Why Use Brain Breaks?

Preparing the brain with specific movements may improve communication from one part of the brain to another.

Providing brain breaks can give the brain the opportunity it needs to process and consolidate information.

Supporting exercise and fitness encourages healthy living. A healthy body and a healthy mind work hand in hand. Become an important role model for your students.

Developing class cohesion through movement activities can prepare the brain for learning new information (social skills, team building, community building).

Reviewing content through movement during the lesson may be an ideal way to use repetition to improve retention. Reviewing content in some form should happen on a consistent basis. Repeat to remember, and remember to repeat.

Teaching new content through movement will help many students of all ages and cultures understand and retain information. Be willing to teach in a nontraditional manner, then work to make it fit your own style.

How Movement Affects Learning

Balance improves reading capacity
- The vestibular and cerebellum systems are the first systems to mature. These two systems work closely with the reticular activating system (RAS) system that is located at the top of the brain stem and is critical to our attentional system. These systems interact to keep our balance, turn thinking into action, and coordinate moves. Physical education curriculum games and activities that stimulate inner ear motion like rolling, jumping, and spinning are necessary to lay the foundation for learning.

An internalized sense of rhythm is a prerequisite for reading
- The brain naturally seeks out rhythm and rhyme. It can learn more easily when content has rhythm and rhyme. Finding and keeping a steady beat is a prerequisite for reading.

Well developed eye musculature is necessary for proficient reading, far and near vision, and crossing the visual midline
- Exercise can improve the strength and endurance of these muscles as well as develop neural networks between the two hemispheres of the brain.

Cross lateral movement helps develop the neural networks between the two hemispheres of the brain
- As each side of the body performs a certain movement, communication occurs between the two sides of the brain.

Movement facilitates cognition
- The brain learns best through patterns. When information is arranged in patterns, it is more easily processed, stored, and retrieved. Letters, math, signatures, and locomotor movements are all built on patterns.

Because of the neural connection between moving and thinking, often our thoughts come out in movements more easily than in verbal form. Once a movement has occurred, the words follow.

The brain likes novelty. It also has a strong episodic memory. That means we can recall things better when they are presented in unique ways and in different locations.

Ten to 15% of children entering Kindergarten can find and keep a steady beat. Half of adults can do this. Half of adults are proficient readers.

The brainstem is responsible for survival. When we sense danger, fear, or threat, our brains function through the brainstem in survival mode. Only when we feel safe, comfortable, or even loved, can our brains function at a higher level- figuratively and literally. Thinking, planning, and problem-solving take place in the frontal lobe.

Through repetition, neurons are covered with more and more myelin. Myelin forms a sheath over nerves. The more myelin a nerve has, the more efficiently messages can travel through them. So, as we participate in vestibular-activating activities, the more these neurons are used, the easier balance becomes, and the more focus is taken away from balancing and put into other activities.

The cerebellum, in the rear part of the brain, has long been known for its role in movement, balance, and coordination. It takes up just one-tenth of the brain by volume, but it contains over half of its neurons. It has about 40 million nerve fibers. Newer research is now linking the cerebellum to emotions and cognition as well as movement.

Eighty-five percent of children are natural kinesthetic learners. That means their bodies learn best when given the opportunity to learn through their bodies and through movement.

There are more nerves crossing the temporomandibular joint than any other joint in the body. The cranial nerves are responsible for (among other things) the eyes, mouth, tongue, and all the sensory input from the face to the brain. The temporomandibular joint tightens when we are under stress. When this joint is relaxed, learning takes place more efficiently. A big yawn, or a big scream, not only serve to provide a much-needed fresh supply of oxygen to the lungs and to the brain, but also reduce the tension in this joint and allow for more learning to occur.

For our eyes:
- Eighty to 90% of the information our brains receive come from our eyes.
- Eye fitness refers to the ability to track objects, moving and stationary, focus on objects near and far and switch back and forth from near to far, use both eyes together, and also have a well-developed field of peripheral vision.
- The vestibular system acts to control our muscles and hold us still in a position so that we can control our eye movements.
- Being able to cross the midline of the brain is a requirement for being able to track words across a page from left to right, and when processing the peripheral fields of vision, cross-over must occur in the brain, and the two hemispheres must be connected.

Benefits of vestibular activation:
- Vestibular receptors are in our eyes, muscles, joints, and inner ear.
- The vestibular system also includes ascending nerve pathways to the brain and descending neural pathways away from the brain to other sensory monitoring areas.
- Providing children with opportunities to stimulate their vestibular systems activates those neural pathways and makes balance and body sense come more easily, which allows their brains to perform more higher level activities.

Benefits of mid-line exercises:
- The brain is divided by a midline called the corpus callosum, which is dense with neural networks connecting the right and left hemispheres of the brain.
- Communication between the two sides of the brain is essential, and movements in which the midline of the brain is crossed allow for increased myelination and connection of the neural networks of the corpus callosum.
- Exercises which involve two sides of the brain even without crossing the physical midline of the body also allow for neural development between the two hemispheres.

Benefits of rhythmic activities:
- The brain seeks out rhythm and rhyme naturally, and can learn more easily when content has rhythm and rhyme.
- Rhythmic activities make our brains more ready to perform language-related activities.
- Rhythmic movements cause the brain to produce dopamine, which makes the body feel better and helps improve attention and maintain focus.