Exercising While Sitting--A Splendid Idea
If you are familiar with Pilates, yoga and exercise classes, then you are familiar with inflatable balls that let you sit and bounce up and down. Some teachers say they belong in school classrooms too because they sharpen students' attention and improve their posture.
And that's what has been happening in some schools around the nation. One teacher in Chicago checked the Internet for ways to help her restless pupils sit still.
She stumbled on a story about exercise balls improving concentration. So she replaced her classroom's chairs with bouncy 21-inch-high balls in colors students chose. And the results are very promising--in terms of focus and attention.
The Wisconsin company, WittFitt, which sells exercise ball chairs for classroom use reports a increase in customers, from one school in 2004 to more than 300 across the country and abroad.
Subconscious mental activity lies at the core of the science behind the balls' success, experts say. The tiny movements kids make to stay balanced stimulate their brains and help them focus, says Dr. John Ratey, a Harvard University professor and author of "Driven to Distraction" and "Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain." Children with attention disorders, he says, have "a sleepy cortex," and exercise combats that mental disengagement. "Just by using their core muscles more, they're flipping [their cortex] on" and increasing their mental activity, Ratey says.
Comments
I just read this to my daughter and she was excited to hear about the balls and asked if she can have one too. We will start with her sitting in front of her computer and go from there.
Posted by: Lynne Marotta | November 17, 2009 01:24 AM