Brain Breaks Go To College

Introduction

Do you practice what you preach to your students? Do you actively engage in the behaviors you promote in your health-related courses? As health education specialists, we know the benefits and recommendations of physical activity, yet we may not always practice them. We, as leaders in health education and health promotion, can and should provide opportunities for physical movement in our classes, and not relegate such lifestyle change promotion to “fitness” courses.

Physical (In)Activity

Though the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC; 2018) recommends that all adults engage in at least 150 minutes of cardiovascular/aerobic activity per week (i.e., 30 minutes on at least 5 days per week) and 2 days per week of muscular strengthening activities, only 20.5% of American adults meet both of these recommendations. And 24.2% of adults report zero leisure-time physical activity (CDC, 2018). Prolonged periods of inactivity are very common; be it sitting at a work desk or a school desk, the typical office and adult classroom settings are similar. Time spent hunched over desks and sitting during work- and school-day commutes contributes to stiffness, weakness, inflexibility, reduced brain activity, and other chronic health problems, such as back and neck pain (Berkowitz & Clark, 2014), heart disease, excess weight, obesity, type 2 diabetes, cancer, and all-cause mortality (Biswas et al., 2015; Ford & Caspersen, 2012). Sitting has truly become the new smoking.

In recent years, the need for physical activity and reduced sitting time in the United States has been highlighted in the media, particularly with the nationwide Let’s Move! (n.d.) campaign among workplaces, families, and K-12 schools. When data trends are examined, daily physical activity declines as people age; it starts during high school, with a high of 31% in 9th grade and a low of 23.5% in 12th grade (CDC, 2018). Interestingly, there is a spike of meeting physical activity recommendations (29.9%) during college-age years (18-24) but then a drop immediately (to 23.4%) after college-age years (25-34) as rates gradually decline to 17% as people reach later adulthood (55+; CDC, 2018). Yet these unfortunate rates can change, and new habits can be incorporated early in adult life, a time when lifelong patterns emerge.

Health education specialists and university faculty have the opportunity to help young adult students make needed changes. The norm of physical inactivity and prolonged sitting can be changed through pedagogy. With the emergence of online classrooms there is an even greater amount of time students spend sitting or in a reclined position. Faculty can not only promote but also incorporate physical activity into their sedentary classrooms.

Breaks for the Mind and Muscles

One method used in elementary schools (mostly in grades K-8) is the concept of “brain breaks” (HOPSports®, Inc., 2018). Brain Breaks are short (2-5 minutes), movement-based activities to break-up prolonged periods of sitting by students, thus increasing physical activity. These breaks have shown to be effective in helping children increase academic achievement by releasing pent-up energy, increasing focus, and remaining on-task during classroom lessons (HOPSports®, Inc., 2018; Martin & Murtagh, 2017; Mullender-Wijnsma et al., 2016; Watson, Timperio, Brown, Best, & Hesketh, 2017). As common as brain breaks are at the elementary school level, they have not been utilized or researched in higher levels of academic learning or in the workplace.

Despite the spike in increased physical activity during college years, the norm among students attending classes is to simply sit and listen to a lecture, meaning behavior is sedentary with little to no physical activity once students arrive and take their seats. Most colleges and universities have a policy stating faculty members are to provide class breaks (of about 10 minutes each) during classes that meet two or more hours; however, many faculty disregard this. Some instructors, yes, even health education specialists, will opt to forego the class breaks in order to dismiss sessions early or to cover as much material as possible in the limited time frame. When class breaks are provided, students often stay seated choosing to focus on their solitary screen of choice (i.e., phone, pad, or laptop). Interest is high among college instructors for implementing some type of movement break, yet few have actually done so (Laine, Araújo-Soares, Haukkala, & Hankonen, 2017).

As scholars and practitioners, we largely understand that such prolonged inactivity is actually counterproductive to learning. According to recent findings, cognitive and academic performance improves when prolonged sitting is interrupted every 10 to 20 minutes (Cornell University Ergonomics Lab, n.d.; Felez-Nobrega, Hillman, Dowd, Cirera, & Puig-Ribera, 2018). Within a 50-minute class session, such a research finding translates to at least two Brain Breaks per session. Thus, this convention of “only sitting time” should change. College instructors can easily incorporate brain breaks into class time to wake up, reengage, and stimulate students.

Health education and health promotion courses are ideal settings to incorporate evidence-informed practices to encourage positive, sustained behavior change. Instructors of health courses are more likely than instructors for non–health-related courses to know the benefits of, and have positive attitudes toward, increasing physical activity. In many instances, health education and health promotion instructors already advocate for increased physical activity on campus and may be physical activity leaders in other campus- or non–campus-based activities. In addition, these instructors not only have a solid foundation for health promoting activities but also are more likely to have high self-efficacy for physical activity. Health-related course instructors can be exemplars for other college course instructors to follow.

Making Changes

For instructors who do not know how to implement Brain Breaks, it is best to start by assessing your class size and classroom structure. Such an assessment does not have to be overly formal or time consuming but should identify structural elements of the room, that is, are chairs and tables moveable or are they fixed to the floor? If weather permits, could you move a class outside to help stimulate more moving? Identify student characteristics (i.e., Do any students have special needs of which you need to be mindful?). Assessing your physical environment can be accomplished in a few minutes before the first class session. Accordingly, assessing the hidden needs of your students may be accomplished through a brief questionnaire of two or three questions on a first day of the term. If the term is already underway, such an assessment can take place through a formative classroom assessment technique such as the minute paper.

After assessing your built environment and your students’ characteristics, your next step toward Brain Break implementation is identifying physical activities suitable for your learners within your classroom space. Examples of such activities include 30 seconds of walking in place with high knees, squats, wall pushups, planks (on elbows or hands), alternating lunges, or chair/table tricep dips. The American Heart Association (n.d.) provides a list of 130+ sample physical activity breaks to do in the classroom. A simple online search for “brain breaks” can provide you with endless examples of ways to break-up the time sitting and increase the amount of physical activity.

If you are concerned such exercises would disrupt your course structure or detract from instructional time, consider selecting and incorporating topic-relevant movement breaks or active learning strategies. For example, when asking a question, rather than using a “show of hands,” calling for “anyone” to respond, or using clickers to observe responses, request that students get up out of their seats and move to specific corners or sides of the room to show the mix of responses within the class. Planning new lessons or adjusting existing lessons to incorporate Brain Breaks can be time consuming, but such adjustments are worth the investment for integrating healthy practices in every course and reframing physical activity in a way that encourages your students to form new habits.

By incorporating Brain Breaks into college classrooms, we are providing additional minutes of daily physical activity that some students may not otherwise get. Engagement in physical activity is well known to reduce stress, improve sleep, and maintain a healthy weight, among others—all of which are objectives in the Healthy Campus 2020 (2018) initiative. If you are an instructor who already utilizes some type of active movement break during your classes, I urge you to not stop there. You can be a mentor and provide guidance to those who may not know where or how to start. Collaborate with your fellow instructors from other disciplines to spread the practice of Brain Breaks, thereby reducing sitting time and increasing physical activity to reengage students, increase academic achievement, and create a healthier campus.

Summary

While originating in K-12 settings, Brain Breaks are a promising practice for university faculty. Brain Breaks are short (2-5 minutes), movement-based activities to break-up prolonged periods of sitting by students, thus increasing physical activity. Through such breaks, students in sedentary college classrooms of any structure, on any campus, in any department, and any course level can become more physically active and in the process be reengaged and increase their potential academic achievement. Let us, as health instructors, help change the norm. Let us both promote and practice what we preach by breaking up prolonged periods of sitting and increasing physical activity.