Fit to learn, fit to lead: Why India must rescue physical education now
Not just for kicks We obsess over academic rankings, demographic dividend, digital transformation, AI... and, yet, we ignore a far more urgent issue - decline in student motivation. Attendance rates in classrooms are dropping. Teachers are struggling to hold the attention of distracted learners who are more connected to screens than to their surroundings. Without addressing this crisis, we are failing an entire generation. We need to build physical vitality to develop intellectual sharpness.
Studies have shown that physical activity stimulates neurogenesis, sharpens focus and enhances memory retention. In the 1950s, the US launched the Presidential Fitness Test, a nationwide initiative for instilling physical discipline and fitness in schoolchildren. It was a response to growing concerns about the physical and mental unpreparedness of young Americans. The same argument must now be made for undergraduate education in India, where physical education has been treated as a non-essential, secondary subject.
The link between physical activity and mental health is an established fact. Anxiety, depression and attention disorders are at an all-time high among college students, fuelled by sedentary lifestyles and relentless digital consumption. A structured physical curriculum can serve as a potent countermeasure, not just to calm restless minds but to cultivate focus, discipline and resilience. Recent studies show that regular physical activity is as effective as medication for mild-to-moderate depression. Aerobic exercise enhances attention, emotional regulation and psychological stability. Physical activity can also mitigate substance abuse by releasing dopamine and reducing stress, two critical factors in addiction.India's youth are more digitally connected than ever before. This hyper-connectivity has come at a steep cost - loneliness, and erosion of essential life skills like communication, teamwork and leadership. Physical hobbies and team sports are natural incubators for these skills, pushing students to face real-world challenges.Yet, as educators and regulators, we have collectively decided that such life skills are expendable, as if the only goal of higher education is to produce job-worthy coders and analysts. It's time to reclaim physical education as a crucible for character and leadership development.Consequences of neglecting physical education are not just psychological. They are physical. Do a full-body test of an 18-year-old today and you will see adverse reports. Low levels of vitamin D and B12 and iron are common. Lifestyle diseases like diabetes and obesity are reaching high proportions among young adults. We are producing graduates who may be academically accomplished, but are physically weak, mentally fragile and emotionally disconnected. We cannot profess lofty national goals and continue to churn out degrees, while ignoring the fundamental health and fitness of our youth.As AI and automation increasingly absorb cognitive tasks, value of human physicality and grit is poised for a resurgence. That is where we may continue to have an edge over machines. The future will not belong to the best coders. That is a job machines are increasingly getting better at. The future will belong to those who can excel in the physical world, a realm machines are yet to conquer.Developing physical competencies and skills - with the ability to face the heat and dust - is not just a nostalgic nod to the past. It's a strategic need for a world in flux.Lecture-based teaching is outdated. The future of education is becoming increasingly experiential. Internships will be longer. Projects will be more physically demanding. Learning outcomes will be more tangible. To prepare our youth for this evolving educational model, we must first condition their bodies and minds to withstand rigours of real-world learning. (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of www.economictimes.com.) Elevate your knowledge and leadership skills at a cost cheaper than your daily tea. Everything 'e' won't make you a millionaire. Just look at e-pharmacies
Are Indian banks staring at their worst in 7 years?
How Uber came back from the brink to dislodge Ola
Will Royal Enfield's back to the future strategy woo GenZ?
Stock Radar: Cummins India stock breaks out from Ascending Triangle pattern on daily charts; check target, stop loss
Weekly Top Picks: These stocks scored 10 on 10 on Stock Reports Plus
Multibagger or IBC - Part 9: With exceptional margins, can this small-cap stock make it to the big league?
