Physical activity in lessons improves students' attainment

October 15, 2019

Science Daily/University College London

Students who take part in physical exercises like star jumps or running on the spot during school lessons do better in tests than peers who stick to sedentary learning, according to a UCL-led study.

The meta-analysis of 42 studies around the world, published in British Journal of Sports Medicine, aimed to assess the benefits of incorporating physical activity in academic lessons. This approach has been adopted by schools seeking to increase activity levels among students without reducing academic teaching time.

Typical activities include using movement to signify whether a fact is true or false, or jumping on the spot a certain number of times to answer a maths question.

The study concluded that incorporating physical activity had a large, significant effect on educational outcomes during the lesson, assessed through tests or by observing pupils' attention to a given task, and a smaller effect on overall educational outcomes, as well as increasing the students' overall levels of physical activity.

Lead author Dr Emma Norris (UCL Centre for Behaviour Change, UCL Psychology & Language Sciences) said: "Physical activity is good for children's health, and the biggest contributor of sedentary time in children's lives is the seven or eight hours a day they spend in classrooms.

"Our study shows that physically active lessons are a useful addition to the curriculum. They can create a memorable learning experience, helping children to learn more effectively."

Co-author Dr Tommy van Steen (Leiden University, The Netherlands), added: "These improvements in physical activity levels and educational outcomes are the result of quite basic physical exercises. Teachers can easily incorporate these physical active lessons in the existing curriculum to improve the learning experience of students."

Researchers looked at data from 12,663 students aged between three and 14. Nearly half of the studies took place in the United States, with seven conducted in Australia, five in the UK, four in the Netherlands and one in China, Croatia, Ireland, Israel, Portugal and Sweden.

In one of the 42 studies analysed, eight- and nine-year-olds simulated travelling the world by running on the spot in between answering questions relating to different countries. The research team, also led by Dr Norris at UCL, concluded that the children were more active and more focused on the task than peers in a control group, following teachers' instructions more closely.

In another study in the Netherlands, primary school children who took part in physically active lessons three times a week over two years made significantly better progress in spelling and mathematics than their peers -- equating to four months of extra learning gains.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191015192938.htm

Exercise may help teens sleep longer, more efficiently

May 22, 2019

Science Daily/Penn State

Getting more exercise than normal -- or being more sedentary than usual -- for one day is enough to affect sleep later that night. Researchers found that when teenagers got more physical activity than they usually did, they got to sleep earlier, slept longer and slept better that night.

In a one-week micro-longitudinal study, the researchers found that when teenagers got more physical activity than they usually did, they got to sleep earlier, slept longer and slept better that night.

Specifically, the team found that for every extra hour of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, the teens fell asleep 18 minutes earlier, slept 10 minutes longer and had about one percent greater sleep maintenance efficiency that night.

"Adolescence is a critical period to obtain adequate sleep, as sleep can affect cognitive and classroom performance, stress, and eating behaviors," said Lindsay Master, data scientist at Penn State. "Our research suggests that encouraging adolescents to spend more time exercising during the day may help their sleep health later that night."

In contrast, the researchers also found that being sedentary more during the day was associated with worse sleep health. When participants were sedentary for more minutes during the day, they fell asleep and woke up later but slept for a shorter amount of time overall.

Orfeu Buxton, professor of biobehavioral health at Penn State, said the findings -- published today (May 22) in Scientific Reports -- help illuminate the complex relationship between physical activity and sleep.

"You can think of these relationships between physical activity and sleep almost like a teeter totter," Buxton said. "When you're getting more steps, essentially, your sleep begins earlier, expands in duration, and is more efficient. Whereas if you're spending more time sedentary, it's like sitting on your sleep health: sleep length and quality goes down."

While previous research suggests that adolescents need eight to ten hours of sleep a night, recent estimates suggest that as many as 73 percent of adolescents are getting less than eight.

Previous research has also found that people who are generally more physically active tend to sleep longer and have better sleep quality. But the researchers said less has been known about whether day-to-day changes in physical activity and sedentary behavior affected sleep length and quality.

For this study, the researchers used data from 417 participants in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study, a national cohort from 20 United States cities. When the participants were 15 years old, they wore accelerometers on their wrists and hips to measure sleep and physical activity for one week.

