Moved to learn

Research indicates exercise primes students for learning
Fit children may have less stress, longer attention spans, better memories and be more prepared to learn, according to recent research. Struggling students who took a physical-education class prior to an algebra class improved their test scores by 20.4%, compared with 3.9% improvement for other students, according to data from an Illinois high school. Click to read “A Fit Body Means a Fit Mind,” an article by Vanessa Richardson published in the June edition of Edutopia magazine that describes the research and science about how physical activity — especially strength and cardio exercises — helps kids to boost their brainpower in schools.

pt,
jra

Filed under: Brain Sciences, Education & Learning, The Body, Health & Exercise , John Ratey, exercise, brain, Naperville high School, fitness, education, learning, academic achievement, physical education, PE, PE4Life, physical fitness, school performance, fit body, fit mind, Vanessa Richardson, Edutopia, cognitive development

Predicting healthy aging

One of the most comprehensive and longest longitudinal studies of adult development — certainly of adult American males — is the Harvard Grant Study. Among its findings:

There are “seven major factors that predict healthy aging, both physically and psychologically,”

• Employing mature adaptions, e.g. “altruism, humor, anticipation (looking ahead and planning for future discomfort), suppression (a conscious decision to postpone attention to an impulse of conflict, to be addressed in good time), and sublimation (finding outlets for feelings, like putting aggression into sport, or lust into courtship)”;
• Education;
• Stable marriage;
• Not smoking;
• Not abusing alcohol;
• Some exercise;
• Healthy weight.

Half of the men studied with at least five of these protective factors were classified as “happy-well” at age 80, and 7.5% percent were classified as “sad-sick.” In contrast, not a single man who had three or fewer of these factors by the age of 50 could be classified as “happy-well” at age 80. And controlling for physical fitness and health, “the men who had three or fewer protective factors were three times as likely to be dead at 80 as those with four or more factors.”

This information comes from Joshua Wolf Shenk’s lengthy and fascinating article for the Atlantic Monthly, titled “What Makes Us Happy?“

What has no bearing on our ability “to work and love as we grow old”? Some surprises: “Cholesterol levels at age 50 have nothing to do with health in old age.”

Also, “Reguar exercise in college predicted late-life mental health better than did physical health.”

Fun fact: President John F. Kennedy was a subject in the Grant Study.

More here.

play, think…
J.R. Atwood

Filed under: Brain Sciences, Education & Learning, People & Society, The Body, Health & Exercise , adult development, aging, cholesterol, exercise, happiness, Harvard Grant Study, healthy aging, human development, J. R. Atwood, Jason Atwood, JFK, Joshua Wolf Shenk, longitudinal studies of development, mental health, physical health, protective factors, psychology, What Makes Us Happy

Congress: Time to get PHIT

I applaud the spirit of a new piece of legislation making its way through the halls of Congress for its focus on preventative care.

H.R. 215, The Personal Health Investment Today Act of 2009, introduced today by Congressman Ron Kind (D-WI), would ”amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to treat certain amounts paid for physical activity, fitness, and exercise as amounts paid for medical care.”

From SportsOneSource.com:

The PHIT Act would change current federal tax law to allow for the deduction or use of pre-tax dollars to cover expenses related to sports, fitness and other physical activities. Americans could invest up to $2,000 annually to pay for physical activities by investing money in existing pre-tax Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA), Medical Savings Accounts (MSA) and/or medical reimbursement arrangements.  PHIT would only expand the expenses eligible for reimbursement to include physical activity costs as a form of prevention; PHIT would not increase contribution limits to these accounts. Once an individual or family spends 7.5% of their income on qualified medical expenses, they could deduct physical activity expenses directly.

To read the full text of the bill and to track it through the legislative process, click here.

play, think…
J. R. Atwood

Filed under: People & Society, Sports, Play & Games, The Body, Health & Exercise , Congress, exercise, fitness, health care, how a bill becomes a law, HR 215, J.R. Atwood, Jason Atwood, medical care, Personal Health Investment Today Act, PHIT Act, PHIT Bill, physical fitness, preventative care, Ron Kind, Schoolhouse Rock, track legislation

Spending the workday at 1 MPH

As I’ve mentioned before, one of my primary research interests is the way movement, physical activity, and aerobic exercise can be incorporated into the traditional school environment to facilitate learning among students. Thus after recently re-reading the NYT article, “I Put In 5 Miles at the Office,” I have begun to wonder if schools might benefit from outfitting some of their classrooms with Walkstations.

