Spark Your Brain Ignite Your Passion by Mary Ferreri e-mail: mary.farrell@cms.k12.nc.us

1. Spark Your BrainIgnite Your Passionby Mary Ferrerie-mail: mary.farrell@cms.k12.nc.us Physical Activity is like cognitive candy - John Medina www.brainrules.net/exercise

2. Close Your Eyes • Behavior and discipline • Disruptive and impulsive outbursts • Attention • Focus • Mood • Conceptual learning • Confidence • Test scores • EOG scores • Stress and Perfection

3. Classroom MovementsEveryone Join in! -Side Bends -Calf Raises -Neck Stretch -Hot Foot -Shrugs -Jump Shots -Arm Circles -Tricep Kickback -Lunges -Six Inches -Squats/Hindu -Jog in Place -Chair dips -CrissCross Knee Tap -Overhead Book Press -Cherry Pickers -Heel Taps -Bicep “Curl”

4. Brain Gains Read an article that I have handed out and share your thoughts about the article. http://www.cbc.ca/thenational/indepthanalysis/story/2009/10/06/national-braingains.html (6:35)

5. Brain Anatomy

6. Research and Studies Show Sustained physical activity improves learning and grades in academic subjects more than actually using that time for the academic subjects themselves. Sustained aerobic exercise of between 65 to 75% of one’s max heart rate wakes up the frontal cortex of the brain, the part that is needed for behavioral control. Exercise causes the brain to create more nerve cells, makes those nerves stronger, and helps them withstand stress, and improves neurotransmitter function, which helps the brain work better. (City Park High School study in Canada)

7. Research Cont. • Allison Cameron, the grade 8 teacher, noted that between February and June, the attention span of her students increased from 10 minutes to 3 hours. The students reported feeling happier, less angry, and definitely smarter, which improved their confidence levels, and made them realize that they would be capable of succeeding in life if they applied themselves. • A landmark study of 33 Ontario schools that are part of a health drive called Living Schools– where students exercise each day, play extra sports and are discouraged from eating junk food– saw overall scores climb by 18% over 2 years in reading, writing and math, compared to about 4% for similar schools not in the provincially funded program. —Louise Brown Heath and Fitness Study • GurwinderSagoo is in grade 8 at Markham’s Greensborough Public School, where the entire student body works out every afternoon– principal and vice-principals included– to pop music blasted over loudspeakers. The school has trained 25 grade 7 students to be “fitness ambassadors” to lead their fellow students through such steps as the Cha-Cha Slide and the Macarena. • FITNESSGRAM provided the correct assessment and validation needed to keep physical fitness in schools and an active part of everyday life. The study proved that students who are physically fit, regardless of race or family income, are less likely in the future to become obese, and more likely to be better behaved, achieve greater academic success and attend school regularly.—Ellen R. Delisio (Education world) & Dr. Kenneth Cooper • Researchers announced that they had coaxed the human brain into growing new nerve cells, a process that for decades had been thought impossible, simply by putting subjects on a 3-month aerobic-workout regimen. Other scientists have found that vigorous exercise can cause older nerve cells to form dense, interconnected webs that make the brain run faster and more efficiently. - Newsweek MSNBC. COM Mary Carmichael

8. Healthy Student Body Exercise increases levels of serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine — important neurotransmitters that traffic in thoughts and emotions. You’ve probably heard of serotonin, and maybe you know that a lack of it is associated with depression.

9. What you may not know is that toxic levels of stress erode the connections between the billions of nerve cells in the brain, or that chronic depression shrinks certain areas of the brain. Conversely, exercise unleashes a cascade of neurochemicals and growth factors that can reverse this process, physically bolstering the brain’s infrastructure. In fact, the brain responds like muscles do, growing with use, withering with inactivity. The neurons in the brain connect to one another through “leaves” on treelike branches, and exercise causes those branches to grow and bloom with new buds, thus enhancing brain function at a fundamental level. I tell people that going for a run is like taking a little bit of Prozac and a little bit of Ritalin because, like the drugs, exercise elevates these neurotransmitters. Exercise balances neurotransmitters – along with the rest of the neurochemicals in the brain. Keeping your brain in balance can change your life.” Dr. John Ratey, author of SPARK and co-founder of Sparking Life(sparkinglife.org)

10. In Recent News How Exercise Can Strengthen the Brain http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/how-exercise-can-strengthen-the-brain/ Past experiments have shown persuasively that exercise spurs the birth of new mitochondria in muscle cells and improves the vigor of the existing organelles. This upsurge in mitochondria, in turn, has been linked not only to improvements in exercise endurance but to increased longevity in animals and reduced risk for obesity, diabetes and heart disease in people. It is a very potent cellular reaction. This is the first report to show that, in mice at least, two months of exercise training “is sufficient stimulus to increase mitochondrial biogenesis,” Dr. Davis and his co-authors write in the study. Of course, this experiment was conducted with animals, and “mouse brains are not human brains,” Dr. Davis says. “But,” he continues, “since mitochondrial biogenesis has been shown to occur in human muscles, just as it does in animal muscles, it is a reasonable supposition that it occurs in human brains.”