How to Be a Better Human - How to live longer (w/ Keith Diaz)

0:00Hi there, Better Human listeners. Really quick before we get to our episode, you would be doing me a huge favor and really helping out our show if you could take a moment to fill out our listener survey at bit.ly.bhsurvey6, that's bit.ly.bhsurvey6. You can also find a link that you can just click directly on, which is in our show description. Wherever you're listening to this, look at the episode description and at the bottom, there's a link that you can click directly.

0:27Please tell us what is resonating with you, what you want more of, what you'd like to see changed, topics you would like to see covered. Your honest feedback means the world to us. It just takes a few seconds of your time and it would really help us to improve the show and have future seasons be even better. Thank you. It means a lot to me and to the team that makes this show. Thanks for listening and thanks for taking a few seconds to do the listener survey. Now onto the episode. This is how to be a better human. I'm your host, Chris Duffy.

0:58And if we want to be a better human, if I want to be a better human, I need to, at the bare minimum, continue to live. I also would like to do more than live. I would like to have some ability to do things physically. I would like to be in as little pain as possible. I'd like to have some strength and flexibility and independence. And unfortunately, none of those things just happen with me sitting around doing nothing all day, especially as I'm starting to get older. I realize that I have to make a change. But what?

1:27Is it that you actually need to do? Well, today's guest, Keith Diaz is a scientist who studies exercise and he's going to talk to all of us and to me specifically about how we can make some small but very impactful changes that will have a dramatic improvement in our health. I picked way too heavy a weight for this introduction. I'm not even joking. I should have picked a lighter weight. That was too heavy. So I'm going to take a quick breather wall. You watch a clip from Keith's TED Talk. I saw this play out with my daughter recently.

1:57when I had to drive her to our local library. But when we got there, the park was not as full. So I parked a little further away on the street, and she immediately started complaining that I had parked so far away. Now, mind you, the place I had parked may have added an additional 20 seconds of walking to her life. Not a mile, but 20 seconds. But that moment hit me. Movement had become an inconvenience for my daughter, too. So ...

2:25I gave her a classic dad lecture, and this was met with a preteen eye roll. But a few days later, we were leaving a stadium, and I was taking the escalator down. It hasn't gone down. I see something pass by, and I look, and it's my daughter taking the regular set of stairs, happily taking the regular set of stairs, smiling at me as she goes by. It was a small victory. And if my eye-rolling preteen can make this shift on occasion, then I have hope for the rest of us.

2:56Okay, get up, shake your body, move around, but don't go anywhere because we are gonna have so much more from Keith after these quick ads. AI is only as good as the context it has. Introducing Intelligent Center X from Siemens. The enterprise AI system that connects AI to the knowledge and context of your business so we can understand, reason, and act with confidence. Because when AI understands your business, it can do more for your business.

3:36Discover Intelligent Center X from Siemens. I'm Phelan Johnson, the host of See You in Court, and we are back with an all-new season. Our first episode is about a woman named Gwen Jacob, who, on a sweltering day in 1991, did what she had to do to cool down. She took her shirt off. She was cat-called, fined, and arrested, but she refused to back down, sparking a national debate about bearing breasts.

4:05Listen to the story of Gwen's topless walk on CU in court on CBC. Listen and everywhere you get your podcasts. And we are back. We're talking about how to take care of ourselves and stay healthy with exercise scientist Keith Diaz. My name is Keith Diaz and I'm an exercise scientist at Columbia University. And I study how to fight back against our sedentary lifestyles. Okay. So Keith, let's talk about your fighting back against sedentary lifestyles. Let's start with why is a sedentary lifestyle a bad thing?

4:41Yeah, the science tells us that it pretty much increases our risk for every chronic disease that there is. So dementia, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, heart disease, on and on and on. Okay, and one of the problems with this very bad thing, sedentary lifestyles, is that it's kind of the default lifestyle nowadays for many people in North America at least, right? Yeah. I mean, we've been heading this way for decades and look at every aspect of our lives from how much time we spend watching TV to how many of us have sedentary jobs, to how much time we spend commuting to and from places, everywhere we go, we sit. Okay. This is obviously going to reveal a lot about me in this question, but is it better if I'm lying down? Like if I was working on my laptop, but I was fully horizontal rather than in a chair, would that be better or worse? Yes and no. So no, because you're still not moving your muscles, right? And so part of the reason why it's thought that

5:38being sedentary, not moving is so harmful is that our muscles just need regular activation and contraction throughout the day, not just one time for exercise. But where it could be potentially helpful is one of the reasons the sitting posture in particular is so bad is that when we sit, it's almost like taking a hose and putting a kink in that hose, right? Your blood vessels, you put in a kink in your arteries of your blood vessels. And so what that does is it creates pooling in your legs and it creates a lot of pressure in those legs. And that's actually damaging to them. So the thought is that, yeah, if you were actually have your legs prone, that could potentially offset some of the harms of...

