Health & wellbeing

Spark

John J. Ratey with Eric Hagerman

The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain: a psychiatrist argues that aerobic exercise readies the brain to learn and helps it cope with stress, anxiety, depression, attention problems, addiction and aging

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  • 11 key ideas
  • Text
  • Published 2008

Introduction

John J. Ratey, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, wrote Spark with the journalist Eric Hagerman, and it was published in 2008. Its central claim is that exercise matters even more for the brain than for the body. Aerobic exercise, Ratey argues, prepares the brain to learn and helps it against stress, anxiety, depression, attention problems and addiction, through women's hormonal changes and into old age.

The book opens with the fitness-based physical education program of a school district in Naperville, Illinois. Then comes a chapter for each topic: learning, stress, anxiety, depression, attention deficit, addiction, hormonal changes in women, and aging, and a final chapter with Ratey's exercise plan. Each chapter mixes research, much of it done on laboratory animals, with stories of Ratey's patients and other people.

Notes: this summary reports the book's claims as Ratey's, as he made them in 2008, and some need context. The Naperville results he reports come from school programs, not controlled trials, and Ratey himself notes that the district is wealthy and well educated. The official report on the 1999 TIMSS tests describes Naperville's science results as comparable to the top countries, Chinese Taipei and Singapore, rather than as first in the world. Much of the brain science he describes, such as exercise raising the protein BDNF and the growth of new brain cells, was shown mainly in rats and mice; in people it is harder to measure, and a 2015 review of human studies found that a single session of exercise raised BDNF moderately while regular exercise raised resting levels only slightly. The Duke University study he cites found exercise about as effective as an antidepressant after four months, with fewer relapses among the exercisers six months later. The book itself advises consulting a health professional before following its exercise program, and this summary is not medical advice. The Dari quotes are our own translation of Ratey's English.

  1. 1Ratey argues that the real point of exercise is the brain: stronger muscles, heart and lungs are side effects
  2. 2A school district in Naperville, Illinois, with gym class built on fitness rather than sports, became Ratey's case study for exercise and learning
  3. 3Ratey argues that exercise prepares the brain to learn, through a protein he calls Miracle-Gro for the brain
  4. 4Stress in small doses makes the brain stronger, Ratey argues, and exercise is a controlled stress that builds resilience
  5. 5Ratey argues that exercise treats anxiety by teaching the brain a new response to the body's alarm signals
  6. 6Ratey sees depression as a loss of connections, in the brain and in life, and exercise as a way to rebuild them
  7. 7Ratey argues that exercise steadies attention by raising the same brain chemicals that attention problems disturb
  8. 8Ratey sees addiction as the brain's reward system learning one thing too well, and exercise as a healthier source of reward
  9. 9Ratey argues that exercise helps steady women's moods through the hormonal changes of the monthly cycle and pregnancy, and offers it cautiously as an option for menopause
  10. 10Ratey argues that exercise slows the decline of the aging brain and protects body and mind together
  11. 11Ratey's plan follows our ancestors: move every day, mostly at moderate effort, sometimes hard, and include activities that need skill

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Spark by John J. Ratey with Eric Hagerman: summary | Daridanesh