Juggling is an ancient acrobatic art which trains the brain. It specifically harmonizes/synchronizes neurological processes across both cerebral hemispheres of the brain. It is a great antidote against the “hyper-technologisation” in today’s digital culture in which human beings regularly sit motionless in front of screens and watch displays for long periods of time. Juggling can thus be utilised to counterbalance the effects of a hyper-technological lifestyle. Juggling can be seen as a holistic way to train the mind-body complex (cf. embodied cognition) and to enhance functional connectivity between various brain regions.
Juggling has numerous significant neurocognitive effects:
Proprioception and coordination of movements
Improves self-control and trains prefronatal executive functions
Mental rotation
Hand-eye coordination
Multitasking
Improves cognitive performance in reaction time tasks
Improves attentional mechanisms
Neuroplasticity (i.e., juggling creates novel neuronal circuits in the brain)
Improves concentration and focus
Trains rhythmic movement
Improves gaze-control and occular-fixation
Harmonization of neuronal processes across the cerebral hemispheres (corpus callosum)
Positive emotions, creativity, and self-expression
Cerebral hemispheres of the brain
Tracts of the corpus callosum connecting both cerebral hemispheres
The human motor cortex
Further References
Beek, P. J., & Turvey, M. T.. (1992). Temporal Patterning in Cascade Juggling. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance
“A key variable in cascade juggling is the proportion of time that a juggler holds onto a juggled object during a hand cycle, that is, the time from catch to throw in relation to the time from catch to catch. space-time constraints and principles of frequency locking suggest 3/4 as the primary ratio and 2/3 and 5/8 as the most accessible options. in 5 experiments, object number, mass, and type (ball or scarf) were manipulated together with the frequency at which the objects were juggled. with 5 or 7 balls, the ratio was 3/4, independent of frequency. with 3 balls, the ratio decreased with frequency, with 3/4, 2/3, and 5/8 tending to predominate independently of the force variations induced by variation in object mass. with 3 scarves, ratios varied inversely with frequency and often exceeded 3/4. implications for a dynamical theory of juggling were discussed with the issue of relative timing in coordination and the manipulation of task constraints as an experimental strategy.”
Behrends, E.. (2006). The mathematics of juggling. The Mathematical Intelligencer
“The article reviews the book ‘the mathematics of juggling,’ by burkard polster. the article reviews the book ‘the mathematics of juggling,’ by burkard polster.”
Boyke, J., Driemeyer, J., Gaser, C., Buchel, C., & May, A.. (2008). Training-Induced Brain Structure Changes in the Elderly. Journal of Neuroscience
“It has been suggested that learning is associated with a transient and highly selective increase in brain gray matter in healthy young volunteers. it is not clear whether and to what extent the aging brain is still able to exhibit such structural plasticity. we built on our original study, now focusing on healthy senior citizens. we observed that elderly persons were able to learn three-ball cascade juggling, but with less proficiency compared with 20-year-old adolescents. similar to the young group, gray-matter changes in the older brain related to skill acquisition were observed in area hmt/v5 (middle temporal area of the visual cortex). in addition, elderly volunteers who learned to juggle showed transient increases in gray matter in the hippocampus on the left side and in the nucleus accumbens bilaterally.”
Carius, D., Andrä, C., Clauß, M., Ragert, P., Bunk, M., & Mehnert, J.. (2016). Hemodynamic Response Alteration As a Function of Task Complexity and Expertise—An fNIRS Study in Jugglers. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
“Detailed knowledge about online brain processing during the execution of complex motor tasks with a high motion range still remains elusive. the aim of the present study was to investigate the hemodynamic responses within sensorimotor networks as well as in visual motion area during the execution of a complex visuomotor task such as juggling. more specifically, we were interested in how far the hemodynamic response as measured with functional near infrared spectroscopy (fnirs) adapts as a function of task complexity and the level of the juggling expertise. we asked expert jugglers to perform different juggling tasks with different levels of complexity such as a 2-ball juggling, 3- and 5-ball juggling cascades. we here demonstrate that expert jugglers show an altered neurovascular response with increasing task complexity, since a 5-ball juggling cascade showed enhanced hemodynamic responses for oxygenated hemoglobin as compared to less complex tasks such as a 3- or 2-ball juggling pattern. moreover, correlations between the hemodynamic response and the level of the juggling expertise during the 5-ball juggling cascade, acquired by cinematographic video analysis, revealed only a non-significant trend in primary motor cortex, indicating that a higher level of expertise might be associated with lower hemodynamic responses.”