6:17sitting, but you're still not moving. So if you're looking for an easy out. Yeah, I'm always looking for an easy out. That's why I asked this question. I suppose it's a little better then. So yeah, if you're gonna be sitting on a couch, maybe prop up the leg. Okay. Yeah. Like really relaxed into it. Yeah. Okay. So if I don't want the easy out, I don't want to have all these clearly bad outcomes. And you've done really extensive research on how bad the outcomes of a sedentary lifestyle are. Let's talk about my specific job, right? It's like mostly requires I'm answering emails. I'm sitting at a computer and writing. I guess I don't want to be sitting, but I'm working on a computer and writing. I'm answering emails or I'm recording conversations with someone where I'm sitting down so that I can be at the microphone. So how can I not die? I guess I will die eventually no matter what, but how can I die later and not in a terrible way? So, I mean, the short answer is you got to move, but the good news is you don't have to be perpetually always constantly moving.

7:14And so what we found in our studies is that probably anywhere from a one minute to a five minute walking break Every half hour to every hour can offset most of the harms of being sedentary. So I think that's the short answer is just Sprinkle in periodic movement throughout your day and that can offset a lot of it One of the things that I found really interesting and powerful in your TED Talk was you talking about how if you do take these very short even walking breaks during your day The benefit is not exclusively physical. People in your studies reported that they felt a lot better, that they felt like they enjoyed their work more, that they were less fatigued, that they had more energy when they came home. Those are not what I would expect as the benefit of taking a short walk every few minutes. No, we never set out to really study that effect. We were more interested in the physical.

8:08glucose, blood sugar, blood pressure, those are the things we measure. We're trying to understand the physiology. That was just something kind of we measured as a secondary just to see. And as we've studied this more and more, we've realized that actually that's the most powerful effect. It's powerful in that we see it so consistently and so strongly, and you can see how much of an impact that could have on somebody. But then you think about, well, if somebody's mood plummets and their fatigue builds over the course of sitting all day at their job, What are the chances when they get out of their job that they're going to go home and go to the gym or get a workout in? When you're already, you're so spent, you're so drained. That's kind of the last thing that a lot of people want to do. So we're creating this vicious cycle. And that's what like really stood out to me was like, how could we ever help change health behavior when you have this thing fighting us every day because we're just sitting in our chairs all the time. It's just creating this situation or opportunity for us to become even more of a couch potato.

9:06what do you actually do to do this kind of study? Like how are you measuring, you said you're talking, looking at glucose levels, you're looking at blood sugar, you're looking at all sorts of other, I'm assuming you're taking blood and spit or how are you actually doing the study? Yeah, the studies are really intense and huge shout out to all our participants who are willing to do this. So they come into our lab and they sit in our lab for nine hours straight. And they come in multiple times. So our first study, they came in five different times for nine hours each time.

9:33Right. So they're giving us a ton of time and they just have to sit there while we poke and prod them. And so what we, we measure their glucose levels in two ways. We give them a CGM. So one of those like wearable glucose monitors we put in their tricep, but we also put an IV in and we were taking their blood periodically throughout the visit as well. Nobody likes to have IV in for nine hours, five separate times. We're taking blood pressure constantly.

9:57We're asking them questions repeatedly. We have them do cognitive tests throughout the test. Like there's a lot that goes into, they're just not sitting there doing nothing. They're answering a ton of questions at the same time. You know, sometimes they try to squeeze in a little work here and there, but when you keep, we keep bothering them every half hour to get up and go get on the treadmill, it's hard to get some stuff done. And. Okay. So that get up and get on the treadmill. This is the second thing that I wanted to ask you about this is what actually is a movement break. Like I get that it's, you're not sitting anymore and you're moving, but.

10:25In your studies and then in what you recommend, what is a movement break? In our studies, it was walking at two miles an hour on a treadmill, which I mean, that's a stroll. That's slower than most people's typical walking pace. I think a lot of people would find it like painfully slow. But that was, we chose walking because it's just, we wanted something that people could do like in the office. Like I didn't want people sprinting up and down stairs or up and down a hallway. Like something that you would do in your office clothes and something that people wouldn't feel like.

