How well can you move your body?
Body movement can boost learning and brain function.
Can you do the 'Floss' dance?
If that’s a little too difficult, let’s take a step back …
While reading this see if you can move your toes. You may first need to remove your shoes. Wriggle them slowly and see which ones are the easiest to move. Scrunch your toes together and then see if you can move them one at a time. Your success depends on the connection between your body and your brain. You may be very agile, and this is a piece of cake, or it could feel like your body and brain are not connected at all!
Thinking is not just done with the brain
Parents need to understand that, when it comes to learning, the body is just as important as the brain.
Parents come to Raviv Practice London concerned their child may have a neurodivergent condition such as dyslexia because they find reading challenging. However, they may not realise that their child’s struggle starts with movement, and that all-important brain+body connection.
One such area of movement, that is often overlooked, is how well the student’s eyes move. Often neurodivergent children do not develop flexibility in their eye muscles, thus having a limited range of eye movement. Worse still, their eyes stay still, with these children compensating by moving their head in place of their eyes.
Incidentally, this could be linked to the ‘car seat phenomena,’ where the child’s field of vision is obstructed by the padded side-wings of the car seat, developing the habit of just looking at what is directly in front of them.
Side vision: all round vision is restricted
The child learns to only look straight ahead, and the muscles in their eyes are not sufficiently being challenged nor developed.
This is different to when children are in a stroller or when they walk, their eyes are able to take in the broader angle without obstruction, unlike the car-seat, they can move their head and their eyes to observe the world around them – this results in developing flexibility in eye muscles - as does other physical activities. This contributes to their ability to read with fluency.
So, feeling how we connect with our body is of vital importance. The more you practice moving your toes, for example, the more your brain becomes aware of the motion. Messages are sent back and forth until the desired level of flexibility can be reached.
“For our brains to function well, we need to be able to have good body awareness... like the Floss dance, it can only come with practice!”
What movements help the brain?
The ability to move both parts of the body is only possible if the information is transferred across each side of the brain. This is the same for connecting the top and bottom halves of the body and, also the front and back. Different movements create those connections, across the various midlines of the body and these same links are the routes for other information.
Here are some examples of activities and movement that benefit the brain (inspired in part, by Dr Carla Hanaford’s book the Dominance Factor)
Taking a brisk walk
Tai Chi, Yoga or Pilates
Playing a musical instrument
Crafting e.g. knitting or sculpting with clay
Hug, wrestle with your children/pet
Individual sports e.g. to swim, ski, skate or surf
Team sports e.g. tennis, soccer, or volley ball.
Each of the above activities increase the connections between brain and body so we can create awareness of the places of disconnect, and address them with patience.
Another great activity you can try is using a Hula Hoop, if you’ve not tried here is a beginners guide below… enjoy!
Dyslexia? Dyspraxia? ADHD? ASD? Speech & Language? Developmental Delay? Anxiety?
Is every school day a struggle? As a parent, you may feel exhausted and on this journey alone. Each year you see the gap getting wider. You need to do something - change the approach, help your child learn for themselves, find a way to turn this around - to help while you can - do this NOW. the first step is free.
