Beginning of Class Writing: John Medina’s Brain Rules, “Exercise”

During the first ten minutes of class, write a summary of today’s assigned reading from John Medina’s Brain Rules: “Exercise.” Before we meet again next week, type up your summary, save it someplace safe, and copy-and-paste it into a comment to this blog post.

Some questions to consider: What is the relationship between exercise and cognitive function? What are some of the ways exercise help us think better than if we are inactive? How convinced are you by Medina’s argument (and of course, explain why he is or is not convincing to you)?

20 thoughts on “Beginning of Class Writing: John Medina’s Brain Rules, “Exercise”

  1. Rolando Barredo

    In John Medina’s book, one of the chapters discusses the link between exercise and mental sharpness. Because we were made to walk 12 miles a day, our brains benefit from exercise as it keeps us sharp. He discusses how sadly, our advances in the modern era have made it easier for us to do work while sitting down, and if you aren’t doing work, sitting down is too much of a popular choice to do anything. It stops us from using the full potential of our brain. Studies show that exercising for 30 minutes, two to three times a week help our cognitive skills in a major way. This goes for anyone, children, adults, and elders. Exercise also helps with mental disorders and psychological issues. Exercising helps to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s by 60%. In addition, people with depression benefit from exercise, as this helps to regulate the chemicals in our brain, for example, dopamine, our happy hormone. Productivity rates can also go up within our classrooms and our workplaces. Since cognitive skills help productivity, and exercise boosts cognitive skills, we can use that to our advantage. Medina says that including two recesses for schools will help, as well as adding treadmills to the workplace. That isn’t possible, but we know that if the inclusion of those tips occurred, it will make our production higher.

  2. Taylor Marie Hernandez

    In Brain Rules, John Medina talks about how exercising is important for the body. exercise helps boost the brain, it improves our thinking skills more sufficiently, it gets the blood flowing to our brains by bringing glucose for energy and oxygen to soak up the toxic electrons that are left over, etc. When people do aerobic exercise twice a week it halves the risk of getting Alzheimer’s by 60%. Medina says students that are physically fit, tend to stay in focus and appear to stay concentrated throughout school. “Kids pay better attention to their subjects when they’ve been active. Kids are less likely to be disruptive…”said Dr. Antoinette Yancey to NPR interview. People that are feeling like they are going into a depression mode should keep their mind active and good by doing exercise. Whether it maybe, lifting weights, walk, ridding a bike, or jogging, any type of exercise will help keep the mind being active and focused. It helps people stay positive about themselves, its put aside any depression, keeps your mind going, etc.

  3. shamach campbell

    In John’s “Brain Rules” chapter 2 he goes over how exercise can help improve our thinking skills more sufficiently. He explains that the brain needs exercise to deliver oxygen and glucose to help stimulate proteins that help with the connection of neurons, not to mention removing any toxic electrons that are left over. He also says exercise is one of the best ways to encourage cognitive performance and could cause a lot of problems if it is cut from our daily regiment. In addition to that he also explains that exercise can also decrease the risk for certain mental conditions such as doing water aerobics twice a week it halves the risk of getting Alzheimer’s by a near 60%. Another fact Medina states is that students who are physically fit, tend to stay more focused than other non-fit students. Another interesting fact stated was exercise decreased the risk of depression, which is a very serious mental condition especially among a lot of students today.

  4. Brandon Richardson

    In John’s “Brain Rules” in chapter 2 he talks about specifically how exercising can cause exceeding skills towards our brains. Also it speaks of how exercising of any kind brings more blood towards the brain thus giving it more glucose and oxygen that eventually get’s rid of the toxic electrons that may be left over from the exercising. When you exercise it releases chemicals from the brain that may begin to nourish the neurons within our brain. For example, A physical trainer works out everyday with clients so there brain is very much so stimulated if they often exercise all the time. Any type of exercise can happen and the brain will feel it. When you think about it, People who don’t often work out and actually grow to be over weight or in fact possibly to skinny and don’t work to keep there body fit most likely have a brain that isn’t so much stimulated. Which may cause possibly addiction to bad things like drugs and alcohol and even worst things. But when you work out your brain feels more refreshed and you feel good inside and realize whatever bad that has happened becomes released from your thoughts.