10:53uncomfortable about, like sure, could I get you to do squats? But do you want to do squats in front of your coworkers every half hour? Walking just seems so easy. But the concept is it's not about movement. So it could be squats. It could be any type of like body weight exercises that you can think of. It could be planks. It could be push-ups. It could be jumping jacks. It could be just dancing. It's movement. We chose walking because we thought it was an easy, accessible, convenient thing for people. Everybody knows how to walk.

11:22It really doesn't have to be whatever is comfortable for you. The whole idea here is to get some muscle contraction and get some movement in your life. And it seems like the answer was even just a pretty slow walk. That was alone was enough to make a pretty significant impact. Yeah. Two miles an hour reduced blood sugar levels by 60%. Improved blood pressure by four to five points. And I mean those numbers put it in that reduction in blood sugar is similar to what you'd see if you put some on a medication.

11:51for blood sugar levels and that blood pressure reduction that's about the reduction you expect to see if you like you did a regular traditional aerobic exercise program and a person exercise day in and day out for six months that's about the reduction you'd get in blood pressure so you're getting it from forget going to the gym you just like walking slowly every half hour to every hour hmm well I think often especially like in in the podcast world and especially in podcasts that are at all talking about health and wellness there's often this desire for like the secret hack like the one thing your doctor doesn't want you to know you know like if you stand on your head while your feet are in blocks of ice you will live forever and it feels like what you're saying is that it actually isn't um it doesn't have to be this like complicated complex revolutionary thing it can be something that's really straightforward and simple it doesn't necessarily mean that it's easy to implement yeah

12:45Look, I'm an exercise physiologist by training. Like I know a lot of exercise enthusiasts out there probably aren't going to be happy with me saying like, it doesn't have to be that complicated. You don't have to do the guidelines say 150 minutes of exercise a week. Like you should, if you do that, that's great. That's fantastic. But I think what we're talking about here is making movement more accessible for people. The people who can't get to the gym every day or who run don't run marathons that you know what, if you don't do that, That's okay. You can still find some level of a healthier lifestyle just by getting up every half hour to an hour and just moving for a few minutes. It doesn't take much to lower some of your health risks. When my wife was pregnant with our first kid, she developed gestational diabetes and I was not surprised that

13:39they said, okay, gestational diabetes, you have to pay attention to your diet, you have to be really thoughtful about what you eat, you can't eat certain things. That was, I think, annoying for sure for her, but it wasn't a surprise. The thing that I was really surprised by is they said, after you eat, you should make sure that you take a walk. That will play a really big role in managing your blood sugar and protecting you and the baby. And that actually really worked well for my wife in a way that I think we were both surprised by, is that like, a post-meal walk was a really significant factor in whether she spiked her blood sugar or didn't. And it seems like that's something that you really found in your research as well. Your muscles are sponges for blood sugar. After you eat your meal and then you start moving, those muscles, right, to keep them contracting and going, you need glucose as fuel, right? So by moving, those muscles are saying, I need more sugar to keep this up, to keep this going. They're going to start soaking it up.

14:37Right, so the timing of your walks or your movement around meals is really critical, especially if you have somebody who's you're worried about managing the blood sugar levels, might be at risk for or have diabetes. For sure, the timing matters. Okay, I this morning got up and I went for a swim. And it was, I felt great. It was a great way to start my day. I often, when I do something like that, when I like wake up and do something healthy, do my exercise.

15:05I often feel like, well, then I've done it. Am I wrong? Did I do it for today, or do I still need to be getting up and doing stuff every half an hour? You're not wrong. Exercise is one of the most important things that you can do for your health. Keep going, keep doing it. What we're proposing here and what we're talking about in this kind of research I do is, what do you do besides that? Because the time you spend outside of your exercise, because exercises...

15:32What, 30 minutes? How much do you do, an hour? No, definitely not. Maybe 30 minutes, probably more like 20, 25. That's 2% of your day. The other 98% of your day, if you're not moving, that still matters. I'm mostly eating snacks, so that's what I've done with the rest of my day. If we were to compare people who exercise and then sit versus people who exercise and also move throughout the day, those people who are exercises and movers have lower risk for chronic diseases, than the person who just exercises. So that sitting time you have after your exercise still matters, but it's better than nothing, right? Like the worst thing is for you to not exercise and not move throughout the day, right? So that's the goal. We want people to also be exercises and movers. That's the goal. Okay, we are going to keep things moving right along here, but first we are going to take a quick break. I'm Phelan Johnson, the host of See You In Court, and we are back with an all new season.

