Motivation to Take That Walk Break with Manoush Zomorodi EP 458

00:00:09
Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker.

00:00:15
Speaker 2: And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer, and course creator. We are two working parents who love our careers and our families.

00:00:24
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun. From figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This episode is airing in mid May of twenty twenty six. Sarah is going to be interviewing Manush Zomorodi, who is the author of the brand new book The Body Electric, which is all about digital life and health, and we are so excited to have her back on the show she has been on in the past, also talking about our digital life. She has a previous book, Board and Brilliant that I know we both enjoyed, so we're really looking forward to that interview. Sarah, what maybe could tell us a little bit about her ideas with this new book.

00:01:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'm super excited because I'm a Newish super fan, so longtime listeners will know. I mean I listened to tons of her podcasts, and I love her reporting style on her way of weaving personal vignettes in with real facts and science. And that's exactly what she does in The Body Electric where she goes through many aspects of our lives that have been impacted by the time we now spend on screens. And as someone who is kind of in that health field and who spends plenty of time on screens, I kind of had a like I gleaned a lot of what she said, but I never knew the actual science behind it, and she really doves into it very nicely, as well as shares the results of a very significant, big study that they did where they had people basically get up for five minutes every half hour to two hours, and the changes that happened with people's health so super interesting. Kind of rounds you a Laura stuff in a way, because it's like it's one thing to make a bunch of hypotheses and kind of stand up on a soapbox and wave your hand and talk about how phones are bad, but it's another thing to look at actual time logs and do surveys and like interact with actual humans and find out what works.

00:02:17
Speaker 3: And she does go that.

00:02:19
Speaker 2: Extra mile and that deeper layer, which I love. So this will be a really fun episode. And I guess I'm curious, Laura, because we're going to be talking about movement and activity. Do you currently track your steps? So?

00:02:32
Speaker 1: I do, not that I actively chose to do it, but because my phone tracks it automatically in the health app. Maybe there's some people who've never looked at this, but if you click on the little heart in the iPhone home screen, it will tell you how many steps you've taken while the phone has been on you in the day. And as many of us, I pretty much always have it in my pocket, so it is not an inaccurate view of how many steps I take. It's not one hundred percent accurate because I don't always keep it with me, but it's probably getting at least eighty percent of what I'm doing. So yeah, I mean through that I can see how many steps I take. I did a little over eleven thousand and twenty twenty five per day. We're down under ten thousand this year, but I think that's because it's winter it's been cold, and not when we're doing this now it's in May, but you know, coming into now it has been lower, but I think it will go up over the summer.

00:03:24
Speaker 2: Fun fact, I used to average like twenty thousand steps, like all of twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four.

00:03:29
Speaker 1: Oh well that's the running. That was the running.

00:03:31
Speaker 2: If you're running like fifty miles a week, Now I'm like eight thousand steps, So like, wow, what down ship?

00:03:37
Speaker 1: What change?

00:03:37
Speaker 2: Although I think it's a huge difference, I actually think there's probably less difference between like twenty thousand and eight eight thousand than there is in like eight thousand and zero or something like that.

00:03:45
Speaker 1: So that's true. I'm sure that the first eight thousand steps is actually huge, and if you are getting very few steps, challenging yourself to get something like five thousand a day is probably a really good thing to do. And whereas if you're getting nine thousand, getting to ten thousand, that is nice but probably not that critical.

00:04:02
Speaker 2: And you don't do anything specific to like try to get a specific number. Correct.

00:04:07
Speaker 1: I try not to. There have been some moments in my life where I've been a bit more focused on, say streaks of how many days have I gotten over ten thousand and then I will admit that I have gotten up and walked around my bedroom at night, But I don't really like that behavior, so I try not to let it influence me that much.

00:04:24
Speaker 3: That's so funny.

00:04:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never been tempted, like I like to look at the data. I even like write it down, actually, but I don't actually like it's more of like an overview than a I need to hit some specific milestone on it. I want to look at trends, not at individual days, if that makes sense.

00:04:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now are your steps now? Are they mostly because you're walking back and forth like between patients, or is it that you're specifically trying to do a walk both.

00:04:47
Speaker 2: No, I usually take a walk almost every day, like twenty to thirty minutes worth. If I'm a clinical day, I do it during lunchtime.

00:04:53
Speaker 3: If I'm home, I do it like I feel like I need to get out.

