26 basic Brain Gym Movements how to#

Why we do it: Lazy Eights also help integrate the right and left hemispheres of the brain. Make the eights as big as your peripheral vision will allow. Without moving your head, follow your thumb with your eyes. Using your thumb, draw wide, horizontal eights in the air.

26 basic Brain Gym Movements how to#

How to do it: Sometimes called Crazy Eights, this exercise is done by extending one arm straight out in front of you, with thumb pointing towards the ceiling. It also clears up the potassium and sodium that builds up in your brain helping you to concentrate and comprehend more and aids in the knowledge gain process. Why we do it: The Cross Crawl activates both hemispheres of the brain simultaneously and engaged the brain for coordinating visual, auditory and kinesthetic abilities. This is most effective done standing up, but it works sitting down too. Now with your left hand, touch your right ankle. How to do it: With your right hand, touch your left ankle. Let’s take a look at three of the popular Brain Gym® activities we use at Emergenetics and why we do them: These activities help participants to stay alert, understand what they read and hear, and can lead to optimal learning and knowledge gain and retention.Īny exercise is good for your brain, but activities that involve arm and leg crossovers force the left and right hemispheres of the brain to communicate better. The 26 activities are designed to activate both hemispheres of the brain and boost brain activity. Dennison and his wife and colleague, Gail E. The twenty-six activities, along with a program for “learning through movement” were developed by educator and reading specialist Paul E. Nothing like some good ‘ole cross crawls to get the heart pumping and the mind going first thing in the morning! All Emergenetics Associates are trained to incorporate Brain Gym into their workshops to help with participant engagement and they aid the knowledge gain and knowledge retention process.īrain Gym® movements, exercises, or activities refer to the original 26 Brain Gym movements. This all leads to easier and more pleasurable learning.Īccording to the Brain Gym website, Brain Gym exercises recall the movements naturally done during the first years of life when learning to coordinate the eyes, ears, hands and whole body.If you’ve attended (or facilitated) an Emergenetics workshop lately, you probably kicked off the day with some Brain Gym® activities.

By doing these movements, and holding or rubbing specific points of the body (the so-called ‘energy points’), you’ll get your energy flowing again – and blockages and tension in the body as well as in the mind will disappear as stress is reduced. They’re all activities and movements that help coordinate the right and left sides of the brain, so the two sides can work together in a balanced way.ĭennison understood that when the right and left sides of the brain and body aren’t coordinated, people might suffer from learning difficulties, poor concentration, dyslexia and ADHD.īrain Gym is helpful to improve coordination and release learning and energy blockages. They include crawling, drawing, tracing symbols in the air, yawning and breathing. Some exercises are for centering, some are for focusing, and some are to correct laterality (right/left) problems.

On the premise that learning isn’t an isolated brain function, and that our bodies are as much a part of the learning process as the brain, he concludes, “movement the door to learning”.īrain Gym is a set of 26 simple, powerful activities designed to make it easier for people to relax, focus, practice attentiveness to their surroundings, and control impulses while strengthening the neural connections throughout the entire brain. He calls this experience being ‘switched off’, and created Brain Gym exercises to switch the brain back on and get it working in an integrated way again. Dennsion worked as a public school teacher and reading specialist until he discovered a trend - when children or adults are under stress, certain parts of their brains become less active.

The word ‘kinesiology’ means movement and educational kinesiology simply means “learning through movement.”īrain Gym was created in the 1980’s by Dr. “Educational Kinesiology” (or Brain Gym) might be one way to jumpstart your innate curiosity and your natural tendency to learn. So if learning doesn’t feel as effortless for you - maybe it’s time to rediscover the joyride (especially since it’s a process that continues throughout life!). When we get a little older, we can start to forget the joy inherent in learning something new. Observe any infant or toddler and you will be amazed at how quickly and effortlessly they can absorb so much. Is there such a thing as enjoyable learning? We often believe yes, but only sometimes and only for some people.īut shouldn’t learning be always learning fun and easy? After all, it’s a process we take to naturally.