Running and Autism: How Mileage Club Impacted Colin Nichols

Colin Nichols attends Hanover-Horton Elementary in Hanover, Michigan. Colin loves participating in his school’s Mileage Club®, and he runs – a lot. Colin completed 30 miles during MileageClub® when he was in 1^st grade. He more than doubled his mileage and racked up a total of 70 miles in 2^nd grade. At the end of the season, when the school announced that he logged 70 miles (almost twice as many miles as the runner-up for the year), his classmates cheered wildly.

And that’s a big deal.

Colin has autism, and school has not always been an easy place for him. Colin’s mom, Carrie, commented that his classmates “have seen Colin at his worst.” Which made it even more meaningful that they witnessed his disciplined efforts, and celebrated that success with him. Carrie Nichols reflected that Colin showed signs of athleticism from a very young age, but PE class in school was stressful for him. Colin is easily overwhelmed by the chaos and activity of PE class and organized sports. But running gives Colin the physical release he needs, and gives him pride in his abilities. Colin’s mom also noted academic benefits from Mileage Club® for her son. Both she and Colin’s teacher observed that Colin would come back into the classroom from Mileage Club® much calmer and ready to learn, having released on the track his extra energy and pent up frustrations from the day.

Alison Wade wrote in an article published by runnersworld.com, “In running, social interaction is common, but it’s not required for success. Running does not require mastery of complex techniques, intricate rules, or the principles of teamwork—but it does offer the opportunity to be a part of a team.”

Russell Lang, Ph.D., the executive director of the Clinic for Autism Research, Evaluation and Support at Texas State University in San Marcos, said that “Running, in general, is a community sport and lifetime activity that de-emphasizes social communication and emphasizes repetitive behavior. That lends itself well to alignment with the characteristics of autism.”

Tommy Des Brisay of Ontario also has autism, and began running when he turned 14. He now has dreams of making the 2020 Paralympic Team.

According to runnersworld.com, “Within two years (of beginning road racing), he (Tommy) was near the front of the pack. He was confused about where everyone else was the first time he won a race, so he went back up the course to run with each subsequent finisher and cheer for them as they crossed the line.”

Des Brisay, now 25, has personal bests of 15:17 for 5K, 1:10:34 for the half marathon, and 2:38:50 in the marathon. It’s not unusual for him to blow by his competition while reciting lines or singing songs from his favorite movies.

But when people marvel at what Tommy Des Brisay has been able to accomplish despite his autism, his mother prefers to ask, “What if it’s because of his autism that he’s this successful?”

“You can choose to look at autism as a disability or you can choose to look at it as a collection of abilities that can be celebrated,” she said. “There’s no doubt that for Tommy, part of his success as a runner has always been his unfailing willingness or joy in training. He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t see it as a tedium of any kind to go forward and do the same workout. There’s a comfort for him in that. So I think for Tommy, his autistic tendencies are an advantage in a lot of things. One of those is his running.”

This leads us back to Hanover-Horton Elementary. When I asked Colin what his favorite thing about Mileage Club® was, he didn’t mention the many tokens he’s earned, the Mileage Club ®t-shirt he won, or the applause from his classmates. He simply answered, “Running.”

Children Dive into a Pool of Benefits by Learning to Swim

Three Reasons to Swim

·      Survival

“Only 56 percent of Americans can perform the five, core swimming skills1.” That’s nearly half our country that can’t swim! And over 70% of the world is covered with water. That percentage doesn’t include the thousands of swimming pools and even bathtubs around the world. (Did you know you can drown in just a few inches of water?!) Chances are that in a person’s lifetime, they’re going to encounter a situation that involves them being in or around water.

 

Physical Fitness

Swimming works both cardiovascular health and almost every major muscle in the body. You can also target certain muscles by doing different strokes or workouts such as leg lifts while using water resistance.

On top of that, water will remove most of the natural stress on your bones and joints because of the lack of gravity. It’s one of the reasons that people use this activity for physical therapy.