16:38Our first episode is about a woman named Gwen Jacob, who, on a sweltering day in 1991, did what she had to do to cool down. She took her shirt off. She was cat-called, fined, and arrested. But she refused to back down, sparking a national debate about bearing breasts. Listen to the story of Gwen's topless walk on C U N Court, on CBC Listen, and everywhere you get your podcasts. And we are back. Let's start with my situation where you're working from home. There isn't the like.

17:14office structure that's a barrier. What should I do to actually like put this into place? To actually do it. So what we're getting out here is habit formation. Okay. How do we start building the habit? I mean the easy thing to do and in some of the studies we kind of left it up to people to decide like how do you want to implement it? And the number one thing people chose was they just use their phone and put a timer. Okay. And At first we were like, that seems so simplistic. Why wouldn't you rely, maybe like the wearable devices, like the Apple Watch that buzzes or the Fitbit buzz, bings you and says, it's time to get up and move around. But when we thought about it, that thing is so annoying when like you're in the middle of a work meeting and it bings you to like, you have been sitting for the last hour, you just stand, and you're like, I'm not gonna move right now, I'm in the middle of a work meeting. And so we thought about it and we're like, yeah, because using the phone and just setting a timer, that person has control over when they wanna move.

18:04So they can say like I know in the next half hour I can get up and move so I think that's a good tool for like there's a very simplistic basic but what we learn from our business they seem to like that and then I'm sure with AI coming then tech there'll be Smarter reminders we call them done reminders these dumb reminders that have no sense of context of what you're doing in your day in and day out But the habit formation part that's the harder part is how do we actually help build it and not to have to rely on technology I think about brushing your teeth that is like the epitome of a health behavior that we can get most people to do. And we link it to and tie it to when we do it in the morning and at nighttime. It's like part of your routine. You have cues when I get ready for bed. I know that brushing my teeth is part of it. And so you want to almost tie it to certain cues in your day. So a good example would be anytime you finish a work meeting. That's my cue. I hang up that Zoom call.

19:02I'm getting up and going for a walk before I do anything else. That's what I'm going to do first, before I dig into the next one. Or it's like you're working on something, an email, a project. You finish it, you send it off. Before I start the next thing, I'm getting up and I'm walking. Right? And so it's trying to tie it to certain things in your day. That's where it's going to start to stick. Instead of having to rely on some annoying buzzer to tell you, just tie it to stuff in your day and that's what will help.

19:29build and keep it going. Once you have those cues that you don't have to rely on an external cue, it's kind of just internal clock stuff that comes up every time I do this. Okay. And then what about you are actually a person who works in an office, you know, you have your coworkers, there's kind of a little bit of a social pressure against doing this. And also maybe there's, you know, it's not like your boss is saying, Hey, everyone, remember, we're doing our movement breaks today. So how would you encourage someone in that situation to Yeah, that's a harder one. And I still think we're trying to figure that out because what you said is the social norm and expectations. If your boss is not cool with you doing it, then like, how are you gonna, right? And so I think it starts with, and we see this in a lot of the research of, like it has to start from the top that someone like a manager and supervisor who does it themselves or who's okay with, right, allowing it to happen. It usually has to, you have to change that.

20:25that workplace culture first to make it socially acceptable to do. I work in a place where like, I can move freely, like nobody's being like, get back at your desk. But when I started doing this, I would stand it up in the conference room doing a meeting and like people like look at you weird and like, why are you standing? I mean, I've been working there like what 15 years now. Like they know I'm the guy who's like either stand it, we have a cycle.

20:53a cycle desk in our conference room now. But it took a while to like, there is almost this bravery that you had to have of like, yam bucking the trend of the office norm. If you want to talk about it, I'll tell you why. But like, eventually some people started coming around and doing it too. So like there was the contagion that it started to become acceptable.

21:13If you're going to have challenges, it may have to be you pushing back against social norms and doing some educating of your coworkers of like, hey, here's why I'm doing it. You know, because then there's the perception of like, you're not being productive at work. You shouldn't be at your desk. And it's like, well, no, the science actually says like, I'll be more productive. I'll be more focused when I take a movement break and then I come back. But like, how do you break that? People expect you, if you're not at your desk, you're not working, that's lost productivity. So there's a little bit of that you still have to kind of

21:40push back against. Well, okay, I'm going to my boss. I want to say it's going to make us all more productive. It's also going to make us like work more. What points would you say I should bring up to my supervisor to suggest? I think we should have more walking meetings. I think we should be allowed to, you know, every half an hour we all like walk in a circle around the office or something like that. What would you bring up as your points? Yeah, it's tough because it depends on what is motivating to that supervisor, that manager. Sometimes it's about a healthier employee is going to lower your insurance premiums. If that's what you care about. I like that too, because it's a little bit like a mafia style threat. It's like, I sure would hate for something to happen to your employees. If we don't get up and walk, I sure would hate for something to happen to your wonderful workers. I mean, but that's the point, right? Like sometimes it has to be that of like, what do they care about the bottom line?

