![]() He spends a lot of time responding to tweets and photos, encouraging people and checking in on them.Īs Howard anticipated, the initiative has gone viral. Howard added that the visual focus allows for “more showing, less telling” and encourages people to have fun and be creative with what they’re doing.Ībout 40 people in any one day post pictures or messages, and Howard said he anticipates that the average participant has an average of 100 contacts they are reaching. In this case, it’s to empower people to think about how they are going to engage.” “I think some people might think social media might be the opposite of exercise - a distraction from it, like the quintessential video game. ![]() The idea for the photo challenge came to him, he said, because it taps into students’ social media savvy and overall connectedness. ![]() Howard’s initiative grew out of those talks. “(Exercise) wears out anxiety and depression, two of the biggest problems on campus today,” said UF Rec Sports Director David Bowles, who assigned his entire staff to read “Spark.” “So it really connects with what we’re doing in college today.”īowles also gave the book to staff in student affairs and human resources and to counselors at the wellness center, and they all met to discuss how the concepts could help UF students. UF experts are hoping its students will be similarly inspired by exercise. An initiative at a Naperville, Ill., school called “Zero Hour PE” had kids exercising before class, which ended up being key to their scholastic success. For example, Ratey cites studies showing that fit kids score significantly higher on standardized tests than their unfit peers. It then builds scientific arguments on why that’s true. Rec Sports’ assistant director of marketing and communications, Andy Howard, plucked the themes from the book “Spark: the Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.” Written by Harvard psychiatrist John Ratey, the book begins with a quote from Plato on how education and physical activity are the means to one’s success in life. The “Live in Motion” challenge invites students to post photos and messages on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook on exercise-based themes that change daily during the month of July.ĭay one, for example, was “A New Goal,” which was followed by “Trying Something New.” Others include “Water,” “Break a Sweat” and “Rain or Shine.” Now an initiative at the University of Florida Department of Recreational Sports aims to imprint the comprehensive benefits of exercise on students (especially incoming freshmen) by tapping into students’ most common ground: social media. Research over the past decade has endorsed physical activity for firing up the neurons in our brain to help us think and perform better, and help treat mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. We know exercise is good for our bodies - but our brains?
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