Increase Overall Quality of life

When kids learn to swim, they decrease their fear of being around water and have a chance to take part in so many new activities. These activities such as boating, canoeing, kayaking, water skiing, etc. can bring joy and new experiences into their lives.

Swimming also reduces stress! You get to give your brain a break by focusing on your exercise and staying afloat. Also, just like any other aerobic exercise, it increases endorphins.

Fun Facts About Swimming

• Elephants can swim as many as 20 miles a day — they use their trunks as natural snorkels!
• Niagara Falls has enough water to fill up all the swimming pools in the United States in less than three days!
• The bikini swimsuit was named after a U.S. nuclear testing site in the South Pacific called Bikini Atoll.
• In butterfly stroke and breaststroke, swimmers need to touch the pool with both hands simultaneously when they finish. Swimmers touch the pool with only one hand when they finish in freestyle and backstroke swimming events.
• An hour of vigorous swimming will burn up to 650 calories. It burns off more calories than walking or biking.
• Swimming is a great cardiovascular exercise because you are moving against the water’s resistance, which is over ten times that of the air.
• Even the smallest world nations enjoy a thriving swimming pool industry (e.g. New Zealand pop. 4,116,900 [Source NZ Census 7 March 2006] - with 65,000 home swimming pools and 125,000 hot tub pools).
• The slowest Olympic swim stroke is the breaststroke.
• The fastest and most efficient swim stroke is the crawl/ freestyle.²

¹Almost Half of America Can't Swim, Survey Says. (n.d.). Retrieved July 1, 2015, from http://time.com/106912/red-cross-swimming-campaign/

²Games & Safety. (n.d.). Retrieved July 1, 2015, from http://www.swimmingpool.com/games-safety/pool-fun/fun-facts

³http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/swimming+hole

⁴Wood, E. (n.d.). The Art of Swimming - The Morning News. Retrieved July 1, 2015, from http://www.themorningnews.org/article/the-art-of-swimming

3 Tricks to Keep Snacking Healthy and Portable

What is a Healthy Snack?

Cookbook writer Anna Thomas said it best when she stated that, "we all eat, and it would be a sad waste of opportunity to eat badly”¹. We’ve all heard the old saying about spoiling our appetite with a snack. It can be a daunting task to create the correctly portioned and nutritious snack that we desire our children to eat. Some people might think that snacking is even a bad thing for children to do throughout the day.

This isn’t true though!

§  A University of Florida study shows that “healthy snack choices can provide children with some of the vitamins, minerals, proteins, and calories they need for growth, energy, and overall good health. In fact, healthy snacks can satisfy nutrient gaps and provide up to one-quarter of a child's daily energy needs (USDA, “Daily Food Plan,” n.d.). Healthy snacking satisfies hunger between meals, improves concentration, and prevents overeating at mealtime”².

Three Keys to Providing Healthy Snacks

1.     Make sure that you fill a nutrient gap for the day. (Ex: If you’re having pizza for dinner, provide a snack with carrots to fill the vegetable void.)

2.     Space snacks out so that the timing doesn’t get in the way of a main course.

3.     Review and replace what you have available for them to eat. If you have a cookie jar always full, it shouldn’t be a surprise that they’re constantly choosing the unhealthy alternative.

WARNING: Avoid providing food as a way of calming or rewarding children for something. If you do this, they might get into the habit of acting in certain ways to receive a snack, and this could lead to an unhealthy relationship with food.

3 Tricks to Keep Snacking Healthy and Portable

1. Brown Bag It

Never doubt the original way of doing things. These bags can be fun because you can easily customize them with drawings or notes for your kids. They’re also inexpensive and easily portable. And on top of all that, they’re big enough to hold all the healthy snack items your kids enjoy.

2. Make It Fun

One of my favorite snacks growing up was, “Ants on a Log”. All that you needed was celery topped with peanut butter or cream cheese.  My mom would line up raisins to make the “ants”. Alone, I wouldn’t have enjoyed these foods, but when they were all combined to make a fun, creative snack, I was all in. Fun and creative snacks make replacing sugary, high-fat foods much easier. There are all kinds of neat ideas online for creative healthy foods like trail mix or even DIY protein bars. 

