Exercise makes You Clever
Fidgeting, wobbling – when children move during their lessons, they are intuitively doing everything right. Exercise expert Dr. Dieter Breithecker explains why sitting still is nonsensical.
We all know what concentrated learning looks like. Exercise doesn’t fit that image. Because if school has taught is one thing, it is: anyone who is leaning back in their chair is not paying attention. Someone who is really following the lesson is sitting still.
“That's nonsense. Regular movement is a precondition for the brain not running on standby but is wide awake and is thus able to process information better and more lastingly,” says Dr. Dieter Breithecker, sports and exercise scientists, who advises schools and institutions in Germany and abroad in matters relating to preventive health.
Obviously, this doesn’t mean that everyone should be running across the desks and benches in lessons. Movement just means that the muscles are active. And this should happen regularly, even if only minimally and without us being aware of it. This is almost always the case – provided that this smart physical behaviour is not stopped by a rigid chair.
Regular movement is a precondition for the brain not running on standby but is wide awake.
Dr. Dieter Breithecker, sport and exercise scientist
Exercise – Food for the Brain
Try it out. Stand up and close your eyes. You will notice that you are rocking slightly. Now sit down on a rigid chair and close your eyes again. Nothing. The natural dynamism of your body is blocked. For optimum conditions when thinking, concentrating, and solving problems, however, you need muscles that are doing something.
“Muscles and their contractions triggered by movement ensure an increased oxygen supply and the excretion of important molecular neurotransmitters, such as proteins and hormones. These nutrients cause high stimulation and better functioning of the brain,” says Breithecker. If this supply is missing, although the body is particularly stressed when learning, the body automatically reacts correctly: it initiates movement to meet the requirements.
Physical activity needs of children
For developmental reasons, this is much higher for children than adults. Because the sensory motor-skill development in the first eleven years of life is primarily stimulated by action – by investigating, discovering, moving. Sitting still is diametrically opposed to this necessary maturing process. That is why the need for exercise is especially marked in this phase of life. Primary school pupils have always slid backwards and forwards on the edge of their chairs before an adult audience crosses its arms for the first time and discretely leans back. What schools can demand of primary school children is well researched: they don’t manage sit absolutely still on a chair for five minutes. For adolescents and adults, the maximum should be 20 minutes.
But we should learn from children instead of slowing them down – because movement is something that children intuitively do absolutely correctly.
Dr. Dieter Breithecker, sport and exercise scientist
Not All Sitting is Equal
Children in particular therefore need chairs that support their healthy urge to move: ideally with a three-dimensional, moving seat. “The body’s intelligent inherent dynamism is thus maintained, just like when standing. Then children can manage to sit for a good 30 minutes,” says Breithecker. With the help of his technical advice, VS launched the first school chair with three-dimension functionality on the market. People laughed about the PantoMove in 2004. The first counterfeits appeared in 2007.
The current state of research is that the seat should not block a person’s natural intuitive changes in position but encourage them. Because these natural rhythmic and, depending on individual needs, marked behaviours prevent poor posture.
Classic example: a child sits on a rigid chair not set or his size. Since the seat does not lean forwards, the child is forced to bend his back to lean over his exercise book. This compresses the abdominal region, the functioning of the internal organs is impaired by the compression. If the child tilts the chair forwards, he can compensate for this forced poor posture. If he tilts backwards, the abdominal region can stretch again. Nevertheless, he is often rebuked for this. “This is where the adult’s ignorance comes into play. But we should learn from children instead of stopping them. Because movement is something that children intuitively do correctly,” says Breithecker. In spite of all these findings, there is a great need for the furnishings in schools to catch up. It is estimated that only a third of the school population is sitting on chairs that give the pelvis room for movement in every direction and that are height adjustable. Around 60 percent are at least sitting on a size-appropriate chair and desk combination with an unmoving seat.
Children’s Sitting Behaviour in Numbers
75
percent of their waking hours that children spend sitting
33
percent sit optimally on moving chairs in school
60
percent at least sit on a size-appropriate chair and desk combination
From a Playing Child to a Sitting Child
What schools consider important in furniture is all the more important the less the children move during the day. The decisive factor is media behaviour. Because smart technology, from a mobile phone to a tablet, is mainly used when sitting.
School, homework, television, screen time – nowadays, a child spends a good ten hours a day sitting and is thus hardly any different from an adult. Experts estimate that the time spent sitting has grown by two hours since the pandemic. As early as 2016, American studies showed that children spend around 75 percent of their waking hours sitting. Given eight or nine hours’ sleep, that would be around eleven hours – a result that can certainly by extrapolated to the conditions here.
How Can Rooms Offer More Space for Exercise?
Schools are required to keep children on the go. By means of educational concepts and rooms that entice them to move. Room dividers or magnetic boards that children go to to stick up ideas and then discuss while standing have been tried. More standing desks in the classroom enable children to do their work spontaneously while standing up.
Younger children like to learn on the floor because there they can continuously change their position, sometimes kneeling, sometimes crouching. Floor cushions and low tables support this floor-level learning. Neuroscientific studies show that a room design permitting movement has a strong effect on well-being and learning performance. But it’s not enough just to get the class to do “jumping jacks” when it gets too unruly. That would make sense if every child needed exercise at the same time and in the same intensity. And obviously they don’t. Every child is different and has an individual need for exercise.
We must change teaching and the institution so that exercise is part of learning.
Dr. Dieter Breithecker, sport and exercise scientist
“We must change teaching and the institution so that exercise is part of learning. And every child can find the best learning place for his learning needs and learning organisation. But that needs everyone to change the way they think,” says Breithecker. Practice shows how well children combine learning and exercise when they can choose freely. If they have access to an indoor trampoline in the classroom, they get on it with their schoolbook and read while rocking slightly. That might take some getting used to at first. But it is one of many opportunities in schools to channel healthy restlessness when learning before fidgeting really does disrupt learning.
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