  5. Darien Laurencin

    Jogging, weightlifting, and yoga are all a part of one thing, exercise. When people talk about exercise they mainly in cooperate the physical advantages such as increase in muscle, and endurance. According to John Medina Brain Rules exercise chapter, exercise does a whole a lot in the human mental capacity, and brain stimulation. John Medina states that people who exercise more every day then a “couch potato,” the persons brain is more likely to be engaged, and alert. The point or connection between exercise, and the brain is the blood flow. Hypothesis are one thing, but it is fact that as person constantly exercise that the blood flow to the brain is increased, making it more alert, and ready to take on a task as said in Brain Rules. John Medina lived by what he stated in his exercise chapter by putting a treadmill in his office, and him being a well renowned scientist and author clearly portrays how exercising on the treadmill is working in John Medinas favor. Exercising don’t just help keep you brain more aware of the environment, but also helps in other situations. In the book, John Medina says how exercising helps lower chance of diabetes, heart attack, and Alzheimer’s. Lowering the risk of Alzheimer’s helps for a healthier mind as a person age. The amount of exercise the person gets a day also plays a factor on the brain, the more a person work out, the more active the brain will be. When I was younger I was a lazy, chubby boy. My mind wouldn’t be stimulated and I would just lay on the couch, and stare into space. As I grew up from 16 to 17 I started to go to the gym. After I started to go to the gym I became more in twine with the world. I decided to trade my cartoon channels to channels like discovery channel, animal planet, and the history channel. I would love to talk more about how John Medina, and exercising benefited me, but it’s time for a jog.

  6. Ryan Karran

    In the exercise chapter of John Medina’s “Brain Rules,” he mentions how a man by the name of Jack LaLanne spent his 70th birthday swimming 1 ½ miles from Queensway Bridge while towing 70 boats. I not only found this to be an amazing attention grabber but to be exaggerated and unbelievable until I researched it that same day. LaLanne’s appetite for exercise has caused him to be in wonderful physical shape and mentally aware. Medina goes on to explain how fast LaLanne would catch onto things during his interviews and how his “sense of humor is both lightning fast and improvisatory.” The exercise chapter focuses on how physical exercise boost brain performance by having oxygen flush out the toxic electrons. John Medina has a treadmill installed in his office so that he could stay in constant motion while doing work on his laptop. By exercising, he’s boosting his brain’s performance as he intakes more oxygen and gets his blood flowing through his brain quicker. Medina argues that instead of decreasing recess for students in schools for classes, they should give an extra recess period. He even goes as far as to say that they should install exercise bicycles inside of classrooms to have students exercise while learning which I completely agree with.

  7. alejandra

    In the second chapter of John Medina book “Brain Rules- EXERCISE” he gave information about how does the exercise helps for the development of the brain and it’s own ability.According to Medina a healthy person should run 12 miles per week. He states that doing exercise helps to focus and have a better sense of humor. Being a healthy person decreases the probability of diseases, as it happens in the case of Alzheimer, scientist develop an experiment to prove or see if the information given was true or not, they found out that most of the people that prevent or abstain this disease was because they exercise, i’m talking about the 60% of the people that participated in the experiment. What exercise did was to improve the cardiovascular fitness of the body it also help the same to release the glucose that it’s the one in charge of the energy that we used in a day.
    He also proves that exercise helps children to improve academically in school, that is why most of school have Fisical education because it helps the students to have a better grades.

  8. Aaron Chen

    In the Exercise chapter in John Medina’s Brain Rules, he talks about how the human brain has evolved under conditions of motion. To back up his claim that exercise boosts our brain power, he presents to us some research. Researchers took two elderly groups where one of the two groups is active and the other half isn’t. The research showed that the elderly group that was active had better memory and reaction time. Goes to show what exercise can do for your brain. According to John Medina, this is all because as we work out, oxygen intake is increased which provides more oxygen to our brain. When our brain receives, brain bound free radicals are reduced. This meaning that the increase in oxygen is always accompanied by an uptick in mental sharpness.

  9. p nardeo

    In the second chapter of John Median Brain rule he discuss the second brain rule, Exercise. He starts off by telling a story about a man name Jack LaLanne, who was about 70 years old. He talks a lot about this man. One thing he keep say over and over about this man was how physical fit he is. Although he talk so much about this man Physical appearance, he wasn’t that interesting in it. He was more interesting in his brain power and how fast he could process information.
    After talking about Jack LaLanne , he then started to go into more detail by telling explaining how survival of the fittest work. He goes back all the way to our ancestor and show the connection we have and the trades that we lost. He then started to compare and contrast the two different types of people. He included the audience by giving them names, you could either be Jim or Frank.
    About half way through the chapter he then started to discuss an important topic. This is how much and what type of exercise we need. He said that the best exercise to do is aerobic and that you should do it for 30 minutes, two to three times a week. Exercise could also help us treat depression. Studies have shown that by getting proper exercise you could reduce the odd of getting a disease by 60 percent and the odd of getting a stroke by 57 percent. Overall, by exercising we can improve our life a lot both physically and mentally.