00:04:55
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's like the stuff that my news talks about, like you just feel toxic afters out of time, and I'm like, I feel so much better. And live in a place with generally good weather. It can get dicey in the summer, but we do have a treadmill for backup. So I do take a twenty to thirty minute.

00:05:10
Speaker 3: Walk most days.

00:05:12
Speaker 2: I get tons of steps when I'm on call because I wouldn't even have to take a walk, and I get over ten thousand because like we have patients in different buildings and different floors, and you have to walk back from the office of the hospital, and like I've looked at my watch before and like every time I make a round from the office to the hospital, that's at least two thousand right there. And if you do that three times and then just go about your business, like, you've gotten a lot of steps in.

00:05:31
Speaker 3: So that's kind of cool.

00:05:32
Speaker 2: It can be fun to notice activity that you're doing and like get credit for it.

00:05:37
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but you haven't thought you needed like a treadmill desk or anything, like your work for one day.

00:05:42
Speaker 2: Does have one, and she just put it in. I'm like, okay, that's kind of cool. But then the funny thing is, I'm like, hmm, I went out to walk and I was like, do you want to come?

00:05:49
Speaker 1: She's like, no, because I have my treadmill desk. Why would I need to go for a walk. I've solved that problem, But now she may go with me in the future. We'll see. Yeah, well, I gotta say an outdoor walk if that sounds much more appealing to me than walking at like two miles per hour while being on the phone.

00:06:06
Speaker 3: Or something typing. I feel like I might get a little typing.

00:06:08
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, No, I would have to like rework my workflow to be like moving well type.

00:06:13
Speaker 2: I don't know.

00:06:13
Speaker 1: I'm sure I could do it. Maybe I could dictate or something. I don't know. Yeah, no, I might work from home days. I do try to get myself up. I mean, because so my step kind it's counting my runs, of course, which aren't that long. I'm certainly wasn't doing any of those twenty thousand step days. But and then I will try to take like a five pm walk or something if it's been a day where I've really been sitting a lot, and just try to get a little bit of activity, or walk down to the mailbox or walk down to the end of the street or something.

00:06:40
Speaker 2: Because you do feel better. I'm Minusha's book, I do feel better.

00:06:43
Speaker 1: You can explore, yeah, all of.

00:06:44
Speaker 2: The various ways in which you feel better and how you might build these little walk breaks into your day.

00:06:49
Speaker 3: If you don't already.

00:06:50
Speaker 1: Absolutely, well, I'm really excited to hear what Manuche has to say. She's my book birthday twin, so yeah, we were excited to see our books coming out together. But let's hear what she has to say.

00:07:00
Speaker 3: Well, I am so.

00:07:01
Speaker 2: Excited to welcome Manouche Sammarodi to the podcast for the second time. Longtime listeners might remember that I interviewed her in twenty eighteen.

00:07:11
Speaker 3: So what was that that long ago?

00:07:14
Speaker 4: Was it that long ago?

00:07:15
Speaker 1: It was?

00:07:16
Speaker 3: I had to look it up.

00:07:17
Speaker 2: I know, like my eight year old was one or maybe even a few months old. We've recorded that episode time wise, Manuche, I know it's true. Back then, Yeah, you were focused on the impact of our devices on our brains and what it did to us to no longer be bored, and your work in that sector was I felt very powerful and also very prescient, Like there's just there wasn't the anxious generation yet, Like you were one of the first voices I heard you loud and clear. So can you share what you've been doing since then and maybe how that has kind of morphed into your current area of interest?

00:07:53
Speaker 1: Yes?

00:07:54
Speaker 4: Okay, so Sarah, I can't stop thinking about the tech influence on our brains and our bodies. That's become my new thing. So over the last I would say, like four years, we talk about so much the mental health effect of our tech use and the impact it has on how we feel. But I started becoming obsessed with the question of what was it actually doing to our bodies, Like how was our tech use affecting our physical health? And I couldn't really find very much about it. And I will say like this became extremely urgent to me during the pandemic because I could not understand why, like I was safe, I was healthy. I was sitting all day doing work and all the things on all the screens, and I was so tired, and I just was like, what is the problem. I've barely moved. Why do I not want to spring up from my chair and like go for a run or something. Why do I feel like I can I just have enough energy to like crawl over to the couch. And it was frustrating to me, and I you know, oh, well, there's a lot going on in the world, yes, all of those things, but I wanted to know, like biologically, what was going on in my body that felt like it was wearing me down. So I embarked on this sort of journey. I was like, Okay, I'm going to try and understand this. And in twenty twenty three I ended up reading or hearing about the work of a physiologist named Keith Diaz at Columbia University. Okay, so, Keith's whole jam in life is to try to understand what is the minimum amount of movement that the human body needs, so like our screen felled, the seated lives don't essentially put us into an early grave kind of dire.

