John Ratey on Exercise and the Brain

Ratey discusses the relevance of the mind-body connection to K-12 education, and misconceptions about the importance of exercise in schools

John J. Ratey, associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and internationally recognized expert in neuropsychiatry, has dedicated much of his career to studying the transformative effects of exercise on the brain. In his nationally bestselling book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain (Little, Brown and Company, 2008), he uncovers research that shows that physical activity can reduce stress, sharpen thinking, lift mood and boost memory.

In a recent interview with Kristin Hubing, School Administrator magazine’s assistant editor, Ratey discussed the relevance of the mind-body connection to K-12 education, misconceptions about the importance of exercise in schools and a Naperville, Ill., district that revolutionized its physical education program and saw extraordinary results in the classroom.

In the first chapter of Spark, you welcome readers to the “revolution” cited in the book’s subtitle. Can you tell me what the revolution is and how it affects K-12 education?

Ratey: The revolution is basically learning the science behind how exercise affects our brains in so many ways. It helps increase our ability to regulate our emotions, it improves what we call neuroplasticity, and that basically is improving the environment for our brain cells to grow. And the only way we learn anything is for our brain cells to grow. So the best way that we know of with any activity, drug or supplement, to increase our brain cells ability to grow is the environment caused by exercise. So with that, what we see is an improvement across the board in ability of students to regulate their emotions, that is a decrease in discipline problems and an increase in participation, an increase in attendance, and as well as a subsequent increase in grades, in test scores and success in the classroom.

How does exercise affect children’s brains? Do these effects vary between elementary and secondary students? Between males and females?

Ratey: I think across the board exercise affects all students of any age from pre-K through graduate school, colleges, now some colleges are recommending or requiring activity periods during the day. Schools in general are learning that exercise is a great way to help their children become “better learners.” Because at any age it increases time on task, increases the ability to switch sets, which means ability to change their mind or change their tactics. It boosts executive function, which includes working memory, sorting, sequencing, imagining, consequence evaluation, all of these factors that are so important in the classroom. And this affects any age group and every age group and both sexes about the same. Exercise may in fact help the girls a little bit more than the boys, but the differences are so tiny it’s barely necessary to mention it.

What is the biggest misconception people have about the importance of physical education in schools?

Ratey: I think it starts (from the physical educators), misconceptions start because so much of the time administrators think of physical education as something for athletes. And in the schools that I talk about in my book, it’s anything but the athletes that we’re speaking to. We’re talking about all the kids. And especially those kids who aren’t athletic. Because they are what we call low-hanging fruit. They’re the ones who get the biggest bang for their buck because they’re not exercising. An athlete is likely exercising at least a couple quarters throughout the year. It’s the kids who are discoordinated, who are slightly or very overweight, who aren’t on any kind of exercise trajectory at all who get the most help with a fitness-based physical education program. And most educators, most educator executives, think that physical education is really just about the sport and teaching people how to do sports. It really should be not about Friday Night Lights but about getting all the kids as fit as possible. Because this leads to better citizens, better students, healthier and much more able to do well in their schoolwork.

How can school leaders change that view?

Ratey: I think it is something that is very difficult for schools to change, but it’s something that once the story is told and once the science is known, that it soon gets support by the populace. By the parents, by the teachers, by the students. I think in this country we’re beginning to see a change in perspective. There is much more information out there and it’s growing daily. Articles of this school or that school has changed and the dramatic changes that is brought about. Not just in one or two schools but schools throughout the country.

Why is promoting exercise in schools especially important right now?

Ratey: Right now, this moment in the schools it’s important that we get our kids moving. One because we obviously have a health care crisis coming with the increase of obesity amongst our k ids in general. And that’s one aspect of physical education, the job is to get our kids physically fit. But I think the change is coming where people are recognizing that movement and activities not just for the body but that it really has an impact in our brains. Especially today when 30% or more of our children in schools have generalized anxiety disorder, attention deficit disorder, depression, higher incidences of suicide. And as well as problems with behavior in general. Problems with attendance. Kids dropping out of school. All of these, bullying, all of these can be helped enormously by a very good physical education program as well as adequate time and importance given to recess.

In Spark, you cite Naperville Central High School as a school that has implemented the unique approach to PE you promote. What impresses you most about the school’s story?

Ratey: Chapter one of my book is all about Naperville 203. It’s an entire district and what impressed me most and continues to impress me is that when they looked at the school back in 2003 and measured their BMIs, only 3% of their children were overweight. At the same time, 99% of their kids took the international science and math test which is a test all countries take every 3 years. They were able to take it, most of the kids, 19,000 kids in their school district took the test and they came in #1 in the world in science and #6 in math. This during a time when STEM is emphasized, it should cause administrators to pay more attention to the fact that the more fit the person is, the better they’re going to be able to do in math and science. And this has been shown over and over again. They’re stressed. The more fit you are, the better you’re going to deal with stress. And kids from very high performing schools have a very difficult time with so much stress put on their shoulders. Even kids who are at the top of their class feel the stress, may be the ones to unfortunately be the ones to commit suicide. This happens a lot in Palo Alto and Princeton but it’s a world leader in adolescent suicide is South Korea. It has been for years because they put so much stress on the kids and the schools and the grandparents to do as well as possible on their exams so that they can get into the better colleges or get into college at all and this leads to such a big problem. I was called over to Taiwan when my book came out, the president of Taiwan read my book, to help educate the Taiwanese to do something about their physical activity, especially in their middle school and high school years as their problem with suicide was similar to South Korea. Depression, stress, the feeling of hopelessness among many of their children was higher and higher as they cut back more and more on time spent with physical activity.

Are there any examples of other countries that are doing it right?

Ratey: Yes, I think there are pockets of areas of countries that are beginning. I think the Netherlands, the ministry of education have begun to really study the effect of exercise on their kids in terms of learning. Even while children are exercising in the classroom, they’re finding that while they’re exercising, this is the time for them to learn particularly difficult math principles or language issues that require a lot of brain power, whether it’s memorization or manipulation of information. Singapore as well has spent a lot of time and money increasing the amount of time spent having their kids exercise and move. Even though they’re amongst the top scorers in the world on PISA and other tests, they know that their kids are extraordinarily stressed and not only will they often compete better on these tests but it will help them deal better emotionally with the kind of stress they always meet. So those are two countries, and of course the one country that most people know about is Finland. It’s amongst the top 3 in the world all the time in countries testing. And for good reason. And a part of that is their emphasis on physical exercise, physical activity. All classes are an hour long, 45 minutes of classroom work and 15 minutes of play or exercise. And this carries on throughout high school and the kids there are, as I say, score among the best in the world. And they’re not in study halls or on the clock or overburdened with reams and reams of homework as many of our schools are.

How do you reconcile your recommendation that students exercise during a zero hour period before the school day begins with studies that shows biological sleep patterns shift toward later times for both sleeping and waking during adolescence?

Ratey: The ideal school day of course would be one that starts later and starts with an episode of activity. It doesn’t have to be first period. The experience at Naperville was not just about first period, although it’s often misread that way. That was the reading-delayed kids. It really comes throughout the day, different periods, when kids are exercising. So I do think when we get into the teen years that obviously these adolescent kids need to sleep more because along with the obesity epidemic, an epidemic throughout the world is sleep deprivation. Because of our wonderful cyber world, digital world that we’re living in that is so interesting, exciting, addictive, that we have a hard time giving it up to get adequate sleep.