AWESOME HEALTH BENEFITS OF PING PONG
Ping
pong is the ultimate number one sport that covers Mind, Body and Spirit!
Ping pong is no doubt the most Dynamic sport
in the world in terms of covering all 3 areas of Mind, Body , and Spirit. No other sports cover
these 3 areas in such a detailed, intense, speedy high octane way.( Maybe other
than Martial Arts. But we don’t
considered Martial Arts a non-violent sport for the evolved or civilized,
though we welcomed arguments on this one. In fact, one would argue that ping
pong is the highest form of martial arts since it concerns a high level of
finesse with a spinning plastic ball, not just bodily raw power or speed)
Below is
a simple list of its Great Benefits on why ping pong is the ultimate
Healthcare System-
Healthcare System-
1.
no.1 Brain sport- great training for all aspects of the
mind
2.
Weight loss
3.
an inexpensive sports with very low risk of injury and a
quick workout that burns lots of fat!
4.
great social bonding – a happy spirit
5.
ping pong is the ultimate therapy! great ,quick emotional,
physiological release- like releasing stress or anger for a healthy, balanced
spirit.
6.
a great, simple sport for all ages especially the elderly.
In fact, it is one of very few professional sports that be played competitively
till old age.
7.
Quick build of body
strength in all parts of the body- Concentrated, quick, high-octane play at a
high level can offer a cardiovascular and aerobic workout, and build strength in the body's
fast-twitch muscle fibers.
8.
number one mind-body sport- Pingpong also
works very well in terms of building eye-hand coordination. It helps build your
reflexes because you do need to stay focused at that very high level. And it
makes you alert and limber as you are using your arms, legs and shoulders,
basically enhancing speed and strength in all those areas.
9.
May cure
brain related illness like Alzeimers! Not yet, but possible first step- read
article near end of blog.
10. a strong therapy for curing all kinds
of obsessive compulsive disorders, addictions. When it comes to curing any obsessive
disorder or addictions, there has to be a strong substitute of Activity that
dominates the former addiction. Ping
pong played at higher levels constitutes a series of quick energy flow in the brain-body function that could simulate
or subjugate the excitement or urge of the former addiction, since both the
body and brain activity (energy flux flowing across multiple parts/cells of the brain)is in concert with each other,
thus generating a enormous physiological release.
11. ping pong is the high art of communication – in fact it is the
highest form of communication without speech! The going back and forth of the ball with you and your buddy's unique energies in it do all the talking and
babbling. That give and take of energies
through the little white ball does all the interacting.
Try it and you will know what I mean. Having communication
problems with your friends, families, or love ones? Start paddling that little white ball and all ice is broken!
12. Ping Pong as World Savior?!! - that naked little white ball is superman??! - to play well at any level, ping pong
teaches finesse and respect for the spin and energy your opponent puts on the
ball on every shot-Similar to having full consideration at all times for other peoples’ actions, speech and
thoughts.
In
summary, ping pong is the undisputed number one sport and superhero for a
brilliant Mind, healthy Body and a balanced, happy Spirit!
========================================================
Below
are the summaries of the 5 articles from the links at the end of this blog-
Millions
of people play table tennis, also known as ping pong. The sport is popular
around the world, and with good reason. It offers entertainment, good
cardiovascular exercise and health benefits to players of different ages and
fitness levels. The risk of injury is low and the intensity is manageable for
most people. If you play table tennis to lose weight, you can avail of several
social, mental and health benefits.
Low
Risk of Injury
In table
tennis, players bat with a small paddle, using it to toss the ball to the
opponent on the other side of the table. There is no heavy playing equipment in
use and there is minimal risk of collisions or falls. Table tennis is one of
the few competitive sports that offer players an opportunity to indulge in fast
movements without straining the joints. It is perfect for people who are
recovering from sports injuries or those having joint problems that prohibit
them from participating in other high-speed sports.
Weight
Loss
A 2006
report in the Los Angeles Times says that a 150-pound person can burn 272
calories by playing table tennis for an hour. Considering the fact that the
sport is entertaining and addictive, it can be a fun and easy way to burn
calories. While the calorie exemption is lower than in singles tennis, the risk
of injury and falls is also significantly lower. A high-speed game of table
tennis can burn a significant amount of calories and improve your concentration
and reflexes. It also helps your cardiovascular system and improves your
overall fitness level.
Social
Bonding
Whether
you play in the community center or at home with friends, table tennis offers a
great way to bond with other people while you lose weight. Because young and
old people can play the game, it can help improve communication and build
relationships, irrespective of age. Playing at home with siblings or parents
can bring family members closer and enable them to spend more quality time with
each other.
