 95 days of suspension. The semester after, just 5 days. In each of these cases, the school did not change anything else, they only implemented a fitness based, aerobic program where BDNF was released, executive brain function was ignited and behavior improved dramatically.
This was further proven in a school in Saskatchewan, Canada that is the school of last resort for children who could not stay in mainstream schools due to learning challenges, behavior and/or defiance disorders. Most of the kids have ADHD. Class disruptions are the norm and most are working far below grade level. An eighth grade teacher stumbled upon the book “Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain,” by Dr. John Ratey, and was inspired to act. She drove to Naperville and met with Coach Zientarski which led her to find funding for 8 treadmills and 6 bikes which she placed in the back of her classroom. She began to use the equipment herself and over time, all of her students began to take advantage of it too. Eventually she got the students in a routine and found that 20 minutes of aerobic exercise resulted in 2 hours of sustained concentration and appropriate behavior from her students. The result? After only 4 months, all of the kids moved up an entire grade level in reading, writing and math: one student saw a 400% improvement in his comprehension while his math improved 25%. Another student who could barely sit still for 10-15 minutes was able to complete an assignment. The class room is not one where there is no swearing or running around. There are few angry outbursts and for the first time real learning takes place rather than behavior management.
The bottom line is that studies have proven aerobic movement turns on the attention system, motivation system and memory system. It improves behavior and self-control, helps with concentration and attention. It is a miracle pill for learning.
Keep in mind that younger children do get aerobic, but their bodies are not equipped for sustained movement, like the 8th grade in Saskatchewan who got on bikes and treadmills for 20 minutes at a time. Young children are the ultimate interval trainers and their bodies know when to take a break. If you have a preschooler who is going full out and he takes a break, know that his body is giving him a rest and given the chance he will be right back at it afterwards.