00:09:45
Speaker 1: And he had.

00:09:46
Speaker 4: Found in his lab actually that a sort of rubric like an algorithm, like essentially five minutes of gentle movement for every half hour during prolonged sitting sedentary periods resolved some of the biggest harms blood pressure, blood sugar, the ability to focus, anxiety. It sort of had these outsize effects in the lab, and I was like, that's it. You just got to get up and move for five minutes every half hour. And then I was like, oh, get up and move for five minutes every half hour.

00:10:23
Speaker 3: Could I do that?

00:10:24
Speaker 4: I mean, it's not hard physically to do, but like, would I do that? So I called Keith, and I was like, what do you think, Like, do you think people can do this? He's like, I'm not really sure to be honest, like this is the problem. Like I'm a researcher, I work in the lab, but I don't actually have like real world ways of testing these sort of solutions. So I was like, well, I do so my host podcasts for NPR. So I reached out to listeners and we ended up having over twenty thousand people sign up for a global clinical trial. Nerding out here Sarah because as a journalist that was really exciting for me to do, like proper real medical science, and we had them sign up to try taking movement breaks either every half hour, every hour, or every two hours, because part of this was like feasibility could people fit this into their lives as well as what were the effects that they saw? And it was really interesting. I mean we had people like teachers and nurses, but also like accountants and college students and uber drivers and like the gamut and they stuck with it. Of the people who committed to do the full two weeks, eighty percent of them stuck with it, and they saw extraordinary change twenty five percent on average less fatigue. They reported being able to focus more, their mood was improved, they had more energy, they got more work done. I would say better work done in less time, because what we measured was that productivity actually was not affected despite taking all these breaks and interruptions. It did not make a difference because the quality of the work improved. So people would come back to their desk and their brain was fully functioning and they were ready to go. And I'm sure as a physician you're like, mm hmm, yep, knew it, but I didn't know why. So that was also part of the project, is explaining to them what exactly what was going on in their bodies.

00:12:32
Speaker 2: No, that's so fascinating, and I wouldn't give myself so much credit to know that five minutes every half hour would make the difference. I've just definitely been witnessed to seeing that overall in general, like the way that our society is built right now in the twenty twenties in no way supports health, like to the point where you know, at this point when someone comes in with chief complaint of obesi, like that used to be hmm, what could be hormonally wrong? Now it's like only one percent of you have something hormonally wrong. Maybe less ninety nine point nine percent of you have the society is wrong because we're in this incredibly like obisogenic I guess environment. And that's so fascinating to hear that, like such a small dose. I want to delve more into like some of the specifics. And I love how rigorous this was done. And I read your book and I appreciated how, like.

00:13:22
Speaker 3: Thank you, there was a scientist's voice.

00:13:24
Speaker 2: I mean, it didn't read as a sciencey book because you always come off as so conversational. I'm like, thanks like a peer, but like you could tell there was rigor behind it with Keith Diaz's work. So how were some of these like outcomes where they mostly I mean I would imagine, yeah, it had to be mostly self reports.

00:13:41
Speaker 4: Yes, So let me clarify the difference between the lab study versus the one we did. And I have to say I took part in the lab study, which was super fun. I don't know if you remember that part. So I like went up to Columbia and I well, first I had to wear a glucose monitor for a week. They wanted to track my baseline. How did I respond to like meals usually. And then I spent two days in his lab. So one day, like my usual, sit on my butt and work on my laptop for eight hours straight. I got a short lunch break and some bathroom breaks.

00:14:14
Speaker 3: That was kind of it.

00:14:15
Speaker 4: And I will say I was exhausted at the end of the day. But the whole time they were measuring my heart rate, they were measuring my blood pressure, they were measuring my glucose, and I was doing self surveys every half hour, like can you concentrate, are you tired? How does it feel to do this? So that was one day, and then the time I came back, I had to bring the exact same lunch so that it was like made sense scientifically. And then they did the same and they measured all the same things, except every half hour one of Keith's assistants would like tap me on the shoulder and point to the treadmill, and I would go over to the treadmill and they would put me walking for two miles an hour. So that's like I wasn't doing burpies, not running sprints. I was strolling. And the difference was my blood sugar was cut in half. The second day my blood pressure was down by five points. My focus was so much better. I didn't it was a weird thing.

