“SPARTS” – A Combination of Sports and Arts

When you listen to music, your body naturally moves, getting into a rhythm. Doing “exercise” sounds difficult; however, in combination with music, it creates positive feelings, and activates your brain. This research unit has been engaged in the development of time- and space-saving exercise programs to refresh the mind, such as the SPARTS program*1, which has been adopted in schools affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake. This program is applicable even in limited spaces and shared environments, and is based on a 2- or 3-minute rhythmic exercise to move the entire body, while listening to music. Adopting martial arts and oriental physical techniques (motions, breathing methods, and mental concentration), it enables a wide range of age groups to enjoy time together, singing and moving (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Jump Exercise (SPARTS) at a Disaster-affected Elementary School

Pleasure-creating Exercise

Focusing on daily physical activities, we have demonstrated that it is possible to activate not only the body, but also the brain, and improve the cognitive function by performing enjoyable low-intensity exercise (Figure 3). In addition to healthy people, such exercise is also performable by those with depression or diabetes. With slight stimulation as exercise, the muscle mass and numbers of capillaries and mitochondria increase based on the principle of adaptation or as a biological response. Furthermore, our previous studies revealed that low-intensity exercise promotes growth factors in the central nervous system, and suggested the possibility of neurogenesis in the hippocampus as the organ responsible for memory and learning.

Figure 3: Functional Near-infrared Spectrophotometry: Short-term Exercise Promotes Executive Functioning