"One of the strengths of this study was using the devices to get precise measurements about sleep and activity instead of asking participants about their own behavior, which can sometimes be skewed," Master said. "The hip device measured activity during the day, and the wrist device measured what time the participants fell asleep and woke up, and also how efficiently they slept, which means how often they were sleeping versus tossing and turning."

In addition to finding links between how physical activity affects sleep later that night, the researchers also found connections between sleep and activity the following day. They found that when participants slept longer and woke up later, they engaged in less moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and sedentary behavior the next day.

"This finding might be related to a lack of time and opportunity the following day," Master said. "We can't know for sure, but it's possible that if you're sleeping later into the day, you won't have as much time to spend exercising or even being sedentary."

Buxton said improving health is something that can, and should, take place over time.

"Becoming our best selves means being more like our best selves more often," Buxton said. "We were able to show that the beneficial effects of exercise and sleep go together, and that health risk behaviors like sedentary time affect sleep that same night. So if we can encourage people to engage in more physical activity and better sleep health behaviors on a more regular basis, it could improve their health over time."

In the future, the researchers will continue to follow up with the participants to see how health and health risk behaviors continue to interact, and how sleep health influences thriving in early adulthood.

Russell T. Nye, graduate student at Penn State; Nicole G. Nahmod, Penn State; Soomi Lee, assistant professor at the University of South Florida; Sara Mariani, Harvard Medical School; and Lauren Hale, professor at Stony Brook University, also participated in this work.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190522081513.htm

Increased anxiety associated with sitting down

June 19, 2015
Science Daily/BioMed Central
Low-energy activities that involve sitting down are associated with an increased risk of anxiety, according to new research. These activities, which include watching TV, working at a computer or playing electronic games, are called sedentary behavior.

Many studies have shown that sedentary behavior is associated with physical health problems like obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and osteoporosis. However, there has been little research into the link between sedentary behavior and mental health. This is the first systematic review to examine the relationship between anxiety and sedentary behavior.

Anxiety is a mental health illness that affects more than 27 million people worldwide. It is a debilitating illness that can result in people worrying excessively and can prevent people carrying out their daily life. It can also result in physical symptoms, which amongst others includes pounding heartbeat, difficulty breathing, tense muscles, and headaches.

Megan Teychenne, lead researcher and lecturer at Deakin University's Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition Research (C-PAN) in Australia, said: "Anecdotally -- we are seeing an increase in anxiety symptoms in our modern society, which seems to parallel the increase in sedentary behavior. Thus, we were interested to see whether these two factors were in fact linked. Also, since research has shown positive associations between sedentary behavior and depressive symptoms, this was another foundation for further investigating the link between sedentary behavior and anxiety symptoms."

C-PAN researchers analyzed the results of nine studies that specifically examined the association between sedentary behavior and anxiety. The studies varied in what they classified as sedentary behavior from television viewing/computer use to total sitting time, which included sitting while watching television, sitting while on transport and work-related sitting. Two of the studies included children/adolescents while the remaining seven included adults.

It was found in five of the nine studies that an increase in sedentary behavior was associated with an increased risk of anxiety. In four of the studies it was found that total sitting time was associated with increased risk of anxiety. The evidence about screen time (TV and computer use) was less strong but one study did find that 36% of high school students that had more than 2 hours of screen time were more like to experience anxiety compared to those who had less than 2 hours.

The C-PAN team suggests the link between sedentary behavior and anxiety could be due to disturbances in sleep patterns, social withdrawal theory and poor metabolic health. Social withdrawal theory proposes that prolonged sedentary behavior, such as television viewing, can lead to withdrawal from social relationships, which has been linked to increased anxiety. As most of the studies included in this systematic-review were cross-sectional the researchers say more follow-up work studies are required to confirm whether or not anxiety is caused by sedentary behavior.

Megan Teychenne said: "It is important that we understand the behavioral factors that may be linked to anxiety -- in order to be able to develop evidence-based strategies in preventing/managing this illness. Our research showed that evidence is available to suggest a positive association between sitting time and anxiety symptoms -- however, the direction of this relationship still needs to be determined through longitudinal and interventional studies."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150619085534.htm