Historical aspects of studying the influence of physical activity on the mental health of people

Abstract

This article presents the main results of work on the study of the issue of the historical process of improving knowledge about the influence of physical activity of a person on the level of his mental health. Based on the results of the analysis of scientific information presented in modern domestic and foreign literary sources, the conclusion was substantiated that the historical process of improving knowledge about human nature and his mental activity in recent years has reached the highest level of development. The study of the long-term experience of scientists in many countries of the world gives grounds to assert that the beginning of the process of targeted study of the effect of physical activity on human mental functions was laid back in the last century. However, scientists have achieved the most outstanding results in this area of scientific research in recent decades. The historical need for in-depth research in this scientific direction was maturing gradually and was due to the peculiarities of the course of scientific and technological progress in general. Due to the fact that it was in recent decades that many discoveries were made, which formed the basis of modern methods for studying the physiological state of a person and his intellectual functions, there was obvious progress in the study of the mental health of persons whose central nervous system works under conditions of extreme intellectual and psycho-emotional stress. Scientists working in the field of physical education and sports, in collaboration with scientists in the field of education and health, have significantly intensified their joint activities and developed modern complexes of measures aimed at studying the mental health of students and representatives of the teaching staff of state institutions of higher education. This contingent of the subjects was not chosen by chance. The fact is that the learning process in higher education institutions is associated with intense loads on the central nervous system of both students and teachers, as well as on some of their senses (in particular, on the visual and auditory analyzers).