Optimal thought and optimal fitness through reason, logic, science, passion, and wisdom.
Physical Activity and Brain Development
Physical Activity and Brain Development

Physical Activity and Brain Development

Janine Cate at Why Homeschool said she recently went to a seminar on brain development and learned (these are excerpts only):
1) Children need lots of opportunities to move their bodies so that their brains can develop. 2) A healthy diet and circadian sleep patterns are vital to brain development. 3) When a child is struggling with learning, programs that focus only on cortical learning (like special reading programs or tutoring) can be very frustrating to children whose brains are sending jumbled information. Occupational Therapy and spontaneous play that involves crawling, running and so forth will stimulate the midbrain to function the way it should and then learning will happen spontaneously. The speaker, Donna Bateman, founded a company called Parents with Purpose. We hired her to do an evaluation on Baby Bop and to create an occupational therapy program to help him. Her evaluation matched our own conclusions. Baby Bop’s brain did not develop properly during the 2-8 month stage when much of the mid-brain develops. He spent much of that stage strapped into a car seat and suffering from malnutrition.
This is consistent with De Vany’s Evolutionary Fitness. Exercise is important for what it does to you as a person, not just ‘for what it does to help you lose weight.’ The reason is much deeper than ‘losing weight.’ You need exercise, physical activity and physical play to keep your mind and consciousness functioning properly and at an optimum. Activity is critical to us as rational animals. We are integrated beings of mind and body, not just one or the other.

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