Short active breaks may help one kind of attention; other tests showed no gain.

The review

1. 01

   Who took part

   3,383 healthy children aged 6 to 13 took part, across 16 studies. Most were in the early years of school.

2. 02

   What they did

   The breaks were short bursts of movement in class, about 4 to 25 minutes long, given during or between lessons. The other groups had no activity or a quiet break. Most studies checked attention straight after a break. Four ran breaks two to five times a week for 2 to 10 weeks.

3. 03

   What happened

   Selective attention, the skill of picking out what matters, was the one clear gain. It was moderate across 4 studies, but a check found signs that weak results went unpublished. Concentration, inhibition and shifting showed no clear difference, and breaks did not seem to hurt attention.

What the review found

1. Helped

   Across 4 studies, active breaks helped pupils pick out what matters more than the other groups did.

   Pooled analysis of 4 studies with 395 people · vs a quiet break or no activity · ⚠ signs that small negative studies went unpublished; mixes trials with other kinds of study

2. No difference

   Across 6 studies, active breaks made no clear difference to how well pupils concentrated.

   Pooled analysis of 6 studies with 881 people · vs a quiet break or no activity · ⚠ mixes trials with other kinds of study

3. No difference

   Across 4 studies, active breaks made no clear difference to how fast pupils screened out distractions.

   Pooled analysis of 4 studies with 900 people · vs a quiet break or no activity · ⚠ mixes trials with other kinds of study

4. No difference

   Across 3 studies, active breaks made no clear difference to how fast pupils switched between rules on a test.

   Pooled analysis of 3 studies with 441 people · vs a quiet break or no activity · ⚠ mixes trials with other kinds of study

Source