3. Reuse It

Tupperware is portable, and most of us use it for leftovers anyway. If you have a little bit of leftovers from the day before that your child liked, you can save money and time by repacking it for their snack. This can be a healthy alternative to throwing a few different junk food items in their backpack.

¹Thomson, J. (2013, January 16). The Most Famous And Greatest Food Quotes Of All Time. Retrieved June 11, 2015, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/21/food-quotes-famous-eating_n_2481583.html

²Martinez, J., & Shelnutt, K. (2013, July 1). Raising Healthy Children: The Role of Snacking1. Retrieved June 11, 2015, from https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fy1154

The Benefits of Rest: Rest On Purpose For Greater Effectiveness

Rev. Solomon Reyes said it best when he wrote, 

“The lazy make rest an excuse not to work, but the diligent see rest as a means to be more productive. The lazy see rest as the end of work, but the diligent see rest as a necessity to attain greater fruitfulness.” 

In other words, rest on purpose for greater effectiveness.

 

The Benefits of Rest

One of the most prominent and interesting studies on resting comes from Harvard medical professor, Dr. Herbert Benson. He saw the benefits of resting through meditation and decided to do further research on how relaxing can help the body and mind. Through his research, he noticed several beneficial changes taking place, and said,

“The relaxation response is a physical state of deep rest that changes the physical and emotional responses to stress, and is the opposite of the fight or flight response.”

 
When your mind rests, you can return to work with clear thoughts. With a calm mind, you’ll be able to refocus on your tasks and create progress. Rest will also leave you in a state of peace with far less anxiety which can make you much happier and less agitated, sad, or overwhelmed.

Amazingly, Dr. Benson's team also discovered anti-inflammatory responses during rest that reduced stress and relaxed muscles. The body doesn’t have to take in as much oxygen during rest because there is no hyperventilating due to stress, blood pressure is much lower, and muscles relax.

 

Consequences of Not Taking a Breather

Per Dr. Benson, the immediate side effects of not resting include, 

“Irritability, memory loss, drowsiness, trouble concentrating, blurry vision, impaired judgment… and reduced glucose metabolism.” 

It becomes increasingly difficult to do jobs correctly if you try to work straight through and not take breaks.

The long-term problems associated with overworking are even worse, and include, 

“Raised blood pressure, suppressed immune system, increased risk of heart attack and stroke, infertility, and a sped-up aging process. Long-term stress can rewire the brain, leaving you more vulnerable to anxiety and depression.”

6 Ways to Rest Productively 

Author Tony Schwartz recommends active or passive renewal (rest) after every 90 minutes of focused and productive work.

1. Meditation 

Taking some deep breaths while you close your eyes can be a quick and simple recovery method. You will slow your heart rate and clear your mind. Maybe count back from 10 slowly, or let your mind drift somewhere else to reach a state of calmness. For a simple, guided meditation, click here.

2. Naps 

Naps may seem like the ultimate, lazy way to get out of work, but they’re one of the healthiest things that you can do for yourself. When you take a nap, you increase your metabolism, retain more information, and get an extra boost to recharge your battery or make up for lost sleep.

3. Music 

Several studies have shown that listening to music can be beneficial to your overall psychological health. A good tune can change your mood and take your mind away from something that is worrying you.

4. Read 

Excerpts from a text or poem can take you to a positive state of mind. Books and stories let your imagination flow. Non-fiction can be a great way to increase literacy, and get your mind of your daily tasks.

5. Journal 

A journal can be a way to get troubling thoughts out of your mind, and off your chest. You can vent about anything, and clear your worries by getting your concerns out of your head onto paper.

6. Exercise 

Any form of movement that gets your blood pumping will release endorphins and improve mental clarity. Try going for a walk or jog over your lunch break, or take a few minutes to do body-weight exercises between classes.

 

Not taking breaks from the tension that our daily activities bring can lead to some major problems, both now and down the road. To avoid the consequences of stress and fatigue, you’ve got to take a break! Create a relaxation strategy and get the recovery you need to be productive, happy, and healthy.