These large- and mid-cap stocks can give more than 30% return in 1 year, according to analysts
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
2 hours ago
- Time of India
Trump is forcing us to confront the myth of the American dream itself
At the height of the Covid pandemic, a philosopher and an academic in the US began writing to each other discussing everything from careers to chronic pain. These letters have now taken the shape of 'The End Doesn't Happen All At Once: A Pandemic Memoir'. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now In a conversation with Shruti Sonal , Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan, an English professor, and Chi Rainer Bornfree , who co-founded a school for activists, talk about the Covid years and the impact of Trump You've spoken about how writing about the pandemic — something people have been eager to forget — felt like looking directly into the sun. What drove you to publish this series of letters? R: This is a deeply lived-in book for me — one that allowed me to attend, in both an intimate and expansive way, to what it meant to be alive during a time of dramatic social, geopolitical, and technological upheaval. During the pandemic, we were all aware of tragedies unfolding on multiple scales, even as we experienced moments of joy, beauty, and connection in our own lives. How could we hold all of that complexity together? How might we stay with it, rather than turn away? We published this memoir as an offering to readers who might be moved by the way we valued our own and each other's lives, and who might find strength in what one reader described as our 'deep and curious' friendship. It's important to remember those years not only because they were marked by loss and devastation — much of which has not yet been adequately grieved — but also because they revealed new possibilities, moments of radical awakening, and potential solidarities. Covid and measles cases are rising, and vaccination rates are falling. Do you think any lessons have been learnt? C: There was learning — briefly — but after the initial shock, there was much more forgetting and active suppression of what we learned. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now With cases rising in the US of bird flu and measles, I hope that masking and other acts to care for public health will surface quickly from our societies' muscle-memory. But I worry that, like someone who persistently misspells a common word, too many Americans are clinging stubbornly to the wrong lessons from the pandemic: that we can't trust the experts, that it's 'us against them', or that 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger'. Ragini, in one letter, you write about the dilemmas of being an Indian writing in English, a colonial bequest and the language of the elites. How do you see the current push for translated literature in India vis-a-vis the future of Indian writing in English? It's a very exciting time for Indian literature — from the global success of translated works like Banu Mushtaq's 'Heart Lamp' to the growing practice of literary translation between Indian languages that no longer relies on English as a kind of neutral mediator, as was so often the case in the past. As an Indian American who writes in English and works primarily on the contemporary, I'm especially interested in the decentering — even provincialisation — of Indian diasporic writers, Anglo-American literatures, and Anglophone ambassadors for India in the West. In a very real sense, India no longer needs English (the language or its writers) to speak for it. At the same time, it would be foolish to deny that English is already an Indian language, with its own indigenous life. In my recent book on literary studies, 'Overdetermined', I examine how Indian English writing is made 'American', so to speak, through its circulation in ethnic and postcolonial literature classrooms. In one chapter, I argue that the challenge now is to be careful not to allow demotic, so-called 'vernacular' English texts to stand in for — or crowd out — the urgent need to read and publish works in translation. As an academic in the US, how do you see the Trump administration's assault on universities? Is this the beginning of the end of the great American dream for many immigrant students? R: In many ways, the violence the Trump administration has inflicted on US higher education is only accelerating a trend that's been underway since the turn of the century: immigrant students, especially from India and China, choosing to return 'home' because the future — politically, economically, and intellectually — is increasingly centered in a rising Asia, in a post-American world. But yes, in another sense, it does feel like the beginning of the end of the American dream for many immigrant students. My parents came to the US for college and graduate school in the early 1980s, and it's hard to imagine their particular trajectories being possible today. If there's a silver lining, perhaps it's that we're being forced to confront the myth of the American dream itself — recognising that it was never universally accessible, and that many have experienced it as a nightmare. As an academic, I still hope we can preserve what's best about our universities: as spaces of meaningful knowledge production and critical inquiry, and as institutions committed to broad-based access and opportunity. Chi, you run The Activist Graduate School (AGS). What role is it playing as students in the US get arrested and deported for their activism? AGS is an experimental set of courses on activism that my partner Micah Bornfree and I started because we saw that movements like Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter had achieved huge mobilisation very quickly, but failed to realise enduring material transformations. We wanted to enable activists on and off campus to break with groupthink and tired modes of protest, and innovate new methods of seizing power. Ragini and I both went to the University of California, Berkeley, the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement in the 1960s which paved the way for much student activism today. Those rights are now being eroded.
Time of India
11 hours ago
- Time of India
Elon Musk is on ketamine? What is it and how does it affect the body?
Image credits: Getty Images No matter how controversial his actions may be, Elon Musk is one man who has made a name for himself. From technology to politics, Musk has taken a deep dive into reigning fields in order to expand his forte and empire. The 53-year-old is the owner of Tesla, X and SpaceX and has even tried his hands at politics by donating a whopping $275 million to Trump's campaign and heading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). For someone to be able to do so much simultaneously would either require some superhuman powers or their diet needs to have something that fuels them from the inside. For Elon Musk, his diet includes a string of drugs like ketamine and psychedelic stimulants that have kept him running from one office to another in his Tesla. What is ketamine and how does it affect the body? Let's take a closer look. Musk once said he took ketamine every two weeks for depression as prescribed by his doctor. One would think a drug prescribed for depression would have positive and healing effects, right? Not really. Recently, the New York Times reported that during the 2024 presidential campaign, Musk was taking so much ketamine, sometimes daily, that he told people it was causing him bladder problems, which is a known symptom of excessive ketamine use. