Latest Issue of the MindBrainEd Think Tank + (ISSN 2434-1002) 7 MindBrained Bulletin Think Tank V4i7 Exercise J | Page 15

Mental fatigue explained a number of my own problems, such as the dullness and
inability to articulate my thoughts after a long faculty meeting. But not just me; I
noticed that my Japanese colleagues too, in long meetings, had trouble discussing
school affairs. A proposal that should have taken 10 minutes to decide on often
stretched on to an inconclusive 60. They seemed to get fixed on silly little parts of the
proposal, and unable to come to a decision. Now I know why. After we had sat quietly
in long meetings, glutamate had built up in our brains and we suffered its toxicity.
Because of the fatigue, all I wanted to do was sit there and vegetate in the short
breaks between them, but now I know this was completely the wrong response. I
should have been up and moving.
Then, I noticed the same problems at conferences. By the third presentation, I
started to feel effects similar to a hangover. Until I heard Ratey, I just thought I was
“tired,” but once I learned the real reason, I realized there was something I could do
about it. At a JALT Sendai mini-conference in 2010, I decided to climb flights of
stairs between presentations to keep my brain fresh. Making my heart beat hard was
the goal. It took some discipline to get me out of my chair, but climbing stairs did
wonders. I was amazed at how much fresher I felt at the end of the day. So then, at
our first FAB conference, in Kyushu, I recruited other participants to climb stairs
with me. A few did, but only one of them kept at it till the end of the day, Steve
Jugovic. He too noticed the results and decided to study this
problem.
In fact, he made it his mission to make sure our future
conferences had energy breaks to increase blood flow
programmed right in. And today, he is an officer in the BRAIN
SIG tasked with making sure this programming happens. His
title? The honorable “Body Police.” Marc Helgesen has helped as
well, creating activities that help participants move. (See Steve’s
and Marc’s articles in this issue.)
The next challenge was finding ways to get
The lecture class system
blood flow up in my classes, especially my 5 th
is like forcing them to sit
period Business English Nyumon class. From
through multiple faculty
4:20 to 5:50, with first-year students; it was
meetings five days a week.
certain they would be burnt out. Almost all of
them had already been through 3-6 hours of
lectures, where they just sat passively and
(pretended to) listen. What a terrible thing to do to these otherwise energetic and
spontaneous youths. It’s like forcing them to sit through multiple faculty meetings
five days a week. To make matters worse, my 5 th period class had 65 students in it.
That almost forced me to adopt the methods most of my colleagues used – having
them sit quietly and listen, read, and write – but I knew that would just add to their
mental miasma. Instead, my goal was to get them up and moving every class.
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