22:39But so it is like a healthier workforce is also a happier health workforce. You're going to help retain employees. So there's the health angle of like keeping us healthy will be better for you in the long run. There's the work productivity angle, which I find the most compelling of like actually the research shows that I'm going to be more focused and actually have better executive function, be more creative. And so kind of hit in that work angle of saying that this actually is going to science backs it up. And oh, by the way, I can show you like the talk has some cool brain pictures to show. Like that to me is the most powerful. Like when you see the comparison between the brain after movement versus after singing, you're like, Oh God, this is no brainer. Right. So literally pun intended. Yeah. So I think there's the health angle. There's the work productivity angle, but there's also kind of the social angle too of like, I think having walking meetings and like doing a collective

23:38Like there were this this social kind of expectation and norm that we it's okay for all of us to do that helps kind of build more camaraderie when in the workplace when it's like oh, we're all doing this together and That actually helps people do it more and I think it improves culture Yeah, I mean when I think about when I've had jobs where we were all in the office together often my best memories from those jobs were my co-workers and I going out for a coffee together or walking out to go get lunch at a place altogether. Just the walk to those destinations was often the time where I felt the most connected and bonded. I really think back on that as like, oh, well, that was a great time. We all got to escape the office and the sun was shining and we were outside for a second. Yeah. And that's what we see in our research too, that the people were taken moving breaks one outside, two with other people.

24:32They were more likely to take more of them and they had a better response in terms of like their mood was even better Hmm, right? And so there's power and kind of the socialness and then to your point getting outside So like it's not just taking moon breaks, but how you take them to I think also matters and can make an impact and a difference Okay, I do want to put a caveat here Which is we've been talking about it as like a walking break and obviously there are a lot of people for whom that's not possible, right? Like they are mobility limited, they have pain or other physical limitations. What can they do? Yeah, that's a great question. So there's been studies just like this that we don't have people come sit in their lab for eight hours straight and then we get them on the treadmill. They do the same thing, but instead of putting people in the treadmill, they do arm cranks. And so it's arm cycling and you see the same effects. Okay. So for those who have physical limitations or some disability,

25:25It's about movement. Again, that's the point. Whatever movement that has helped for you, dance in your chair, if you have some access to an arm cycle, do that. There's other types of arm exercises. There's arm curls and stuff like that. Or even if it's just wheeling in your wheelchair, all of that counts. Something that I do personally is if I'm about to go on stage and give a talk, if I'm about to perform, if I'm...

25:54about to do an interview, I often find that I kind of am a little nervous and so like my shoulders are tensed and all that and so one thing that I often will do is like just shake my arms out, shake my legs out and go like you know like literally do that and I find that it loosens me up physically but I also find that it really often gets me more loose in terms of like the performance that I'm about to do. It makes me present in the moment and kind of gets me out of my head a little bit. Is that something that is tied to your research? Do you feel like that is related or is that a whole other thing? I think what you're getting at is and we talked a little bit about in the talk of how your muscles communicate to your brain, right? And so they release these chemicals that travel to your brain and these chemicals can help kind of facilitate release of feel-good hormones, right?

26:46Endorphins, right? And so I think there's definitely something to like exercise or just movement in general Can help manage things like anxiety and depression it can't cure them But it certainly if you're you're feeling anxious before talk or Whatever you got coming up that movement can help kind of release some of that energy and also release some of the the hormones that actually make you feel a little bit better What changes could we make to?

27:13improve movement in our own homes outside of work and school hours. That's a good question. I guess I haven't thought about it too much in terms of the home. My mind goes to more like my child, they go to school a half mile down the block. The majority of parents in my neighborhood drive their kids to school. And it's super fast, super convenient. When I'm running late, I gotta do it. But there's no reason why I can't go walk that half mile with...

27:43my child and get a little movement in for myself and for them. Or it could be like, my daughter wants to go to the library. Well, we could drive the car there, but it's about a mile for me. We just ride our bikes there, right? So part of it for me when I think about home life, that's what I think about. It's more about finding ways to incorporate more movement into your everyday lives and that I think often means stop leaning less on the car if there's places where you can get to without having to lean on the car, do it.

