Run, jump, learn: how exercise can transform our schools| John J. Ratey, MD |TEDxManhattanBeach

While exercise is good for the body, Dr. John J. Ratey, MD, argues it is more important for the brain, especially when it comes to students in the classroom. Citing scientific studies and real world examples, this internationally recognized expert in the brain-exercise connection demonstrates how we can raise test scores, lower behavioral problems and help the overall well-being of today's students with fitness based physical education.

John J. Ratey, MD, is an associate clinical professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, research synthesizer, speaker and best-selling author. He has published over 60 peer-reviewed articles and seven books, including "A Users Guide to the Brain," and the groundbreaking "Driven to Distraction" series with Ned Hallowell, MD. John's latest book is "Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain." (http://www.amazon.com/Spark-Revolutionary-Science-Exercise-Brain/dp/0316113506)

Dr. Ratey has embarked on a world-wide mission to re-engineer schools, corporations and individual lifestyle practices by incorporating exercise to achieve peak performance and optimum mental health. Consistently named one of the Best Doctors in America by his peers, Dr. Ratey serves as Reebok's Ambassador for Active Kids, is an Advisor to the California Governor's Council on Physical Fitness Activity and Sport, and is an adjunct professor at Taiwan National Sports University. Dr. Ratey maintains a private practice in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is currently working on a book examining our genetic roots and the influence on our psychology in a modern world, to be published by Little Brown in 2013. More information http://www.johnratey.com

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

In the spirit of disruption,
I'm going to be a little disruptive.

So, I want you all to stand up.

Please, everybody, stand up.

We're going to do an exercise
that's called the Hindu squats,

and I guarantee you that no one here -

well, maybe I should ask,
Has anyone ever heard of a Hindu squat?

Oh, there are a few.

Well, I had spoken
in Mumbai, India, to 500 Hindus,

and no one had heard of it, so ...

(Laughter)

But it's good you have.

So anyway, put your hands
right out in front of you,

and pull them back real tight,

and then bend down and touch the floor
or just sit on the seat there.

Yeah. Okay.

Now, once again. Let's do it again.

Bring it in and then down here.

Now, when we bring it in,

I want you to go, "Boom!"
and then come down like that.

Okay, really loud.

(Audience) Boom!

And then go down, and touch the floor.

Then, "Boom!" go down,
and touch the floor,

and then, "Boom!" and go down,
and touch the floor,

and then, "Boom!" and go down,
and touch the floor.

One more time. "Boom!"
and go down, and touch the floor.

Okay.

Great, now you can be seated.

Now your brains are ready to learn.

(Laughter)

And what I'm going to talk
to you today about

is how exercise is really for our brains,

physical exercise turns our brains on,

and all the wonderful side effects
that we get help our body be healthy.

I first learned
about the power of exercise

when I was doing my residency
in psychiatry in Boston

at the time of the Boston Marathon's
explosion with Bill Rodgers,

and everybody in Boston was running.

We began to see patients
who had to stop running

for the first time
in their lives with an injury.

First thing that happened
they got depressed.

Then I began to see some people
come in and say,

"Look, I can no longer pay attention,"

"I can no longer plan well,"

"I am procrastinating
for the first time in my life."

And these were professors
from MIT and Harvard and industry leaders

that had never experienced what we
now call attention deficit disorder,

but they were self-medicating
with their daily exercise.

And this changed

and led me to be interested in exercise
as a treatment for a lot of disorders.

We knew, from the time of Hippocrates,

that exercise was a good
treatment for depression,

and I began to say that a bout of exercise
was like taking a little bit of Prozac

and a little bit of Ritalin.

(Laughter)

This was solidified some years later

when a study came out of
Duke University Medical School,

who had been really onto this whole thing
of exercise making our emotions better,

improving our depression,
improving anxiety,

improving our aggression.

But they did this study,
looking at 100 patients who came into Duke

and divided them into
three different groups.

All these people were sedentary.

The first group they started on Zoloft,
increasing doses of Zoloft.

The next group they put into an exercise
program four times a week for 30 minutes,

and the third group,
they did both medicine and exercise.

What they found after four weeks

is that all their depressive scores
dropped to the same level,

and at the end of the fourth month,
which is how long the experiment went,

the changes had remained.

And so, this kept me interested

in exercise as a treatment,

but then I learned about this school
in Naperville, Illinois, in 2003

that led me to write my book "Spark,"

which has given me the purpose and mission
of changing our education system,

bringing back play and exercise
as a treatment modality

or as a stimulant modality
for all of our kids and all of us.

Naperville had 19,000 students,

and they had evolved,
over a 20-year-period,

this wonderful PE program
that was fitness-based,

and it was everyday.

So, the kids were spending 45 minutes
all of them moving and grooving.

What got them national recognition

is that three percent
of their children were overweight,

and it was at time
when 33% of our kids were overweight.

In 7,500 children in the high school,
there was not an obese child to be found.

Remarkable,

but what really got me
on an airplane to go there

was that some years before,
they had taken the TIMSS tests,

the international science and math test

that every country takes every three years

to see how they're doing
in science and math,

and the US is usually
in the low- to mid-teens.

And they took it as a country,

and they came in number one
in the world in science

and number six in math.

So, I jumped on an airplane, went there,

and began to put together
the science of exercise and its effect

not only for mental health issues
but for cognition.

We began to take this idea
to other schools,

went to an inner-city school
in Charleston, South Carolina,

where they had no resources:
one gymnasium, one PE teacher.

She set up eight
different stations in the gym,

had her fourth- to eighth-graders
come in every morning for 30 minutes,

had them play basketball one station
double Dutch jump rope in another,

pogo stick, hula hoops.

They kept rotating,
so the novelty was there.

What they found in the first four months

was a 83% drop in discipline problems.

Now, it wasn't just burning off energy.

What they were doing
is they were turning their brains on.

We worked with another school
up in Northern Ontario -

the high school -

where they had a special class
for their 25 bad boys.

They were very disruptive in a bad way,

and one of the things that they had to do
was to suspend these children

if they were in fights, breaking furniture
or just disrupting the class too much.

So, we went in and helped them
design a program

to get all these kids moving
and moving vigorously in the morning.

And so, what you can see on the graph here

is that the semester before, they had
95 days of suspension of these children.

After we started the program,
it dropped to five.

Then, as well, the attendance went up.

So, these kids came to school -
and these were rough kids -

came to school to get their credits,

to finish their courses,
to participate in schools.

Now, what happens when we exercise
is we turn on our front part of the brain,

the last part of the brain to evolve.

This is a part of the brain
that's called our CEO of the brain

or prefrontal cortex,

where our frontal executive functions are,

and when we exercise, when we move,
we turn that part of the brain on.

As well, we create
a lot of neurotransmitters

that we aim at with our psychiatric drugs,

and we create another substance
that we had just learned about called BDNF

or brain-derived neurotrophic factor,

which I called Miracle-Gro for the brain

because when we fire our nerve cell,
we make this stuff,

and this keeps our brain cells
young and perky -

one of the reasons why exercise
is one of the best ways to prevent

the onset of cognitive decline
and Alzheimer's disease -

but it also readies
our brain to be plastic.

And we know we need
to have our brain cells grow

to log in any new information.

So, exercise is a terrific way
to improve the learner

because it turns on the attention system,

it turns on the motivation system,

it turns on the memory system,

as well as it makes all of our little
brain cells ready to grow and sprout,

and that's the only way we learn anything.

Here in California, for the past 12 years,

you've tested a million children
in grades five, seven and nine every year.

This is a representative graph
of what it looks like.

They evaluate them
on six different fitness standards.

And the graph shows as more and more
standards are completed,

that is they achieve them,

their test scores -

in this case it's math,
but it's the same in language, arts -

their test scores go up,

and this is what you see
in every single year.

So, the more fit the child is,
the better learner they are.

So, my purpose, my mission
is to go around the country and the world

to tell people, "Look,
exercise makes your brain better,

it optimizes your
brain's ability to learn,

it helps regulate your emotions,

it improves your motivation,

and it's something

that we have unfortunately
been taking out of our schools."

We need to reinvigorate our schools

and get our kids out of
their seats and moving.

So, thank you very much.

(Applause)