The health benefits of engaging in constant and regular movement are obvious: Some employees at organizations that have installed treadmill desks report significant fitness improvement — “more than 50 pounds of weight loss, if I were to keep my diet the same.” Researchers have also found an increase in worker productivity and efficiency among employees who use the Walkstation. But I’m equally fascinated about the cognitive benefits of elevating one’s heartrate, and the promise of improving academic achievement by literally moving while learning.

Near the top of my research agenda is doing an experimental study with the treadmill desks designed by Dr. James Levine, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic, in which the motivation, health, and academic achievement of students who use a custom designed (i.e., student-sized and school-appropriate) treadmill-like personal workspace are compared to students in a control group who work while sitting down at regular desks.

In the meantime, the takeaway is to stand-up and get moving, even when we work!

More resources:

• NPR audio story, “Treadmill desk heats up office jobs“
• Telegraph: “I’ve seen the future: It’s a hamster wheel“
• NYT: “The lean and the restless“
• “Putting the ‘work’ in ‘work out’“
• Ning’s social networking site for treadmill desk jockeys

play, think…
J.R. Atwood

Filed under: Education & Learning, The Body, Health & Exercise , academic achivement, education, exercise, fitness, health, human hamster wheel, J.R. Atwood, James Levine, Jason Atwood, learning, Mayo Clinic, obesity, research, treadmill desk, treadmill desk jockeys, Walkstations

Physical and mental fitness of students

One of my primary research interests is the effect of fitness and cardiovascular activity on learning. There are a couple of fantastic news items to share on this topic…

** The Whole Child Blog summarizes a recent report in Science Daily:

Researchers at the University of Illinois have found a positive link between physical activity and attention and physical activity and academic achievement in children. Children in this study were better able to pay attention and performed better on academic tests after bouts of physical exercise. Particularly in reading comprehension, students tested performed a full grade level better after exercise. The study has prompted some curricular recommendations: integrating physical activity into lessons, daily outdoor recess, and 150 minutes of physical education per week at the elementary level and 225 minutes at the secondary level.

** This Chicago Tribune story briefly reports on some of the potential pedagogical practices teachers can use to integrate movement into their teaching practices to stimulate learning, a theory that is perhaps being studied most extensively in the Naperville school district outside Chicago and with a program called PE4life:

Emerging research suggests that incorporating physical movement in the classroom improves student focus and attention. As a result, teachers are trying everything from standing desks to exercise stability balls instead of chairs. Those who keep chairs often encourage two- or three-minute bursts of fitness in the classroom during the day.

I first learned about these news stories via the ASCD SmartBrief, a daily compilation of some of the top stories in K-12 education. The service is free and I highly recommend that anyone interested in education policy sign-up to get the daily briefing.

play, think…
J.R. Atwood

Filed under: Education & Learning, Sports, Play & Games, The Body, Health & Exercise , academic achievement, ASCD SmartBrief, classroom, education, education news, exercise, learning, movement, physical activity, University of Illinois, whole child

An entrepreneurial teacher, advice from a hedge fund manager, and how kids don’t make people happy

With the news that Harvard University’s endowment has lost over $8 billion (!) dollars in value over the first four months of its fiscal year, perhaps the entrepreneurship of this teacher should be applauded. (Hat tip to MH.) From Slashdot:

Tom Farber, a calculus teacher at Rancho Bernardo high school in San Diego, has come up with a unique way of covering district cuts to his supplies budget. He sells ads on his tests. “Tough times call for tough actions,” Tom says. The price of an ad on a Mr. Farber Calc test is as follows: $10 for a quiz, $20 for a chapter test, and $30 for a semester final. Most of the ads are messages from parents but about a third of them come from local businesses. Principal Paul Robinson says reaction has been “mixed,” but adds, “It’s not like, ‘This test is brought to you by McDonald’s or Nike.’” I see his point. Being a local business whore is much better than being a multinational conglomerate whore.

Other news: Genetic tests can tell parents if their kids were born to run:

Atlas Sports Genetics is playing into the obsessions of parents by offering a $149 test that aims to predict a child’s natural athletic strengths. The process is simple. Swab inside the child’s cheek and along the gums to collect DNA and return it to a lab for analysis of ACTN3, one gene among more than 20,000 in the human genome.

The test’s goal is to determine whether a person would be best at speed and power sports like sprinting or football, or endurance sports like distance running, or a combination of the two. A 2003 study discovered the link between ACTN3 and those athletic abilities.

Speaking of Harvard and kids — and of “What Happy People Don’t Do” — reminds me of an article I read earlier this year about the relationship between parenting and happiness. In Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel GIlbert, Harvard professor of psychology, makes accessible research that debunks the universal assumption that having and raising kids is a joy-filled experience for parents.

