Mind and Body

“A strong body makes the mind strong,” a statement once made by Thomas Jefferson regarding the character of man, speaks volumes of the nature of humans to grow and learn. Humans present a compelling species to study, as society continues to hone in on the items that empower humans to become bigger, stronger, and more intelligent. Many areas have been covered regarding a human’s ability to learn recently, but in many recent studies, one find’s evidence relating to the connection of the mind and body in programming a person to be optimal at learning. Through studies, one can conclude that learning occurs more effectively when a person’s physiological health is enhanced, as the physiological attributes can influence emotional health, as well as, increase mental capacity, which lead to an optimization of a human’s ability to acquire knowledge.

The best evidence of this fact, can be found in studies related to children, when all stages of life relate directly to learning. Studies show that children learn most effectively when they have access to proper healthcare and are encouraged to be physically fit, as this has a pertinent impact on a child’s mental and emotional health, as well as, structure. “All learning, in fact, require attention and energy, and the wellbeing of the body inescapably determines how much attention and energy are available to a child at a particular time,” (Bomer and Maloch, 2013). The connection of the body to the mind in children shows that especially without conditioning the body, acts such as reading and writing suffer, as they are physical actions, not just properties of the mind, which detracts from a person’s ability to learn.

Further, children require many items physically and emotionally to be ...

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From: http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/104013/chapters/movement-and-learning.aspx