  10. William Santiago

    During the Exercise chapter of John Medina’s “Brain Rules”, the chapter revolves around the positive affects, if any, that exercise might have on the human brain and its functions. It was stated in the chapter that our prehistoric ancestors ran about 12 miles a day. The fact that the human brain had evolved from traveling long distances shows that us humans function more efficiently during exercise, aerobic exercises to be precise. During the chapter there was also an analogy that was made concerning two Elderly people in their 90’s, one named Jim, who was an elderly couch potato who was practically awaiting his death, and Frank, who still had the cunning dexterity of a young buck. There was also another analogy made on Jack Lalenne, who was the pioneer of bodybuilding. It was evident that even in his much later years, Jack was still on top of his game and when it came to his sense of self, he was able to hold up intellectual conversations and had a great sense of humor.

  11. Terris Greene

    Chapter 2 of John Medina’s “Brain Rules” discusses the importance of physical activity in connection to a healthier and longer lived brain. Examples such as Jack LaLanne, an elderly man name Jim and architect Frank Lloyd Wright show the development and health of the brain over time, each having variations in their daily physical output. Jack LaLanne, a fitness guru and inventor of many different exercise machines, shows that keeping physically active can help sharpen your mind and enhance your memory. The comparison between Jim and Frank Wright helps show this as well, with Jim being a “coach potato” that has basically given up on life, and Wright who had completed designs for Museums and giving extraordinary responses interviews, even though both men are in the same age range. The value of exercise for mental health is high in priority, for both adults trying to prevent diseases such as dementia and depression, but also in children who try to maintain themselves academically. Due to the increased blood flow from exercising, new blood vessels are formed which overall leads to an increase of waste removed from the body. Not only does this happen in the brain, but through the body overall, enhancing the body as a whole.

  12. Edinsson.P

    In John Medina’s the “Brain Rules”, chapter .2 he talks about brain rule number two “Exercise boosts brain power”,exercise and how was important to the brain’s development.Even today exercising still big impact on the brain. I wonder if athlete’s brain can process information and remender memories from while back much easier, than a person who does not exercise or do any type physical activity.Medina describes how our early ancestors had no GPS and they walked miles and miles without no destination. In addition Medina discusses how our ancestor did not evolve with claws,fangs or chick skin to face dangers any animal. I honestly do not have a great sense of direction myself, so I always walk in any direction that seem safe. This why our ancestor created weapons, so they can hunt, survive or animals that threaten their lives.Then by default our ancestors created boats to go cross large bodies of water and shelter in order endure harsh weather conditions. This actually very interesting because through evolution our brains become more powerful and that allowed our ancestor to start villages and face difficult obstacles

  13. Arjoon H

    To summarize John Medina exercise chapter basically states that exercise boost brainpower. He further explains that this is due to the fact that years ago while humans were still in the Homo erectus stage of evolution we used to travel as many as 20 to 30 kilometers a day , which means that we were always learning while moving. This is why he states that in the previous chapter that the education system today is not as effective as it should be. To add tells the story of a man in his seventies that was able to swim towing 20 boats about one and a half miles by himself. He also states that this man the advanced in age, is as quick minded and alert as someone who is less than half of age. This is all due to the fact that the man was always exercise in which led to his top mental physique. If weather emphasizes this point by referring to another man who is around the same age as the first however he was not as active as the first. This led to his mind breaking down I am resorting to being a couch potato which left him to spend the rest of his days staring out into space instead of living the rest of his life to the fullest. Medina’s point that excercise helps your brain power promises to help everyone in their day to day life and for their future.

  14. Alex Feng

    In John Medina’s “Brain Rules”, in the exercise chapter, it initially introduces Jack Lalanne, the godfather of the American fitness movement. He is then used as an example and compared with other old individuals who does little to no exercises. This makes the connection between mental alertness and exercising. Also that it leads to six questions that he asks of how exercising may affect you. However you age, how is your mental alertness, what kind of mental abilities appear after exercising, what kind of exercises should be performed and how does exercise affects diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer as well as depression and anxiety?