Chan, J. S. Y., Luo, Y., Yan, J. H., Cai, L., & Peng, K.. (2015). Children’s age modulates the effect of part and whole practice in motor learning. Human Movement Science
“Motor skills can be learned by practicing the whole or part of a movement. in whole practice (wp), a skill is acquired by practicing the movement in its entirety, whereas in part practice (pp), a task is learned by practicing its components before combining them. however, the effectiveness of wp and pp in children is unclear. we, therefore, examined the effects of wp and pp on the learning of juggling among first-, third-, and fifth-graders. children of each grade were pseudo-randomly assigned to the wp or pp group to learn cascade juggling in 6. days. after baseline assessments, the wp learners practiced three-beanbag juggling. the pp learners practiced one-beanbag juggling on the first 2. days, two-beanbag juggling on the following 2. days, and three-beanbag juggling on the last 2. days. practice consisted of 40 trials each day. skill retention and transfer trials (juggling in the opposite direction) were measured 24. h after training (number of catches). there was no significant difference between wp and pp in skill retention (wp: 1.28. ±. 0.73; pp: 1.42. ±. 046, p=. .40) and transfer (wp: 1.31. ±. 0.78; pp: 1.37. ±. 0.55, p=. .49). however, a time. ×. grade. ×. group interaction (. p<. .001) was observed in retention. children of different grades received differential benefits from the wp and pp regimens. the fifth-graders learned better using wp, whereas the first- and third-graders showed better learning with pp. we discuss the three possible explanations for the results (neural maturity, explicit learning, and coordination capabilities).”
Dessing, J. C., Rey, F. P., & Beek, P. J.. (2012). Gaze fixation improves the stability of expert juggling. Experimental Brain Research
“And/or attentional) strategies as afforded by superior tossing accuracy and error corrections. in addition, the more stable gaze during a gaze-through strategy may result more accurate movement planning by providing a stable base for gaze-centered neural coding of ball motion and movement plans or for shifts in attention. to determine whether a stable gaze might indeed have such beneficial effects on juggling, we examined juggling variability during 3-ball cascade juggling with and without constrained gaze fixation (at variou depths) in expert performers (n = 5). novice jugglers were included (n = 5) for comparison, even though our predictions pertained specifically to expert juggling. we indeed observed that experts, but not novices, juggled significantly less variable when fixating, compared to unconstrained viewing. thus, while visuomotor parsimony might still contribute to the emergence of a gaze-through strategy, this study highlights an additional role for improved movement planning. this role may be engendered by gaze-centered coding and/or attentional control mechanisms in the brain.novice and expert jugglers employ different visuomotor strategies: whereas novices look at the balls around their zeniths, experts tend to fixate their gaze at a central location within the pattern (so-called gaze-through). a gaze-through strategy may reflect visuomotor parsimony, i.e., the use of simpler visuomotor (oculomotor”
Draganski, B., Gaser, C., Busch, V., Schuierer, G., Bogdahn, U., & May, A.. (2004). Neuroplasticity: Changes in grey matter induced by training. Nature
“Newly honed juggling skills show up as a transient feature on a brain-imaging scan. does the structure of an adult human brain alter in response to environmental demands? here we use whole-brain magnetic-resonance imaging to visualize learning-induced plasticity in the brains of volunteers who have learned to juggle. we find that these individuals show a transient and selective structural change in brain areas that are associated with the processing and storage of complex visual motion. this discovery of a stimulus-dependent alteration in the brain’s macroscopic structure contradicts the traditionally held view that cortical plasticity is associated with functional rather than anatomical changes.”
