--- title: Being Physically Fit May Improve Grades in School description: It’s not just the brain but the heart that may also matter when it comes to excelling at school canonical: https://time.com/2897377/heres-how-kids-can-get-better-grades/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-06-19T15:24:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T08:30:00.940Z article:section: Health og:title: The Surprising Key to Better Grades og:description: It’s not just the brain but the heart that may also matter when it comes to excelling at school og:url: https://time.com/2897377/heres-how-kids-can-get-better-grades/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Surprising Key to Better Grades twitter:description: It’s not just the brain but the heart that may also matter when it comes to excelling at school twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Here's How Kids Can Get Better Grades > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Jun 19, 2014 3:24 PM UTC  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Jun 19, 2014 3:24 PM UTC Just like other organs, the brain needs to be used regularly to be at its best. And new research suggests physical exercise is correlated with improved mental functions, too. Researchers in Spain followed more than 2,000 children aged 6 to 18 for three years and looked at how physical fitness, motor skills and muscle strength related to academic performance. Fitness levels were assessed based on how efficiently people’s hearts and lungs respond during exercise—and when they compared the students’ fitness to their grades in math and language classes, as well as their overall GPA, the researchers found that the more fit kids had higher grades. The scientists say theirs is the first study to look at the independent role that fitness can have on academic performance, and suggests that efforts to improve students’ grades may include not just intellectual but physical programs as well. Other studies have linked strong heart and lung function, for example, to better blood flow in the brain, which can help cognitive functions. Other benefits include the release of nerve growth factors that keep neural connections healthy and functioning properly. “Promoting physical activity that involves aerobic exercise and motor tasks during the school years … may be important not only for health, but also for successful academic development,” the authors write in the _Journal of Pediatrics_. 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