Anti-Aging - Brain Health
If you're having trouble figuring out a problem, feeling down in the dumps, suffering from writer's block, or just not up to whatever the current mental challenge might be, Exercise! Studies have shown higher levels of thought clarifying and mood enhancing neurotransmitters present in the brain within an hour of exercising. Most experts agree that exercising for 30 minutes or more at a time is most beneficial to both body and brain.
Get physical with your kids. A Cognitiva Review survey taken in the late 1980s by the National Association of Elementary School Principals found that 96% of surveyed school systems had at least 1 recess period. Another survey a decade later found that only 70% of elementary schools allowed students a recess period. Many school districts responded to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 by reducing time allowed for recess, the creative arts, and even physical education in an effort to spend more time on reading and mathematics.
This change may have implications on children's ability to store new information, because children's cognitive capacity is enhanced by a change in activity.
Further, some children need proprioceptic (sensory) or vestibular (movement) input to absorb and process information properly.
A change in academic instruction or class topic does not offer the needed change in cognitive effort and certainly does not offer a physical release. Even a formal structured physical education class may not offer the same benefit as free-play recess.
