4 Ways Physical Activity Can Boost Mental Health [Interactive]

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[0:02] The more physical activity a child gets now will only benefit them later in life. Schools with the country being shut down and schools being closed, a lot of kids are not getting the physical activity they need. Here are four reasons why physical activity can help boost your child’s mental health.

[0:53] It’s been an interesting year with schools being shut down. A lot of kids are not having the proper access to physical education that they truly need. Some kids, the only physical activity they get is during physical education class, but what we learn in physical education, we notice that physical activity helps boost mental health.

Here are four reasons why it helps boost mental health.

1. Exposure to Activity

[1:16] First, kids are exposed to sports through physical education. The sports they like, they end up playing outside of PE class. The more physical activity a child gets, serotonin levels in the brain are boosted. What this does is this hormone helps make you happy and confident. That way you feel awesome in your own skin, which helps give a positive self-image.

2. Improves Classroom Success

[1:39] Another reason it helps boost classroom success, the more physical activities child gets, the more oxygen goes to the brain, brain cells grow and allows you to remember more information.

3. Helps Improve Sleep

[1:53] The more physical activity we get, it helps improve sleep. When the body rests, our body can recover, it can react and we can feel more rested. When we feel more rested, we go into the classroom ready to learn and we get more sleep because we were physically active the day before.

4. Helps Develop Discipline

[2:06] Lastly, it helps to develop that discipline that we all need. Eventually, a child’s gonna find the sport he or she likes, but they realized they can’t play that sport unless they have success in the classroom. They realize success in the classroom and playing sports go hand in hand. One can’t be achieved without the other. So the more than they enjoy the sport, they realize they can’t play that sport unless they do well in the classroom.

So those are four ways that I believe physical activity and exposure to physical education early on in life can help boost a child’s mental health.

Related Articles:
The Health Benefits of Yoga in PE By Harsh Shah
SPARK Class Management Strategies [Interactive] By SPARK
Bringing Core Subjects to PE and PE to the Classroom by Jason Gemberling
The Case for Active Learning by Moving Minds

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