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Giao dịch CFD với công nghệ và tốc độ tốt hơn IC Markets Đăng ký Undo How many Americans use ketamine? Image credits: Getty Images Musk is not alone, as of 2015, 3 million Americans aged 12 or older have used ketamine in their lifetime. A recent study analysing the data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) found that past-year recreational ketamine use among adults has increased dramatically since 2015. From 2015 to 2019 ketamine use increased by 81.8% and from 2021 to 2022 it increased by 40%. While during the former years, the use was among adults with depression, in the latter years it was more among those without depression. One interesting point made in this study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, people were more likely to use ketamine if they used other substances such as ecstasy/MDMA, GHB and cocaine, one of which even Musk used. What is Ketamine? Image credits: Getty Images Ketamine, both an anesthetic and a hallucinogen was first synthesized in the 1960s and has been a part of surgery and veterinary medicine for a long time. A study published in the National Library of Medicine stated that ketamine showed significant improvement in depression and anxiety symptoms immediately one hour after a single dose. Clinics administering the drug which must be licensed by the government to provide intravenous infusions are becoming popular. The FDA approved the first ketamine-derived nasal spray for depression in 2019. 'There is absolutely a role for ketamine to help people with depression and suicidal ideation,' said Dr. Kevin Yang, a resident physician in psychiatry at the University of California-San Diego. How does Ketamine affect the body? Image credits: Getty Images 'At the same time, that doesn't mean it's going to be safe and effective for everyone,' added Yang. He was the co-author of the study mentioned above which stated that in the past year, the percentage of Americans using ketamine grew by 82%. The people are driven by both medical and recreational reasons. Ketamine drug seizures nationwide increased from 55 in 2017 to 247 in 2022, according to a 2023 study led by Joseph Palamar at New York University. The drug has been edging into the mainstream with more and more reports on its efficacy in treating depression. This has led to an increase in its market where companies like Johnson & Johnson developed its own ketamine-derived treatment for depression which received FDA approval in 2019. Not only nasal spray, people can visit clinics to get an IV of conventional ketamine for treatment for which the clinics have increased from 60 in 2015 to 1,200 and 1,500 today. But it's not sunny with ketamine. Outside of a clinical setting, it is usually consumed as a pill or powder, either snorted or mixed with a drink. A recent survey found that more than half of patients who tried to take the drug at home for depression either intentionally or accidentally took more than the prescribed amount. Over time, you can also end up building a tolerance to the high dosage and thus keep on increasing them to feel better effects. Scientists have found that people who use ketamine can develop a dependency on it, especially with frequent and high-dosage use. They become irritable or anxious without the drug and experience other withdrawal symptoms. Additionally, while the purity of clinical ketamine is ensured the same can not be said for the illicit sources sold ketamine which according to Dr. Nabarun Dasgupta, who oversees the University of North Carolina's Street Drug Analysis Lab, has seen a recent rise in samples where ketamine is combined with other substances. Short-term overuse of the drug can lead to nausea, high blood pressure, and hallucination, whereas long-term use can lead to problems in a person's bladder and urinary tract. Rather than experimenting with the drug on your own or using it for recreational purposes, think of your health and safety and consult a medical expert if you need medical help. One step to a healthier you—join Times Health+ Yoga and feel the change
Mint
12 hours ago
- Mint
Fentanyl crisis in the US: How is India helping out? FBI Director Kash Patel explains
FBI Director Kash Patel has recently talked about the ongoing fentanyl crisis in the United States and the way the Trump administration is trying to combat it. A former federal public defender, national security prosecutor, Patel has stood out as one of the leading loyalists of Donald Trump's administration as a senior official in both the Department of Justice and the Trump administration. In the podcast uploaded by the Joe Rogan Experience YouTube channel on June 6, Patel claimed that he recently contacted the Indian government and sought help regarding the crisis. His words included, 'I literally just got off the phone with the Indian government. I said, I need your help. This stuff's coming into your country, and then they're moving it from your country because India is not consuming fentanyl.' The fentanyl crisis is about a terrifying wave of overdose deaths sweeping the United States. It is mostly driven by illegally made fentanyl, an incredibly powerful synthetic opioid. Just tiny amounts, like a few grains of salt, can kill you. The worst part? People often don't even know they're taking it. Dealers secretly mix fentanyl into other drugs like heroin, cocaine, or fake pills made to look like prescription painkillers or ADHD meds bought online or on the street. Someone thinks they're taking one thing, but it's actually laced with poison. This has made accidental overdoses horrifyingly common. Fentanyl is now the leading cause of death for adults under 50 in the US. The crisis is so bad that life-saving naloxone (Narcan) is now carried by many cops, families, and even schools. Public health campaigns, even by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) scream "One Pill Can Kill" because it has turned tragically true. Kash Patel claimed that Mexican cartels are shipping their fentanyl to India and using routes to bring it to the United States. "What they (Mexican cartels) are doing now to get cute is that they're shipping that stuff not straight to here. They're going to places like India, and I'm also doing operations in India, and they're having the Mexican cartels now make this fentanyl down in Mexico still. But, instead of going right up to the southern border and into America, they're flying it into Vancouver," Patel said in the Joe Rogan podcast. "Americans don't understand the depth and depravity of fentanyl. You don't hear about fentanyl deaths in India, China, England, Australia, New Zealand," he continued. Patel also explained the Indian government's role in the fentanyl crisis. 'I literally just got off the phone with the Indian government. I said I need your help, this stuff is coming in from your country, and then they are moving it from your country because India is not consuming fentanyl. No one's dying over there. I need you and your help, so my FBI is over there working with their heads of government law enforcement authorities.' "We're going to sanction them and we're going to arrest them where we can. This is now a global problem, and the reason why it's gotten so bad is because no one did anything for four years," the FBI chief claimed.
