Creating a Healthy Matrix: Movement

This is the second part of a three-part post where I am proposing that nutrition, movement, and mindfulness are the foundation of health and should be top priorities in school and at home.  Part one was on nutrition and in this post I want to give some inspiration on the importance of movement. Let’s start with the obvious and move to some new research, as well as creative ways to get some movement!  Since it affects most all of our physiological systems, here’s a recap of the nearly endless benefits of exercise:

• makes bones and muscles stronger
• helps regulate your appetite and your sleep cycles
• changes your blood lipid profile
• reduces your risk for more than a dozen types of cancer
• improves the immune system
• buffers against the toxic effects of stress
• decreases your risk of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes
• increases self-esteem, reduces depression, and reduces anxiety
• improves cognitive functioning

The main point I want to emphasize is that when it comes to movement, it doesn’t have to be a trip to the fitness center, signing your child up for a soccer league, or another stereotypical exercise.  Just turning off the TV and getting off your booty can have dramatic effects!  You may remember a study over 20 years ago that concluded that a child’s weight increases with the number of hours he or she spends watching television each day.  Well now a days, it’s not just TV trying to pull us away from a more active lifestyle. As we call it at our house, its screen time, and it may include sitting at the computer, sitting with the tablet or iPod, or sitting with the Nintendo ds, to name a few.

Groundbreaking new medical work is detailed in Sitting Kills, Moving Heals: How Everyday Movement Will Prevent Pain, Illness, and Early Death-and Exercise Alone Won’t by Joan Vernikos, PhD, former director of NASA’s life sciences division.  In her book she shows  how health can be, “dramatically improved by continuous, low-intensity, movement that challenges the force of gravity.” Her NASA research is on how weightlessness weakens astronauts’ muscles, bones, and overall health.  Not a surprise, but when we are sitting, it has a similar effect on our body as being in space.

She suggests something as simple as setting a timer and standing up every 10 minutes to engage with gravity can have dramatic effects on our health.  On that same line, a standing work station would be the bomb for health, and as you’ll read below, adding a treadmill to our work station might just make us normal again!

Most of us have become “active couch potatoes”.  We may take an hour trip to the gym and our kids may go to a sports practice, but the rest of the day is mainly filled with sitting in the car and sitting at a desk.  Kids aren’t getting enough movement at school either and often the first place schools make financial cuts is with their PE program.  Its not just their bodies that are suffering either.

I agree with Dr. John Medina, author of NY Times Bestseller Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School when he says, “If you are in education, you are in the business of brain development.”  In his book, Rule #1 is Exercise Boosts Brain Power.  Here are some reasons he gives for why exercise is a must throughout the whole school day:

• Exercise increases oxygen flow into the brain, which reduces brain-bound free radicals…an increase in oxygen is always accompanied by an uptick in mental sharpness.
• Exercise acts directly on the molecular machinery of the brain itself.  It increases neurons’ creation, survival, and resistance to damage and stress.  It stimulates the protein that keeps neurons connecting.
• The brain represents only about 2 percent of most people’s body weight, yet it accounts for about 20 percent of the body’s total energy usage…Exercise gets blood to your brain, bringing it glucose for energy and oxygen to soak up the toxic electrons that are left over.
• Our evolutionary ancestors were used to walking up to 12 miles per day…We haven’t had millions of years to adapt to our sedentary lifestyle…I am convinced that integrating exercise into those 8 hours at work or school will not make us smarter.  It will only make us normal.

That last one cracks me up and makes perfect sense.  Dr. Medina recommends two active 20-30 minute recesses a day, one that involves some aerobic activity and another that involves strengthening activities.  He’d even love to see schools and companies using treadmill desk stations that allow walking as they work/learn; I’d have to work myself up to 12 miles a day, that’s for sure!

Since I don’t see treadmill desks becoming the norm at most schools, how about doing some yoga, marching or running in place, squats, fitness Simon Says, or random dancing throughout the day? Check out the Action For Healthy Kids website to get a ton more ideas that are much more creative than mine and should definitely super-boost our brains for a bit!

I think Dr. Medina’s response to the proposal of taking away physical education to get more time for academics says it all, “Cutting off physical exercise-the very activity most likely to promote cognitive performance-to do better on a test score is like trying to gain weight by starving yourself.”  Find out all twelve of his brain rules at BrainRules.net.