Beneficial
for Older People
Table
tennis improves reflex, eye-hand co-ordination, mental alertness and speed of
movement. It also improves balance and lowers the chances of falls and
injuries, especially among older people. Table tennis can slow the process of
cognitive decline that occurs with aging. The social skills and bonds you
develop are also beneficial in lengthening lifespan, according to Dr. Gary
Small from the Center of Aging at the University of California.
"In
ping pong, we have enhanced motor functions, enhanced strategy functions and
enhanced long-term memory functions," explained Dr. Wendy Suzuki,
professor of neuroscience and psychology at New York University.
According to Suzuki, table tennis works parts of the brain that
are responsible for movement, fine motor skills and strategy -- areas that
could be growing stronger with each match. While scientists have yet to study
the brain activity of ping pong players, Suzuki believes the game
enhances brain function unlike any other sport.
Table Tennis Is
the No. 1 Brain Sport, Scientists Say
Wednesday night,
researchers at The American Museum of Natural History invited Sarandon, Suzuki
and a panel of table tennis enthusiasts to become part of their latest
exhibition, "Brain: The Inside Story. "
For one night
under the iconic blue whale, high above the museum floor, visitors listened to
the science behind one of America's favorite basement pastimes. While the ping
pong discussion was limited to one night, the brain exhibition continues
through the summer.
"Table tennis
is the number one brain sport, so we figured this was a great way to get people
interested in the brain because a lot of people play table tennis,"
explained Rob DeSalle, curator for the Museum.
Holding a human
brain to get players' attentions, Suzuki pointed out specific areas that are
stimulated by playing table tennis.
According to
Suzuki, there are three major areas affected by this high-speed game. The fine
motor control and exquisite hand-eye coordination involved with dodging and
diving for the ball engages and enhances the primary motor cortex and
cerebellum, areas responsible for arm and hand movement.
Ping Pong, Like Chess, Involves Strategy
Secondly, by
anticipating an opponent's shot, a player uses the prefrontal cortex for
strategic planning. Lastly, the aerobic exercise from the physical activity of
the game stimulates the hippocampus, the part of the brain that is responsible
for allowing us to form and retain long-term facts and events.
"There's a
lot of strategy and the area that gets enhanced is the prefrontal cortex,
critical not only in ping pong, but also in chess," said Suzuki.
That could explain
why fellow panelist, Will Shortz, calls ping pong, "chess on
steroids." Since 1993, Shortz has been the man responsible for deciding
just how much strategy is needed to solve crossword puzzles for The New York
Times.
A self-confessed
table tennis addict and puzzle editor, Shortz says the key to both of his
favorite activities is strategy.
"Crosswords
and table tennis go great together, they're both mind sports," he said.
Last November,
11-year-old Alex Lipan focused all of his attention on that bouncing ball to
become the top-ranked table tennis player, for ages 12 and under, in the state
of New York.
"You have to constantly change your method and see your
opponent's weaknesses," he explained after the discussion, when visitors
were invited to try their own strategies on ping pong tables set up inside the museum.
Lipan makes split-second decisions by anticipating
the other player's moves. By doing so, Dr. Suzuki believes that Alex is
actively strengthening and changing the way his brain reacts, possibly
affecting the response time of other decision.
Suzuki shared her
hypothesis about what could be happening inside the minds of players.
"Given the
speed and strategy that they (ping pong players) are using, you can imagine
that they have developed fast instincts," she said.
If science one day proves a connection between
table tennis and an increase in mental strength, ping pong could graduate from
the basement to the classroom.
Excitement is reason enough to
bat a small, hollow ball back and forth for an hour. But if that doesn't tempt,
consider this: Participants in pingpong glean tangible health benefits. They
may even lengthen their lives.
Pingpong burns calories -- 272 of them an hour for a 150-pound person, according to calorimetric analysis. This is not as many as singles tennis (544) or even doubles tennis (408), but a cool 102 more than would be burned by playing billiards for the same amount of time.
In fact, batting the ball about the table with friends on a regular basis may offer a nice mix of mental, physical and social benefits, says Dr. Gary Small, director of the Center on Aging at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Pingpong burns calories -- 272 of them an hour for a 150-pound person, according to calorimetric analysis. This is not as many as singles tennis (544) or even doubles tennis (408), but a cool 102 more than would be burned by playing billiards for the same amount of time.
In fact, batting the ball about the table with friends on a regular basis may offer a nice mix of mental, physical and social benefits, says Dr. Gary Small, director of the Center on Aging at the University of California, Los Angeles.
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For starters, pingpong provides a deft
mental workout ... truly. Such mental stimulation can affect how the brain is
wired -- perhaps even warding off cognitive decline in future years.
Exercise tends to help the
front part of the brain, especially if one is solving complex problems, such as
mapping out sophisticated strategies for winning a pitched game of pingpong.
Pick up the paddle and your brain could change
quickly. In exercise studies, Small notes, beneficial brain changes are visible
with high-tech imaging after only a few weeks.
