Transitioning from high school to college isn’t the easiest thing to do, and the work load difference can be a big adjustment for many. As I begin to stress about all my work and finals approaching, I began to think if there were any tips on getting better grades. As I looked for my answer, I came across the article, “Vigorous Exercise Linked With Better Grades.” I found it very interesting that they could link these two things together, but as I read through the article I began to second guess the conclusion. Let’s take a further look.
Exercise and physical activity has obviously been around since forever. According to Mayo Clinic, exercise controls weight, improves mood, boosts energy and even promotes better sleep. Now to add to the list… does it really also increase that GPA?
A study done by Saginaw Valley State University(located in Michigan) consisted of 266 students, specifically undergrads. The researchers kept track of how much they exercised and their grades. From this, they concluded that students who vigorously worked out seven days a week had higher GPA’s by about .4.
I feel there are other things to consider before assuming that exercising gives you a higher GPA. Maybe the results can be due to reverse causation, in that people who had higher GPA’s tended to be more physically active and exercise more. That in fact it wasn’t the exercise making them smarter and maybe it was the high grades that made them exercise. We also are unaware of what “vigorous exercise” the students did and if it mattered what kind of exercise was done. Maybe people who exercised just happened to be smarter in general or it was just in fact due to chance. To me, .4 does not seem that drastic and another larger study would have to be conducted to help prove this. The study was also only done at one University, so maybe this is just the case there. Setting up the experiment at another larger University can be effective. I wonder if this holds true to both male and female and if exercise effects their grades differently. Exercise may not have the direct cause on higher grades, maybe it is the fact that exercising can cause us to have things like improved moods and better sleep. Maybe these are the things that help our grades. The article does not mention how much we need to exercise in order to improve our grade either, we are left wondering.
In all, exercising is beneficial to our health so it should definitely be done regardless if it can help our grades or not. I can’t see it hurting us. If I were to do this experiment over I would take a large number of students, make them exercise once a day for an hour and see if their GPA’s improved at all. We need to see if there is a link between exercising and grades. Maybe if people start to exercise their grades will go up.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/vigorous-exercise-linked-with-better-grades/?_r=0
http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/fitness/in-depth/exercise/art-20048389?pg=2
Great post. I definitely believe that there is a link between exercise and academic performance. Personally, I’ve noticed that when I exercise regularly for a week, I tend to stay focused during lectures and I feel an increased sense of motivation to get my homework done. Exercise is already proven to have major health benefits but if it can be proven to also assist academic performance, we could definitely expect an increase in those who regularly exercise.
This is a great comparison. I do believe in a healthy mind. body, and spirit all being related. So with that being said, it only makes sense that with a healthy body comes a healthy mind. Usually when I have a big exam the next day, I skip the gym for more time to study, but maybe that is not such a good idea. I agree on how you would now do the study. Vigorous excercise is a pretty broad term, what is vigorous to someone might be moderate to some else. I think it should be controlled by people doing similar excercises. Great blog, very well written!
I agree with a lot of your points about the study being inconclusive. There could be a lot of third variables at play there as well which are not addressed. To me it seems purely correlational with a lot left up to chance. I don’t think it would be a good idea for anyone to cut back on studying and exercise more instead in hopes that their grades will improve. However, since exercise is something that is good for you regardless of if it boosts your GPA, it’s probably worthwhile to get out and do it more often anyway. And if it happens to bump your GPA as well then that’s just a bonus!
After reading your blog, I was not convinced that students who vigorously worked out seven days a week had higher GPA’s by about .4. I believe the study was poorly conducted. I agree with you that there are many confounding variables to consider before forming the conclusion that there is a correlation between exercising and higher intelligence. After reading your blog, however, I thought about if exercising can stimulate our brain. According to the article below, turned out “physical exercise, especially aerobic exercise, has positive effects on brain function on multiple fronts, ranging from the molecular to behavioral level.” Also, according to a recent research form UCLA, exercise increases growth factors in the brain which makes it easier for the brain to grow new neuronal connections. If you want to learn more about this, I would suggest you to look at the website below.
http://www.brainhq.com/brain-resources/everyday-brain-fitness/physical-exercise
Wow! Exercising leading to a higher GPA? That’s interesting. Maybe this could motivate people to exercise more! You’re right, exercise is great for you regardless of GPA. But if a study can be conducted to actually convince people that it increases your GPA, that could be a really influential factor in having people exercise more! I am curious to see if that’s possible or not. This is an awesome post and very insightful. Thank you for this post!