Finally, in this uncertain economic climate, I share the simple and sage advice that my best friend received from his former boss, who is the founder of a hedge fund that invests in emerging markets:

The world is at a real inflection at the moment. I have never felt before the level of uncertainty in making any forecasts that we are dealing with now. Economics, politics, geopolitics, the future of our planet — all of these issues are surrounded by great unknowns and that has clearly caused anxiety levels and risk premia to soar.

If I have any useful advice for you, it would be to approach the coming period with boldness and a sense that you have nothing to lose. That might be an overstatement, but relatively speaking, it is not too far off. You have plenty of time in life to make a few more sharp mid-course corrections if it comes to that.

One of my favorite poems is “If”, by Rudyard Kipling. It is worth re-reading at a time like this.

Indeed. Be bold. If…

If 

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

–Rudyard Kipling

Play, think…
J.R. Atwood 

Filed under: Brain Sciences, Education & Learning, People & Society, Sports, Play & Games, The Body, Health & Exercise , ACTN3, ads, advice, athletics, Atlas Sports, born to run, Daniel Gilbert, DNA, economy, education, endowment, exercise, genetic test, genetics, happiness, Harvard, hedge fund, If, psychology, Rudyard Kipling, sport, Stumbling on Happiness, teacher, Tom Farber

Fit for Office

If President-elect Barack Obama and future First Lady Michelle Obama are able to find time in their schedules to work out – he for 45-90 minutes, 6 days a week; her for 90 minutes, 3 days a week — then so can/should even the most “time-starved” among us.

Play, think…
J.R. Atwood 

Filed under: People & Society, Sports, Play & Games, The Body, Health & Exercise , Barack Obama, exercise, fitness, health, Michelle Obama, Obama, time-starved, time-starved fallacy

“I Crossed Your Path”

Using a Facebook application called “I Crossed Your Path,” cyclists will be able to make connections with each other by exchanging information – online or through a smartphone – about which routes they took that day. With the information it collects, the project might also help urban planners make better decisions on things like where new bike paths should be built.

From MIT, a quantum leap in bike mechanics, Boston.com. HT: San Francisco Bicycle Coalition e-newsletter.

Also from the SFBC: Get lit!

For all cyclists throughout San Francisco, be sure to stop by one of SFBC’s many stations throughout the city on December 2 to get your free blinky light. Details below…

Light Up the Night with FREE Blinky Bike Lights!

Hundreds of free bike lights will be distributed to cyclists traveling along the city’s major bike corridors on Thursday, December 2nd from 6-7pm by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. We are working to increase rider visibility in the dark hours, and lights are a key piece of safety gear! Check out www.sfbike.org/lights for locations and information on how to volunteer. Spread the word to your friends and neighbors who are riding in the dark! Download a poster and put it up at your school, library, or neighborhood coffee shop. Please note: We are targeting cyclists who do not have lights and you must bring your bicycle to receive the free lights.

Play, think…
J.R. Atwood 

Filed under: Et cetera, The Body, Health & Exercise , bicycle, bike, blinky lights, cycling, cyclists, exercise, Facebook, I Crossed Your Path, MIT, safety, San Francisco, SFBC, Smart Biking Project, technology, urban planning

Education and the Next President

Tuesday, October 21, 7 to 9pm EST/4 to 6 pm PST: Be sure to tune-in to the webcast of a live debate between Linda Darling-Hammond, education adviser to Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama, and Lisa Graham Keegan, education adviser to Republican nominee John McCain. The debate, titled “Education and the Next President,” takes place at Teachers College, Columbia University and is being exclusively Webcast by edweek.org.

Read Education Week’s coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign to learn more about where the two candidates and their running mates stand on a wide variety of education issues. Also, read the edweek.org blog, Campaign K-12, for more analysis of the candidates’ views.

Registration:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/marketplace/webinars/webcast_ed_next_president.html

Those interested in the history, philosophy, and ideas of education might want to pick-up the current edition of Lapham’s Quarterly; the theme of the Fall 2008 publication is “Ways of Learning” and includes probing, provocative essays by Thomas Jefferson and Cardinal John Henry Newman to Michel Foucault and Dave Eggers.

__

On a different note…

*** “Top 5 Grisliest Sporting Injuries” at Peak Performance.

*** As Gretchen Reynolds of the NYT summarizes in this week’s e-issue of Play magazine, “llegal doping isn’t the only drug-related quandary in sports… The world’s best soccer players downed a mix of legal prescription drugs and nutritional supplements before and during almost every match of the 2002 and 2006 World Cup competitions. Using data supplied by team physicians, researchers found that, on average, each player used about two drugs or supplements per match. Some players were taking as many as seven different legal substances at the same time.” Study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

*** “New exercise guidelines released Tuesday set a minimum sweat allotment for good health” [italics mine] at Associated Press.

