Why Do We Have Outdoor Breaks?

If you are a current NDA student, you might be constantly asking yourself this: Why do we have outdoor breaks? Sure, it’s nice when the weather is warm and it’s a sunny day, but why make students go outside and stand in the snow or cold?

My first instinct was to search, “Is cold weather good for you?” on Google so that I could prove my own point that it wasn’t. To my surprise, the very first thing I read is, “It can improve your brain function.” Ummm… what?

Let’s take a look at the facts:

  1. The cold air can boost your immunity system. When your body adapts to cold environments, its ability to fight gets stronger.
  2. It can improve your brain function. I mean, if you think about it, warm weather relaxes us, so cold weather would do the opposite and get us moving.
  3. It can improve your quality of sleep. Regulating your body throughout the day will help you go to sleep easier and faster.

To my surprise, these answers came through, and to be honest, were pretty simple. And even though it’s starting to get warmer out, looking back, maybe the outdoor breaks, or recess, weren’t so bad. So next time you’re cold, just remember that it will work in your favor!

The team at NDA has been working hard over the past year to get us fully open from the first week of the 2020-2021 school year. Outdoor breaks are one of the many efforts to reduce Covid transmission, and have become essential to our school days. Even though we go outside for a minimum of 20-ish minutes for outdoor break, we are also given the privilege to leave school early if we have study last, and come in late if we have study first. All these factors contribute to the school wide effort to only have people in the building that are necessary, so we have as few numbers as possible.