28:11In the home, I mean, I don't think it takes much. It's more just about being thoughtful about, like, you don't need any special fancy equipment. You're like, just get up and walk around. Like, just, you know, it's weird. I have weights in my living room. Okay. I do wonder, like, an exercise physiologist, your house must be, like, a healthy house. So, I'll be sitting there, like, I'll be watching TV with the kids, and I'll be like, I could just be sitting here, like, watching TV, or, like, I might as well do some bicep curls while I'm here, like. That's so funny. But, you know what I'm saying? Like, just...

28:40just have things around that you could get some movement if you wanted to, right? Like, you know, you don't have a risk to this man, hit it for a little bit and go on my day. And yeah, I don't think it really takes much, just... I'm Phalen Johnson, the host of See You in Court, and we are back with an all-new season. Our first episode is about a woman named Gwen Jacob, who, on a sweltering day in 1991, did what she had to do to cool down. She took her shirt off. She was cat-called, fined and arrested, but she refused to back down.

29:12Sparking a national debate about bearing breasts listen to the story of Gwen's topless walk on see you in court on cbc listen and everywhere you get your podcasts Move around whenever you can don't use any special equipment. Yeah, it's funny because like my parallels I'm like lying on the couch and I'm like I could be eating cheese right now I Could be eating a slice of cheese while I'm doing this and yours is like I could be lifting weights right now So I salute you that's really impressive. I do feel like the barrier is you have to make change. The problem isn't that it's not clear, the problem isn't that it's so hard, the problem is just there's this inertia on the side of not moving. It's like a literal inertia and also the social inertia. You have a kid, your kid goes to school, you know this. You're the person who's publishing the research that is proving this, and you have a kid who's in school. What do you say to the teachers, to the administrators,

30:15How do you make the changes in your kid's school? Like what have you actually done to try and change things for your own kid? My son in particular is a unique case. He has an IEP because he has a disability. Okay. So we built like we can build it because it's an individualized education plan. So I can build it in and say he needs movement breaks because it helps him regulate. So like that like that's easy for me to do not say easy but like they allow it because He needs it and I can we can demonstrate that he benefits from having me right? So it's kind of easy to build in my daughter on the other hand Like that's not happening. Hmm. She she's neurotypical So there she has no IP that would necessitate necessitate a movement break So I haven't even gone there because I don't think a teacher would like their immediate reaction will like how do I? How do I implement that because other kids are gonna want to do it if I let her do it? There's just so much

31:11it's so much already built into our worlds that it's impossible to fight. Like the minute that my kids turned five and entered into kindergarten, it was immediately like sitting your chair. And if you get out of your chair, you're getting in trouble, right? Like we teach them from the minute they're old enough to go to school that the default position is sitting. And then it...

31:36follows out throughout the rest of our childhood into adulthood. And so like to the people listening of like, we ultimately need champions, you're going to have to champion this in your spaces in your world if you want to make a difference because right now nobody wants to make that change. It's okay to feel guilty about it because our world was designed to.

31:54Help you sit it wasn't designed to do what I'm asking you to do so if you feel like it's impossible It is right now like we're gonna have to we need some real like environmental level changes of like our physical environments But then also changing of our social norms and that's where we've seen it's people who've reached out to us We've had like teachers a few times had some companies reach out like can you give us resources? We're gonna do this in our workplace and that's where you start to see the change Right? But it is people who take it and say like, I don't want to live like this and I don't want my kids, my students, my employees either. I want to do something about it. So it is, it's kind of like a, may have to just be a grassroots thing. And that also leads me to kind of thinking about, we've called them like somatic check-ins, but like, and going back to my earlier point that

32:48we tend to ignore those kind of those signals in our body that are telling us like, I actually, I'm feeling like stiff or I'm feeling kind of drained. We've learned to ignore them over the years because since we were five, we were told to sit in their chairs and don't get out of it. And so it's coming back to like being mindful of our bodies and sensitive to like what it's telling you instead of like ignoring it and just like pressing through it.

33:19coming back to just like, how am I feeling right now? Do I feel like, let me do a scan of how am I feeling, how intense my, how my muscles feeling? All right, I'm gonna go take a quick walk, right? And coming back to being mindful of your body and what it needs in terms of movement, I think is another way to think about it too, but when you start talking about kind of that stuff, that's where my mind went. Yeah, we got to check back into our full selves again. So with all the things that we've been talking about, Keith, are there success stories that you've seen, like is there a government or a large organization that has made some of these changes that you feel like is kind of leading the way? Is there a success story you can point us to? Or maybe even just something that's inspiring you that feels like people are moving in the right direction. The Olympic committee in Ireland had reached out to me at one point. This was around the summer Olympics a couple years ago. They were creating videos for

34:13for kids to take movement breaks. And they had the Olympians from Ireland. They filmed them doing like there was one there was a boxer who like it was a five minute like boxing thing that they would have their kids follow along with or they had breakdancing was new. So they had a break dancer do some like dance moves. And so then they sent it to every school in Ireland and gave it like it was a resource for teachers to like your movement breaks don't have to be like get out of the classroom and do it in hallways because that could be logistically challenging.