Haibach, P. S., Daniels, G. L., & Newell, K. M.. (2004). Coordination changes in the early stages of learning to cascade juggle. Human Movement Science
“Goal-directed movements are characterized by sensory suppression, that is, by decreased sensitivity to tactile stimuli. in the present study, we investigated tactile suppression during movement using a complex motor task: basic 3-ball juggling. it was hypothesized that a decrease in tactile sensitivity would be observed, together with a shift in participants’ response bias while juggling. in a first experiment, participants had to detect a short gap in an otherwise continuous vibratory stimulus, which was delivered to their wrist under conditions of rest or else while juggling. in a second experiment, participants detected a short time gap in a continuous auditory signal, under the same conditions. in a final control experiment performed at rest, participants detected a short time gap in an auditory or tactile signal. in an additional condition, the detection of a gap in tactile stimulation was required under conditions of intramodal tactile interference. participants were significantly less sensitive to detect a gap in tactile stimulation whilst juggling. most importantly, these results were paired with a significant shift toward participants adopting a more conservative criterion when responding to the presence of the gap (i.e. they were more likely to say that a gap was not present). taken together, these results demonstrate movement-related tactile sensory suppression and point to a decisional component in tactile suppression, thus suggesting that tactile suppression could already be triggered in the brain ahead of the motor command.”
Lehmann, J., & Jansen, P.. (2012). The influence of juggling on mental rotation performance in children with spina bifida. Brain and Cognition
McKenzie, I. A., Ohayon, D., Li, H., De Faria, J. P., Emery, B., Tohyama, K., & Richardson, W. D.. (2014). Motor skill learning requires active central myelination. Science
“Myelin-forming oligodendrocytes (ols) are formed continuously in the healthy adult brain. in this work, we study the function of these late-forming cells and the myelin they produce. learning a new motor skill (such as juggling) alters the structure of the brain’s white matter, which contains many ols, suggesting that late-born ols might contribute to motor learning. consistent with this idea, we show that production of newly formed ols is briefly accelerated in mice that learn a new skill (running on a ‘complex wheel’ with irregularly spaced rungs). by genetically manipulating the transcription factor myelin regulatory factor in ol precursors, we blocked production of new ols during adulthood without affecting preexisting ols or myelin. this prevented the mice from mastering the complex wheel. thus, generation of new ols and myelin is important for learning motor skills.”
Morita, Y., Ogawa, K., & Uchida, S.. (2016). Napping after complex motor learning enhances juggling performance. Sleep Science
“The present study examined whether a nap after complex motor learning enhanced the following day’s physical performance. eighteen volunteers met the inclusion criteria and were assigned to either a nap (n=9; men=5; mean age=21.0±1.5) or no-nap group (n=9; men=5; mean age=21.9±0.3). participants practiced juggling in the morning and were tested immediately afterwards. participants of the nap group were given a 70-minute nap opportunity after juggling practice, while the no-nap group stayed awake. juggling performance was then tested in the evening (retest-1) and the next morning (retest-2). two-way analysis of variance (group: nap, no-nap×time: test, retest-1, retest-2) found there was a significant effect of test time and a significant group×time interaction. the juggling performance of both groups improved from test to retest-1, respectively. however, the juggling performance level of the nap group was higher than that of the no-nap group at the retest-1. as predicted, a nap promptly after learning motor skills was associated with subsequently improved performance. moreover, the juggling performance of the nap group showed additional significant improvements in the retest-2. in the no-nap group, however, there were no significant improvements in the juggling performance after nocturnal sleep. these results demonstrate that the benefits of a nap following learning were further enhanced after nocturnal sleep. the present results may provide justification for introducing nap periods into daily athletic training as an active method to improve performance.”
Nakahara, T., Nakahara, K., Uehara, M., Koyama, K. I., Li, K., Harada, T., … Inui, A.. (2007). Effect of juggling therapy on anxiety disorders in female patients. BioPsychoSocial Medicine
“AIMS the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of juggling therapy for anxiety disorder patients. design and method subjects were 17 female outpatients who met the dsm-iv diagnostic criteria for anxiety disorders. subjects were treated with standard psychotherapy, medication and counseling for 6 months. for the last 3 months of treatment, subjects were randomized into either a non-juggling group (n = 9) or a juggling therapy group (juggling group: n = 8). the juggling group gradually acquired juggling skills by practicing juggling beanbags (otedama in japan) with both hands. the therapeutic effect was evaluated using scores of psychological testing (stai: state and trate anxiety inventry, poms: profile of mood status) and of adl (fai: franchay activity index) collected before treatment, 3 months after treatment (before juggling therapy), and at the end of both treatments. results after 6 months, an analysis of variance revealed that scores on the state anxiety, trait anxiety subscales of stai and tension-anxiety (t-a) score of poms were significantly lower in the juggling group than in the non-juggling group (p < 0.01). depression, anger-hostility scores of poms were improved more than non-jugglers. in the juggling group, activity scores on the vigor subscale of poms and fai score were significantly higher than those in the non juggling group (p < 0.01). other mood scores of poms did not differ between the two groups. conclusion these findings suggest that juggling therapy may be effective for the treatment of anxiety disorders.”
Post, A. A., Daffertshofer, A., & Beek, P. J.. (2000). Principal components in three-ball cascade juggling. Biological Cybernetics
“To uncover the underlying control structure of three-ball cascade juggling, we studied its spatiotemporal properties in detail. juggling patterns, performed at fast and preferred speeds, were recorded in the frontal plane and subsequently analyzed using principal component analysis and serial correlation techniques. as was expected on theoretical grounds, the principal component analysis revealed that maximally four instead of the original six dimensions (3 balls x 2 planar coordinates) are sufficient for describing the juggling dynamics. juggling speed was shown to affect the number of dimensions (four for the fast condition, two for the preferred condition) as well as the smoothness of the time evolution of the eigenvectors of the principal component analysis, particularly around the catches. contrary to the throws and the zeniths, and regardless of juggling speed, consecutive catches of the same hand showed a markedly negative lag-one serial correlation, suggesting that the catches are timed so as to preserve the temporal integrity of the juggling act.”
Schaal, S., Atkeson, C. G., & Sternad, D.. (1996). One-Handed Juggling: A Dynamical Approach to a Rhythmic Movement Task. Journal of Motor Behavior
“The skill of rhythmically juggling a ball on a racket was investigated from the viewpoint of nonlinear dynamics. the difference equations that model the dynamical system were analyzed by means of local and nonlocal stability analyses. these analyses showed that the task dynamics offer an economical juggling pattern that is stable even for open-loop actuator motion. for this pattern, two types of predictions were extracted: (a) stable periodic bouncing is sufficiently characterized by a negative acceleration of the racket at the moment of impact with the ball, and (b) a nonlinear scaling relation maps different juggling trajectories onto one topologically equivalent dynamical system. the relevance of these results for the human control of action was evaluated in an experiment in which subjects (n = 6) performed a comparable task of juggling a ball on a paddle. task manipulations involved different juggling heights and gravity conditions of the ball. the following predictions were confirmed: (a) for stable rhythmic performance, the paddle’s acceleration at impact is negative and fluctuations of the impact acceleration follow predictions from global stability analysis; and (b) for each subject, the realizations of juggling for the different experimental conditions are related by the scaling relation. these results permit one to conclude that humans reliably exploit the stable solutions inherent to the dynamics of the given task and do not overrule these dynamics by other control mechanisms. the dynamical scaling serves as an efficient principle for generating different movement realizations from only a few parameter changes and is discussed as a dynamical formalization of the principle of motor equivalence.”
