Growth and Development
Parents & Coaches
Physical activity is the best medicine to maintain brain health throughout your lifespan and it has a more long-lasting effect on brains that are still developing.
Kids
Physical activity can help you to become smarter:
References
Tumbokon, C. (2015). The Benefits of Exercise on Your Kid's Brain. Retrieved from http://www.raisesmartkid.com/3-to-6-years-old/4-articles/35-the-benefits-of-exercise-on-your-kids-brain
Physical activity is the best medicine to maintain brain health throughout your lifespan and it has a more long-lasting effect on brains that are still developing.
- Physical activity improves brain health and cognitive function at any age!
- Moderate to vigorous physical activities increase blood flow in children’s body and brain, improving their cerebrovascular health. The blood delivers oxygen and glucose, helping the brain brains to focus longer and be more alerted. Researchers also suggest that 3 month exercise can enhance the activity of the part of the brain that is responsible for memory and learning by approximately 30%.
- Regular exercise can improve short-term memory, and allow faster reaction time.
- Exercise can release neurotrophic factors like BDNF, which stimulates the growth of new neurons. BDNF encourages the brain’s nerve cells to branch out, building connections with each other in new ways – this leads to children’s openness to learning and more capacity for knowledge.
- Exercise improve the white matter integrity, which leads to faster neural conduction between brain regions and superior cognitive performance. Physically fit children had more fibrous and compact white matter tracts in the brain than their less fit peers.
- Exercise helps children to learn. Researcher found that after exercising, people learn vocabulary words 20% faster than what they used to do before exercising.
- Exercise reduces stress. This is significant, as proven by many researches, stress damages the kids’ brain.
- Exercise can help children to think flexibly. Through experiments, scientists have found that increasing heart-rate through exercise improves cognitive flexibility and creatively.
- Studies suggest that children with higher levels of aerobic fitness show greater brain volumes in grey matter brain regions important for memory and learning.
Kids
Physical activity can help you to become smarter:
- Exercising can increase blood flow in your body and brain. The blood delivers oxygen and glucose, which are the major energy sources of the brain. This helps you to focus for longer and be more awake.
- Exercising can help you to improve your memories.
- When you are active, your brain releases substances called BDNF that helps your brain cells to build stronger new connections with each other. This will help you to have more room for learning in your brain.
- It can help you to reduce your stress level, which is important, as stress damages your brain.
- Exercise can help children to think flexibly. Through experiments, scientists have found that increasing heart-rate through exercise improves cognitive flexibility.
- When you are exercising, your heart rate increases. This helps you to think more flexibly and creatively!
References
Tumbokon, C. (2015). The Benefits of Exercise on Your Kid's Brain. Retrieved from http://www.raisesmartkid.com/3-to-6-years-old/4-articles/35-the-benefits-of-exercise-on-your-kids-brain