Written by Dana Jandhyala.
Like every responsible parent, I’m sure that you want your children to achieve their best in terms of their academics right?
Research indicates that physical fitness increases your mental strength. Research from these studies indicates that there is a positive connection between physical activities and academic performance.
Your brain is no different from the other muscles in your child’s body, you can either use it or lose it. This may be due an increased flow of oxygen and blood to the brain along with an increase in the amount of chemicals and pheromones released.
Have a look at how there is a positive connection between your child’s physical activities and academic performance:
How Physical Activities Can Improve Your Child’s Focus
Studies have discovered that children who are physically active tend to be a lot better at solving cognitive problems like puzzles as compared to their less active classmates. Research has also discovered that there were a lot of anatomical differences in the brains of active children as compared to inactive children. The structures that are related to memory, emotion regulation and attention usually tend to be larger amongst children who got regular exercise than those that didn’t. Learning is not only about hitting the books so encourage your child to become active or better yet to take up a sport.
Physical exercise gets your children’s brains ready to learn by focusing attention and preparing them to process information.
How Physical Activities Enhance Your Child’s Learning Ability
Regular exercise pushes your child’s brain to keep working at optimum capacity by causing the nerve cells to multiply faster and strengthen their interconnections as well.
Tests on animals proved that their nerve cells release proteins which are known as neurotrophic factors. Brain-derived neurotrophic factors also trigger numerous other chemicals that promote neural health which has a direct positive effect on brain functions.
Staying fit also affects your kid’s brain by:
• Providing more blood and oxygen flow to his brain
• Increases the production of nerve protecting compounds and growth factors which help create new nerve cells and support synaptic plasticity
• Improved development and survival and neurons
Physical will also increase your child’s levels of norenephrine and endorphins resulting in a reduction of stress as well as an overall improvement in their mood.
How Physical Activities Improve Your Child’s Brain Function
Exercise stimulates brain plasticity by increasing the growth of new connections between cells in a wide array of important cortical areas of the brain to grow neuronal connections.
This also keeps depression at bay as the “runner’s high” which is found in active humans usually results in a drop in stress hormones as well.
Exercise Can Help Your Child Do Better at School
Anything that is good for the heart is good for your child’s brain.
A Combination of Motor Skills and Aerobic Fitness will Improves Your Child’s Academics
It has been discovered that any motor skills that you have gained through physical activity may be more important than the cardio respiratory benefits of aerobic fitness according to a study by the University of Madrid in 2014. It was discovered that children who were aerobically fit usually had more compact and fibrous white-matter tracts in the brain than any of their peers who were less fit.
After School Sports Activities Can Improve Your Child’s Cognitive Function
It was discovered that children who took part in after school exercise groups had an improved cognitive function according to researchers at the University of Illinois who conducted a survey.
Other than encouraging your children to take part in physical activities, make sure that they stick to a healthy diet and get the necessary amount of sleep they need. Getting your children to be physically active will enhance their cognitive thought process as well as getting them to perform better at school.
About Author: Making education simple and easy to comprehend is Dana Jandhyala’s forte. She’s had a long career as an educator where she has taught in several different schools and institutes in multiple countries. Today, she helps students with personalized online tutorials by MySchoolPage that help make concepts easy to understand, making learning fast and fun. She writes to help students study better and to coach parents so they can facilitate the success of their children.