Voelcker-Rehage, C., & Willimczik, K.. (2006). Motor plasticity in a juggling task in older adults – A developmental study. Age and Ageing
“OBJECTIVE to examine the plasticity of motor performance in old age. older adults were instructed and trained in a juggling task and their performances were compared, first, within the group of older adults and, second, with the performances of children, youths and younger adults. subjects older adults, children, youths and younger adults (n = 1,206, range 6-89 years). methods participants were asked to learn a juggling task. performance was tested before semantic instruction (pre-test 1), after semantic instruction (pre-test 2) and after 6 days of juggling practice (post-test). none of the participants had prior experiences in juggling. results were analysed using repeated measure analysis of variance (anova). results older adults showed a clear improvement in juggling performance after instruction and after six training sessions. on average, they reached performances comparable with those of children aged between 10 and 14 years, and with those of younger adults aged between 30 and 59 years. only youths and younger adults aged between 15 and 29 years showed significantly higher performances at baseline, after instruction and after training. conclusions older adults exhibit high reserve capacity, that is, a potential for learning ‘new’ motor skills.”
Zainaldeen, M. H., Hasan, N. E., Ahmed Ali, F. A. H., Altahoo, H. S., Rashid-Doubell, F., & Fredericks, S.. (2018). The influence of ball-juggling on emotional states, blood pressure and sleep-quality among medical students during end-of-year exam preparation. Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice
“Juggling-exposure therapy has been employed in the management of anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. however, there is little evidence of the effectiveness of juggling-exposure in improving emotional states in subclinical conditions. this study aimed at evaluating the effect of a course of juggling on emotional states, sleep quality and blood pressure among medical students at a critical stage of their academic training. blood pressure, psychometric and quality of sleep assessments were performed pre- and post-examination period for two groups of students: juggling-exposed (n = 9) and non-juggling-exposed (n = 11). juggling exposure consisted of practice-drills for one hour per week during the period spanning the student’s scheduled exams. comparisons were made between quantitative measures that were collected pre- and post-the course of juggling drills. differences in scores and measures were expressed as percentage-change and compared between non-juggling and juggling groups. overall, there was a decrease in depression and anxiety scores between the pre-to post-exam periods. this decrease was statistically significant for both non-juggling and juggling groups with respect to anxiety, but only the juggling-exposed group had a significant reduction regarding depression scores. however, when calculated as percentage-change over the pre-to post-exam period, there was no significant difference in any of the parameters for either of the two groups. practicing juggling drills had an influence on emotional states.”
Zentgraf, K., & Munzert, J.. (2009). Effects of attentional-focus instructions on movement kinematics. Psychology of Sport and Exercise
“Background: recent research has shown that internal (body-related) attention-focus instructions disrupt motor learning and performance, whereas paying attention to the environmental effects of movements (external focus) leads to better performance than an internal focus [see, for reviews, wulf, g. (2007). attentional focus and motor learning: a review of 10 years of research. e-journal bewegung und training, 1, 4-14.; wulf, g., & prinz, w. (2001). directing attention to movement effects enhances learning: a review. psychonomic bulletin & review, 8, 648-660.]. however, beilock’s studies [beilock, s. l., bertenthal, b. i., mccoy, a. m., & carr, t. h. (2004). haste does not always make waste: expertise, direction of attention, and speed versus accuracy in performing sensorimotor skills. psychonomic bulletin & review, 11, 373-379.] suggest that an internal focus is detrimental in experts but not in novices. because detrimental effects of consciously attending to movements have generally been measured by performance scores such as accuracy scores or reaction times, it remains unclear how internal and external attentional-focus instructions influence movement kinematics when learning a new skill. to fill this gap, the present study investigated attentional-focus effects on a biomechanical level. methods: a video of an expert juggler demonstrating a two-ball juggling task was presented to juggling novices. experimental groups were given either body-related (internal group) or ball-related (external group) verbal instructions or no attention-guiding instructions (control group). in the retention phase without attention-guiding instructions, the body-movement and ball-flight aspects of performance focused on in the verbal instruction were subjected to biomechanical analyses. results and conclusions: juggling performance improved equally in all three groups. however, internally vs. externally instructed acquisition phases had differential effects on the kinematics of the upper body as well as ball trajectories when performing the juggling task. remarkably, ball trajectories in the control group who received no specific attentional cueing were similar to those in the externally instructed group. this suggests that task-relevant information is picked up independently of instructions, and that external instructions provide redundant information. internal instructions for object-related tasks, however, may confront novice learners with the need to process additional …”
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