  15. Carlos Villalva

    As school are replacing recess program for more time for their student to be better prepare for their course, has not been every effective action. Not many people would know that daily exercising for an hour a day, help improve our brain being more focus and be more activate to our surroundings. Study’s shows that when children are provided with physical education, they perform better on their tests. But, when you remove physical education, their test grade plumed dramatically. Why does this happen, you may ask, the main reason is that kids pay better attention to their subject when they are active. Not only does exercise helps the brain to be more effective in class, but it also can treat dementia and depression. By doing exercise daily, greatly reduce the chance of you getting a disease by 60 percent or more. Our brain was built for walking a minimum of 12 miles a day and has not yet adapt to this society. Exercise helps your blood get to your brain, by help bringing its glucose and using the oxygen to soak up the toxic electrons that are left over. As well it keeps the neuron connected by stimulating the protein. As we grow older, our brain won’t longer function as it use to be as you were young. There are two types of person, we’ll end up as we grow older, which are, we are being mindless waiting for our death to come or using our mind to think outside the box at an old age. Why do we end up as one of those people you may ask, well it comes down to the fact of how active your lifestyle is, if you sit down and watch TV, you’re not using your brain as well as if you doing something active like jogging, which makes you more mentally alert. By doing daily exercise in your youth is important for your health, but it’s even more important for your brain in the future.

  16. Reynaldo

    In the book “Brain Rules” by John Medina on chapter 2 Exercise, He Writes about well obviously exercise but not just any type of exercises, this one is meant for the brain. He talks about a guy name Jack lalanne, He was mentally alerted. He celebrated his 70th birthday by towing 70 boats with passengers in them for 1 ½ miles while being handcuffed, John medina mentions that we wasn’t impressed with the strength of the muscle but the strength of his mind. Its all survival of the fittest with evolution. When evolution takes place in our brain it evolves depending on our surrounding and we then adapt to it.

  17. Kevin Rojas

    In John Medina’s, “Brain Rules,” his second chapter is called, Exercise, and as you can tell from the name the chapter is about exercise and how it influences the brains health. In this chapter, Medina speaks first about our ancestors and how they trekked vast amounts of miles while also learning to adapt to their environments. This thought that our ancestors best learned through the change in their environment only brought to them best through movement. Like our ancestors, we too have the same habits and methods of learning efficiently through movement or exercise. There is evidence behind this notion that we learn better through movement based on a study on young students who had recess twice a day compared to when they didn’t. There was an improved score on their tests when they had two sessions of recess compared to their lowered test scores when they had no recess. There is also more scientific evidence that suggests that when we exercise there is more oxygen flowing through our body due to the physical activities. This surplus of oxygen is then transmitted to the brain where it is needed in order to function properly. Hence, exercise helps our brain work at its optimal levels. Medina also spoke about how people at older ages can still feel and look young if they had exercised for most of their lives in a healthy manner as opposed to people who would have the same old age but would look older and feel older due to their lack of exercise in their lives.

  18. Jean Betances

    In John Medina’s exercise chapter in “Brain Rules” he talks about how our brains developed overtime while we were on the move. What this meant was that the brain of our ancestors were developing into what we know today while walking as much as 12 kilometers per day. This has a direct impact on the way we learn today. It has been scientifically proven that the brain is more active during exercise allowing the ideal environment in which to learn. This being said it means that we are not used to sitting in a classroom or office cubicle for 8 hours at a time to get work done. Another thing mentioned in the chapter is that exercise can change the way we age. There’s people in their 80’s and 90’s whose mind has drifted away due to Alzheimer’s, strokes, or just the toll the aging process took on them, but a study found that the more physical active one is the more likely that these things will not happen to them. That is why there is such a great difference sometimes between people’s mental capabilities at an older age.

  19. Dorothy Vera Sanchez

    Based upon the reading “Exercise” in John medina book called “Brain Rules” we are able to determine the effects on the brain with a person who is cognitive versus a person who is sedentary. The cognitive group of people will contain more energy due to the fact that living an active life will produce more oxygen in the body and mind. Also it allows the body to remove any toxins. This allows us to live better life’s then those who are sedentary people. John medina mentions that exercise can also decrease the risk for the mental health. Exercises like doing doing water aerobics twice a week. Doing exercise on a daily basis allows the cognitive group to have a better way of thinking. Meanwhile the group who is less active it’s brain won’t work as good as one who is active.

Leave a Reply