![]() ![]() ![]() We thank him for taking the time from his busy schedule to tell us about his exciting research.īe Inkandescent: For more than 15 years, you have been educating people about their brains. Click here to read more about that.įollowing is a Q&A that Be Inkandescent magazine had with the professor when he was at the Renaissance Weekend to talk about ADD, anti-aging, and the impact of exercise on reducing the incidence of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. It also inspired Katherine Tullie, creator of BOKS Kids, to start an organization that got gobbled up by Reebok International as its newest nonprofit outreach program. He begins with a case study on exercise and the brain, sharing a physical education program conducted in Naperville, Illinois, in 1999-the spark that inspired Ratey to write his book. ![]() In his 300-page hardback, Ratey offers 10 chapters to help us reconnect our bodies with our minds so that we can create better, healthier lives for ourselves, and for our children. “What’s even more disturbing, and what virtually no one realizes, is that inactivity is killing our brains-physically shriveling them.” “We are literally killing ourselves, and it’s a problem throughout the developed world,” Ratey tells us. 10 percent of the population has Type 2 diabetes.65 percent of our nation’s adults are overweight or obese.We no longer hunt and gather, and our sedentary lifestyle poses one of the biggest threats to our survival. “We envision our hunger-gatherer ancestors as brutes who relied primarily on physical prowess, but to survive over the long haul they had to use their smarts to find and store food.”Īs a result, Ratey insists, the relationship between food, physical activity, and learning is hardwired into the brain’s circuitry. In fact, he shares, as we adapted over the last half million years, our thinking brain evolved from the need to hone motor skills. “Ironically,” he says, “the human capacity to dream and plan and create the very society that shields us from our biological imperative to move is rooted in the areas of the brain that govern movement.” Ratey believes that in this age, when we spend so much time in front of our laptops, it’s easy to forget that we are “born movers.” “But the real reason we feel so good when we get our blood pumping is that it makes the brain function at its best … I often tell my patients that the point of exercise is to build and condition the brain.” “We assume it’s because we’re burning off stress or reducing muscle tension, or boosting endorphins,” he explains. Ratey, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, whose books in addition to “Spark” include “Driven to Distraction,” “Shadow Syndromes,” and “A User’s Guide to the Brain.” “We all know that exercise makes us feel better, but most of us have no idea why,” says Dr. John Ratey’s breakthrough book, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. With these two means, man can attain perfection.”Īnd so begins Dr. Not separately, one for the soul and the other for the body, but for the two together. Plato said: “In order for man to succeed in life, God provided him with two means, education and physical activity. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |