Educating the Student Body: Taking Physical Activity and Physical Education to School
| National Institute of Health |
It seems like common sense that exercise helps every body function, including cognitive brain function. Scientists may agree with common sense, but they tend to like evidence.
That means lots of experiments to test and verify their assumptions. When it comes to physical activity and academic performance, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that maybe we should be spending more school time working the body instead of constantly testing the brain to see how well it withstands boredom.
Evidence suggests that increasing physical activity and physical fitness may improve academic performance. Additionally, Available evidence suggests that mathematics and reading are the academic topics that are most influenced by physical activity.
Basic cognitive functions related to attention and memory facilitate learning, and these functions are enhanced by physical activity and higher aerobic fitness.
Single sessions of and long-term participation in physical activity improve cognitive performance and brain health. Children who participate in vigorous- or moderate-intensity physical activity benefit the most.
These and tons of other research results can be found in:
