Areas › Your body › Moving your body
Start the movement slow enough that it is almost boring. Speed it up once it has gone smooth, and only then add the thinking part.
Throwing a beanbag back and forth, bouncing a ball, drumming on the table: pick something plain and let it become automatic before you make it harder. Then lift the tempo a little. Then put a rule on top, say the red bag has to be caught left handed. If it falls apart, step back down rather than pushing through. What you are after is a body that can hold the pattern while the mind is busy elsewhere.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Make coats of chain mail and measure the links well (Quran 34:11). Careful physical work, done link by link at a pace that lets you get it right, is spoken of with respect.
أَنِ ٱعۡمَلۡ سَٰبِغَٰتࣲ وَقَدِّرۡ فِي ٱلسَّرۡدِۖ وَٱعۡمَلُواْ صَٰلِحًاۖ إِنِّي بِمَا تَعۡمَلُونَ بَصِيرࣱ
saying, ‘Make coats of chain mail and measure the links well.’ ‘Do good, all of you, for I see everything you do.’
Qur’an 34:11read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
Pooling the better meta-analyses of physical activity, the effect on depression and anxiety in adults with no clinical diagnosis came out small to moderate. That is worth knowing because it means activity like this is not reserved for people who are unwell; it earns its place in an ordinary session or an ordinary morning. It says nothing about the tempo ladder in particular, which is a teaching structure rather than a tested one.
Rebar AL, Stanton R, Geard D, Short C, Duncan MJ, Vandelanotte C. (2015). A meta-meta-analysis of the effect of physical activity on depression and anxiety in non-clinical adult populations.. Health psychology review doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Once the movement runs itself there is attention left over, and that spare attention is the thing you are actually training.
When not to
If the person is getting frustrated rather than absorbed, the load went up too fast and the answer is to drop back, not to encourage harder.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
With a small child who is struggling with both movement and speech, start with the body. Balance and steadiness come before a child can take in much language or learning.
Give yourself an hour rather than a fortnight. A short window creates the pressure that gets a thing started, where a long one quietly fills up with everything else.
A promising study can be very small. Thirteen teenagers, teachers doing the rating, and a fortnight of follow up is a good start and not a settled answer.