And
there's more. The balance training of paddle games such as tennis or pingpong
can help prevent falls, which are common among the elderly.
It helps forge social connections -- which
increase the chance of living to a ripe old age.
"Unless you are playing pingpong against a
wall, it is tremendous to have connection, have fun, and be
socially involved with other people," Small said.
Of course, what you get out of pingpong depends
on what you put into it, says Dr. Frank Chen of the Palo Alto Medical
Foundation's sports department, who's also on the medical staff of the Oakland
Raiders and USA National Rugby.
If you're just banging the ball around in the
basement with some buddies, don't expect to drop pounds or gain stamina.
But if you are playing really competitive table
tennis, that's different. Concentrated, quick, high-octane play at that level
can offer a cardiovascular and aerobic workout, and build
strength in the body's fast-twitch muscle fibers.
"You are really working both types of
muscle fibers (fast and slow) within the body," says Chen, an avid
pingpong player.
"Pingpong also works very well in terms of
building eye-hand coordination," Chen adds. "It helps build your
reflexes because you do need to stay focused at that very high level. You are
using your arms, legs and shoulders, basically enhancing speed and strength in
all those areas."
The Health... Body-Brain Connection
In a recent study,
Clinical neuroscientist and psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen argues in his book, "Making a Good Brain
Great", that playingtable
tennis can increase
brain activity.
In his book, Amen calls table tennis the best
brain sport. It improves
hand-eye coordination. It's aerobic,
uses both upper and lower body and causes you to use many different areas of
the brain to function.
In an article
entitled, "Stupidity and the brain", Dr. Amen says,
"Golf is good. Tennis is terrific. Table tennis is the best sport in the
world!"
So if you're a child,
adult, or senior, looking for something fun and extremely healthy for your body
and brain, take up table tennis.
Ping Pong Therapy on Brain Illness
Holocaust survivor Betty Stein, 92, takes off
her cardigan. She squares up to the table, bat in hand, deep in concentration.
Her eyes dart rhythmically in time with the clack, clack of the ping pong ball.
At the next table, Eli Boyer, 91, sings a love song in Spanish as he plays. The retired accountant
speaks four languages, and flits between Russian and English with his coach
Elie Zainabudinova. As long as the ping pong ball ricochets back and forth,
their absorption is total. Flashes of their former lives creep across their
faces – laughter, determination, a mischievous grin.
Only when they sit down do their eyes give it
away. The tell-tale existential terror of Alzheimer’s. The confusion. The
forgetting of who they are.
Stein and Boyer are among one hundred
participants in a ping pong therapy program for people with Alzheimer’s and
dementia at the Arthur Gilbert Table Tennis Center in Los Angeles. Founder
Mikhail Zaretsky says the sport does not cure, or even slow down the disease,
but helps the 100 participants by raising their heart rate and the blood flow
to their brains, and exercising them mentally as well as physically. He says it
helps their depression, improves their balance, and makes them more alert.
Alzheimer’s erases memories and robs the brain
of its ability to learn. A 1997 Japanese study touted the benefits of table
tennis for Alzheimer’s and dementia patients.
Betty has been playing ping pong weekly for
almost a year now. When she arrived she could barely keep a rally going for
three or four strokes; now she’s hitting 20 or 30, says Zaretsky. “After she
started playing ping pong, she was telling her caregiver stories that she
hadn’t ever told before,” he says. “She told her more details on how she
survived the Holocaust – how she had to hide for a few days behind a stove.”
“This was amazing, and some doctors suggested
maybe she was depressed, and when she started playing ping pong maybe the
depression went away a little bit. We don’t know exactly.” Zaretsky also takes
the program to seven nursing homes in the Los Angeles area. He hopes to use the
program as part of a U.S. study on the benefits of table tennis for Alzheimer’s
and dementia patients.
Boyer’s wife Michele, who has been married to
him for 50 years, noticed his dementia starting five years ago. “On the days he
plays he’s more alert, he’s happier, he walks faster and his comprehension is a
little more in memory for that day. It’s a little surprising, but you can
really see it. And it gives him a sense of pride in himself.”
“I’m holding it right, I’m holding it right,
that’s what I’m going to do,”chants Boyer repeatedly to the rhythm of the ping pong ball.
“You’re gripping the racquet like the Chinese,” reassures his coach. “Chinese
players do that.”
She asks him to sing a song in Russian. Boyer
breaks into “Besame Mucho,” a Spanish love song. In his
clear voice the lyrics continue to roll as he keeps the ball in play to a
different beat.
Read the links below for the original articles
http://blogs.reuters.com/photographers-blog/2011/06/22/ping-pong-therapy/
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Idu "6 steps to happiness" ==part 1
idu "6 steps to happiness" ==part 2
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idu 爱嘟! HAPPY秘笈 - 幸福 秘诀 part 5 final part
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