34:43Like, here's a video. When you need to take a movement break with your kids, pull up one of these cool Olympic athletes that all of the kids in the country look up to. And by the way, they're fun. Like, I'm doing boxing. I'm doing break dancing. Like, and they got kids to follow along. And that was really inspiring to me because like, I think they solved the problem in terms of like, we're giving the schools a resource that they all can use and it's free.

35:08Because schools are all super unfunded. There's never money to go around. You don't have to change the school environment. You have to buy fancy desks or chairs or anything like that. Here's just a video play. And then you got buy-in from the top athletes in your country who the kids are like, whoa, that's so cool. I think they tapped into something that was appealing to the target audience, too. That comes to mind as a cool example, I think of.

35:35Whenever we talk about this kind of stuff with people, I always end up getting like hearing from like truck drivers and bus drivers and cab drivers who are like, what am I supposed to do? Yeah, what are they supposed to do? My answer always to them is like, whenever you do actually get like time off, maybe for lunch break or after you're done with your shift, like just make sure you get some kind of movement in because like, even if you did just some exercise, like that's...

36:02You're doing better than not doing anything. Just find ways to move is kind of my answer because it's not going to change for them unless there's policy change. They're going to need to have mandated that they need to have breaks to take a movement because they're not allowed to right now. Their employers are like, no, you got to keep driving. And so we need kind of policy level change. If we can allow people to take smoke breaks, can we allow people to take movement breaks at work? So I think building some of that stuff in policy level wise, Needs to happen otherwise like employers and like for bus drivers cab drivers. I don't know how much they're gonna care Does the research show that if you have a day where you don't do this? You're you know, it's you're either you have a day where you are traveling Say or you are in non-stop meetings or it's just a very stressful day So you couldn't to do your movement race. Can you make up the next day by doing more?

36:55Do you catch up at all or is it it's better than not doing anything for two days, but it's still just as bad as having missed a day completely? I don't know if the science is there yet to know a definitive answer. What I would say is I think it's important to look at movement like you would a medication, right? We take a medication daily for like you need it, right? See movement in that same way that you need that dose as regularly as possible. If you miss one dose, it's not the end of the world.

37:24Just pick up back up again next time. I mean we could say double the dose next time but I mean that seems it's hard enough getting people to do the single dose so like Yeah, it also does feel like a metaphor that is sticking with me that I wouldn't have thought of before is the brushing your teeth Yeah, or flossing right like if I don't floss or brush my teeth one day I can do it the next and my teeth will be dirty It's definitely better that I brushed my teeth the next day too, but I probably can't like double brush. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it Actually, yeah totally that Don't feel like you need to like make up for you just missed it. Maybe you feel gross I know I feel gross when I miss out a workout and just gotta pick it up again next time. Okay for people out there who are Science-minded whether they're curious or they're you know, this is something they're trained in What's actually happening in our bodies like what is the you talked about some of the levels that go down? But what is the the mechanism by which these positive outcomes are occurring?

38:23Yeah, so a lot of it comes down to our muscles So our muscles are actually really important regulators of a lot of parts of our physical health So they're really important. We talked about in the talk managing blood sugar levels, right? They're also really important for managing triglycerides. That's fat in your bloodstream, right? And so when we don't use our muscles We're not soaking up the blood sugar and we're not breaking down the fats in our bloodstream in order for them to muscles to do the job that they do well, you have to activate them regularly. And so that's what's happening is that when you're activating your muscles regularly, that stimulates the enzymes to break up the fats in your blood. It stimulates all these receptors in your muscles to then start taking in the blood sugar levels. So it's muscle action. That's what's happening at the

39:16physiological that would just start digging it down more and we can even go into the cellular level. But ultimately it comes down to muscle contraction is the catalyst for a lot of key physiological mechanisms. A lot of people are very attached to their steps as a metric, right? Like people really love, I hit my steps for the day.

