How much recess time do kids really need?

Lisa Cassidy hated silent lunches as a kid.

When she first became principal at Liberty Middle School in Liberty, South Carolina, ending the silent lunch era was her top priority.

Students “need to talk and interact,” she said. “They’re social beings. If they don’t do it there, they’re going to do it in your class, and then it’s going to cause all sorts of problems.”

So nine years ago, Cassidy added in a block of time for recess.

While administrators expected a week-long transition, the kids shocked them, adapting on day two. Cassidy said the teachers were on board from the start. Over the next few years, the low-performing, Title-1 school completely transformed.

“It was just amazing to see them become children again,” said Cassidy. “Some kids studied Connect Four so much that they knew, no matter which play they did first, they were going to win the game.”

America’s public schools’ test scores are down, and students’ stress levels are up. Childhood obesity levels hover around 20%, and student behavioral issues are on the rise. The issues facing today’s children are so pervasive that finding a fix can feel overwhelming. 

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But there may be a simple solution: Bring back recess.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recently released a policy statement that calls recess “a necessary break in the day for optimizing a child’s social, emotional, physical and cognitive development.”

Robert Murray, professor of pediatrics and one of the statement’s lead authors, told Straight Arrow that it’s time for America to reframe how we think about taking those breaks.

“When you look at this country compared to other countries around the world, we have an ingrained attitude that the more time you spend teaching, the better the results will be. Other nations say no, it’s the quality of time, and you should be using regular breaks between concentrated learning to give the kids a chance to get back to baseline, to destress, refocus and be ready to learn again,” Murray said. “The old paradigm that we had in No Child Left Behind, that you just cram as much into their brains as you can and get rid of everything else, is just not an effective way to teach.”

That’s because “the brain needs wakeful rest,” said Amy Reyes-Hauff, an education consultant and founder of Get Wild Wyoming, a nature-based education partnership between several of the state’s education, natural and social service organizations that benefits children.

What the brain science says

“Kids’ brains aren’t built to just absorb information continuously for hours. They need to balance that with recess,” Reyes-Hauff told Straight Arrow. “When a child learns a new process like math (or) reading, the information goes into their short-term working memory. Recess acts as a mental reset button that allows the brain to move that information into long-term storage. That’s why it’s imperative that we allow them that reset time and give them a balance of recess time with academic time.”

While this may sound like a new idea, the science hasn’t changed. Rather, modern research techniques have improved our understanding of how learning takes place, according to Murray.

“When you teach them something, their working memory begins to work with it and put it in context with what they learned before. (With repetition) it gets stronger,” he told Straight Arrow. “When they sleep at night, that’s when the brain really locks it in and puts it in the front brain.”

The AAP paper advises schools to provide students options for activity or relaxation with peers, saying this will encourage students to regain focus. There should be a minimum of 20 minutes every day. Recess should be considered students’ personal time and should never be withheld for academic or punitive reasons.

“A quality recess will reestablish mental equilibrium and focus, a need of every student, kindergarten through 12th grade, every day,” the paper contends. 

That rest remains crucial as children age — even into adulthood.

“The importance of regular restorative breaks during an adult’s workday is unquestioned,” according to the AAP. “For students and teachers, however, such breaks need to be codified within a highly structured curriculum.”

When Murray first began examining recess nearly two decades ago, it was to investigate its physical benefits. He soon realized that recess also affects students’ ability to interact with peers.

“There’s no other place in the school day where children learn from other children,” he said. Adults value colleagues with skills in communication and mediation. They know how to work in teams and follow rules and control their emotions. 

“You don’t inherit that,” Murray said. “You don’t teach that in a classroom. That is child-to-child learning. In playing with other kids, they have to control their emotions, they have to learn how to play within the rules, and they have to play fair.”

Physical activity fosters learning

Students who are physically active “tend to have better grades, school attendance, cognitive performance and classroom behaviors,” according to a 2023 paper published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A recess period may be even more “important for students with special needs, functional limitations or physical disabilities, because they may have more behavioral issues and limited experiences interacting socially with other students,” according to the CDC.

Children with ADHD have lower levels of available dopamine in their brains. But physical activity provides a natural dose of the stimulant, said Reyes-Hauff. And if you deprive a hyperactive brain of physical movement, it will seek dopamine in other ways, like fidgeting. Especially in the afternoons.

“All that anxiety inside of them is just continuing to build. That dopamine crash happens and then things like working memory and executive function all suffer afterwards. It’s all connected to movement,” said Reyes-Huff.

Recess is a perfect outlet for this movement. Better even, Murray said, than gym class.

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“Don’t think for a minute that you can depend on PE to give kids an hour of vigorous activity, because a lot of it is teaching and evaluating and practicing,” he said. “That’s not where we’re going to get our 60 minutes. You can’t just say, ‘Don’t worry about physical activity because PE is going to take care of it.’ That’s not its job.”

Three years ago, Reyes-Hauff started Get Wild Wyoming to help children who struggled to manage their behavior in a four-wall classroom and were on a path for expulsion. Her program teaches children to self-regulate through the sounds and feel of nature.

The program began with five classrooms and now has over 350, serving about 6,000 children in the state.

Its outdoor nature has been key to its success. According to the AAP, outdoor and natural spaces are especially beneficial for children because they “positively affect the mental and physical health of students and their readiness to learn and should be prioritized for recess.”

The recess pendulum is shifting

Between 2022 and 2024, the share of secondary schools offering all students opportunities to be physically active during the school day increased from 71% to 74%, according to Shannon Michael, a health scientist at the CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, and one of the authors of the CDC policy paper.

“These opportunities may include recess, lunchtime intramural activities, or physical activity clubs,” she told Straight Arrow.

Michael has also seen progress in state policy.

“In 2017, only eight states required elementary schools to provide daily recess,” she said. “A December 2025 Johns Hopkins analysis found that 25 states and Washington, D.C. had laws addressing recess, although the strength and scope of those policies varied.”

Earlier this year, Pennsylvania enacted a law requiring 20 minutes of recess each day for students in kindergarten through fifth grade. Oklahoma extended its mandated recess from 20 to 40 minutes a day, with a caveat that recess can no longer count as instructional time.

Cassidy, the North Carolina principal, is moving to an elementary school this fall. And she has advice for administrators thinking about adding recess.

 “Try it,” she said. “One step. You don’t have to do all of it at once. I think the biggest thing is not to be afraid. It won’t work perfectly the first time. Just keep tweaking it, and do one piece at a time. The benefits far outweigh the struggle to implement.”

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