*** The “style and sensibility” of New York City bicyclists from the New York Times.

Play, think…
J. R. Atwood

Filed under: Education & Learning, People & Society, Sports, Play & Games, The Body, Health & Exercise , Barack Obama, bicylists, Cardinal John Henry Newman, cycling, Dave Eggers, education, education and the next president, edweek, exercise, Foucault, grisliest sports injuries, health, john mccain, Lapham's Quarterly, Linda Darling-Hammond, lisa graham keegan, peak performance, style and sensibility, sweat allotment, Thomas Jefferson

“Thanks for thinking”

I just returned home after a week of high-altitude livin’ in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Two great runs bookended my trip: On day one of my vacation in Jackson, I went for a light and easy morning jog to stretch my legs. Twenty minutes into my jaunt through the neighboring community of Wilson (population: 1,300; elevation: 6,100 feet), I looked up at Teton Pass, the mountain road that climbs 2,200 vertical feet at grades of up to 10 percent and cuts through the rugged range that divides the Equality State from the Gem State, and was overwhelmed with a curiosity to run to the top. (In summers past I have busted my quads riding my bike to the summit, but this was my first attempt to run it.) A breathtaking view of the valley floor from an elevation of 8,400 feet was my reward. Incredible.

This run was just a warm-up for when I would play King of the Mountain(s) at the end of my vacation. Starting from Teton Village (elevation: 6,300 feet) at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, I darted up a trail that wraps its way to the top of Apres Vous Mountain (8,500 feet), then crossed over and trekked up to the tippity snow-capped top of Rendezvous Mountain (10,500 feet), and then descended just a wee-bit to Gondola Summit (9,000 feet). This epic trail run sometimes seemed like a Sisyphian challenge (especially the trudge up the steep, slippery, and bowl-shaped Sublette chutte), but was ultimately — because of the difficulty of the trek, the views afforded from the mountain peaks, the wildlife that I found myself surrounded by, and the quiet solitude of such an adventure  — the highlight of my trip.

Having just returned home, I want to share some noteworthy news items from the past week that I am just now having a chance to catch-up on:

** Philosophy Talk, one of my favorite local radio programs, gets some much deserved recognition, courtesy of the L.A. Times article, Yeah, these philosophy professors will give it some thought. “Thank you for thinking.”

** Gretchen Reynolds of the NYT highlights an important and oft overlooked concern about the health of endurance athletes: The sometimes obsessive weight iusses of male and female athletes:

In [a] study published earlier this year in the Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, 223 Swedish Olympians (125 men and 98 women) were weighed, measured and asked about their eating habits. The thinner athletes, many of them from endurance sports, reported more episodes of wild weight swings and eating disorders than other athletes. Even more startling was that the eating and weight problems were most common among the thin male athletes. The women didn’t worry about their weight nearly as much. In fact, according to Dr. Hagmar Magnus, a physician at Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm and the study’s lead author, “the female Olympians ate a lot and planned meals well. The men didn’t.”

Magnus says the lessons of the study are broad. For one, “we’ve all been paying a great deal of attention to female athletes, trying to help them avoid eating disorders,” he says. “We need to start doing that for men.”

In addition, “the best female athletes in Sweden eat quite well, which suggests that good eating is a real competitive advantage,” Magnus says. “As a physician, I see many female athletes, not quite so elite, who have eating problems. That may be what has kept them from the top ranks. I’d love to get the message to them, you can eat your way to greatness.”

** Walking book clubs?! Exercise the mind and the body to maximize cognitive and bodily health, says Dr. Arthur Kramer, Professor of Psychology and the Director of the Biomedical Imaging Center at the University of Illinois, in this interview with Alvaro Fernandez of SharpBrains.

** And follow-this up with another fascinating AF/SharpBrains discussion about why and how smart people do really dumb things, like the Harvard students who paid $204 for a $20 bill. Wha?! Ori Brafman, co-author of Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, explains “the different hidden forces” and “psychological undercurrents” of our decision making processes here.

Play, think…
J.R. Atwood

Filed under: Brain Sciences, People & Society, Sports, Play & Games, The Body, Health & Exercise , Arthur Kramer, decision making, eating disorders, endurance, endurance athletes, exercise, food, Hagmar Magnus, health, Jackson Hole, mind and body, Ori Brafman, Philosophy Talk, psychological undercurrents, psychology, running, Sway, Sweden, trail running, walking book clubs, weight, Wyoming