39:40What metric do you think people should be paying attention to? Is it steps? Is it percentage of each hour sitting? Is it amount of miles walked a day? Like is it percentage of the time that I was awake that I was moving? Like what what's the metric that you would think of as people? Yeah, I like steps because it's so simple so easy everything tracks it These days even you're like your phone you can track it without even having to get a watch you know, for what I do and what I'm interested in, it's about making sure people get regular movement throughout the day, which steps alone doesn't get at. And so I do like, like Apple Watch has the like, did you move every hour? And so I like kind of those metrics more because it's about making sure we're spreading out, getting your muscles, what they need regularly. That's the metric that I like is the, did I move every hour kind of metric? I think that's what I would hone in. And if people ask me what I would pick, W to one.

40:36some of us have jobs where I mean a lot of people have jobs where we are on our feet we are working. Does that mean that they're already covered? They're in better shape than the office worker for sure. Where I'd be worried is the largest meal for people is usually dinner and so you think about what happens we eat dinner and then I think For most people, it's kind of like, all right, I'm going to go collapse on the couch or in the bed and I'm not going to move until it's time for bed, right? And so you're coupling this like huge meal with sedentary time and just lack of movement. And I think that's a pretty harmful combo. So for those people who have like active jobs, I would just say just be mindful of like, get a break or two in. Like I'm not saying like you need to move all day when you get home. Like just get some walking and after dinner before you then go just kind of.

41:34Do the couch potato thing like there's nothing wrong with that. We all need relaxation and especially someone who's working a kind of a labor intensive job I think you need it, but maybe just be mindful of that. I still would love to make sure they're still exercising That's still an important thing like if there were one thing like good you're on your feet all day Just make sure you get some exercise at the end of the day and you're pretty good shape. Okay, so you and I have been talking for Quite a while now more than 30 minutes and neither of us have gotten up. Yeah When we are done with this interview, what are you gonna do?

42:04What should I do? But really, what are you going to do? Well, I'm going to go walk. OK, you really are going to walk? I've got to walk back to the hotel. But how long are you going to take the long route to the hotel? Are you just going to walk straight to the hotel? There are three sets of stairs that I'm going to have to go down. I'm going to walk down every single one of them. And I'm going to walk back to my hotel. And if I could take the stairs back up, I can't. The stairs in the hotel only go outside. You can't access them from the inside.

42:33I'll have to take the elevator up. But from here to- But you also know that because you tried. So I have taken 16 flights down every time I've left my room. I'm the only person ever in that stairway. And I can guarantee you having been waiting for that elevator on occasion, I'm beating people who are waiting for the elevator. So you're not being more time efficient, right? I'm walking here back to the hotel and that'll probably be about a 10 minute walk and that'll be enough of what I need.

43:02I'm just going to walk, and instead of taking the escalator or the elevator, I'm going to take some stairs, and that's going to be all that my body needs to reset. Keith Diaz, it was such a pleasure talking to you. I'm excited for you to now walk down three flights of stairs and up 17 flights of stairs, if it's at all possible. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks, Chris. That is it for today's episode of How to Be a Better Human. Thank you so much to our guest, Keith Diaz. You can watch his TED Talk, What Sitting All Day Does to Your Brain and Body, online at ted.com.

43:30Before I read the rest of the credits, we are doing a survey now to determine the future of the show. What are we going to cover next season? What can we change? What should we definitely keep? We would love your feedback. It would make a huge, huge, huge difference. So if you could fill out that survey, it will take just two minutes. It is in the show description or the show notes, wherever you're listening or watching this. You can click that. There's a link that will take you right there. Or you can go to bit.ly.

43:53BH Survey Six, that's b-i-t dot l-y slash BH Survey Six. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We would really appreciate your feedback. I am your host Chris Duffy, and I have a book that's called Humour Me. You can find more about my book and all my projects at ChrisDuffyComedy.com. This episode was brought to you by an extremely fit squad of pro-level athletes. On the Ted side, we've got a peloton pedaling up a steep mountain incline. And in the front, it's Daniela Valerezzo, Ben Ben Chang, Michelle Quint, Chloe Shasha Brooks, Valentina Bohanini, Laini Lott, Tonsa Kasunmanivong, Antonia Lay, and Joseph de Bruyne. Ryan Lash put together this video while balancing on one hand, and Mateus Salas ran a marathon while checking all our facts.

44:29On the PRX side, they're Olympic-level athletes, one and all. It's Morgan Flannery, Norgill, Patrick Grant, and Jocelyn Gonzalez, and they just got into the lead. Thanks to you for listening. Please send this to a friend, take a walk and listen to it and talk about it together. Go for a stroll, go for a swim, do something with a friend while you talk about or listen to this episode. We will be back next week with even more How to Be a Better Human. Until then, take care and thanks for listening.

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