00:15:17
Speaker 3: I looked at.

00:15:17
Speaker 4: I was like, did I get as much done? And I realized, like, what I'd gotten done, the quality was so much better that I didn't have to revisit it to revise it the next day, So.

00:15:29
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean?

00:15:29
Speaker 4: So it was like more efficient and like I would get on the treadmill, and at first I was annoyed, and then I would start to be like, Okay, when I get back to my desk, I'm going to write that email, but I really need to make sure that I mentioned these things in that email.

00:15:44
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean?

00:15:44
Speaker 4: I would like practice, And then I would get there and I would write an email that we didn't have to go back and forth because I had thought about it and I actually spent the time to write it. Whereas when you were like, oh, that person didn't read to the end of my email, they did not actually answer the question, you know what I mean?

00:16:00
Speaker 1: I was just I.

00:16:01
Speaker 2: Got our run a little bit sharper. It was sharper exactly exactly. So then we're gonna I was gonna say, I want to take a quick break. So I want to talk about the content of what those breaks look like, but I also want to hear what you have to say, So when we get back, we are going to hear that. All right, we are back, and Manush was talking about how she got to be a guinea pig in the study and went to the lab and had all these biological parameters measured either sitting down sedentary for eight hours straight or taking five minute breaks every half hour, and I just interrupted her, and she was about to share things really interesting about it. And I also want to hear about what those breaks like, what you did while you were on the treadmill.

00:16:52
Speaker 4: Yes, okay, I get very excited, Sarah. So I I wanted to draw the distinction, as you pointed out before the break, between what we did in the lab and how the results were measured versus we had twenty thousand people all over the globe sign up to take breaks, so obviously we couldn't measure twenty thousand people's glucose heart rate all the rest of it. So this was primarily self survey, which will not come as a surprise to you. It was majority about I can't remember if it was like seventy or eighty percent women, and Keith the researcher, said, of course, because women are the ones who are most willing to dedicate their time and be open to self improvement, which is I thought was really funny actually, So they would fill out surveys. Some of them were got surveys really regularly. Other people, like we tried to break it. They wanted a cross section of how people responded. I am not the keeper of the data, but it was fascinating. And then other people would fill it out at night at the end of the day. And so what Keith was able to do with all that data was quantify the effects that people saw in terms of mood, fatigue, and focus. But then when the project was over, so we made a podcast about all this. But then I was like, we have twenty thousand people who didn't just give us like surveys with numbers. They wrote diary entries that nobody had really gone through. So I spent the next couple of years just trying to dig through all the stories from people, all the things that people said worked for them in terms of integrating these movement breaks into their lives and trying to piece together like what was it that made it work for some people and not so much for others. And so that's really the basis of the book is like, we did this thing. It was cool, but how do you actually make it work? Whether you are a younger person a student, whether you are an information worker who is on a million screens and trying to juggle all these pings and all the rest of it, or you're an older adult who's thinking more about longevity. Because those three cohorts were very different. And then I also go into sort of in the middle of the book, the effects on particular senses, like what is happening to our eyesight, our hearing, posture, breath rest because of our digital habits.

00:19:24
Speaker 2: Ooh, and there's so much there I want to dig into. So first of all, I guess, did the findings surprise you? And what were in reality? I mean, I kind of know if I'm reading, But tell our listeners some of the ways that people made it work when one might think it would be difficult, And like, give you a couple of scenarios. So you mentioned a teacher, Yeah, let's also mention somebody who's in zoom meetings that often last like an hour in an executive position where they have to figure out how to navigate that. And let's even think about like a worker in I don't know, a more structure job where they're just sort of stuck somewhere I can't pick off the co I don't know a radiologist or something.

00:20:02
Speaker 4: Yeah, so many people, Okay, So it won't come as any surprise that the people who succeeded were often the ones who had choice. Right, So, if you were the professor running the three hour workshop, you could build in breaks every forty five minutes, and I had a lot of students be like, I have professors who build in breaks already, not as often, but when they do, I know how much better I feel versus powering through for three hours where they feel like crap. So professors started to integrate this. Students started to use the time between their classes not just to like check their phone or anything, but to take a walk around the quad, right, just to prep their brain, get their oxygenation, their blood flow moving, because it really does make a difference. So that was sort of students and also like in the evenings for them, which was actually very similar to retired people, but some people were actually more active during the day, but then starting around like five o'clock, it was sit on the couch and for some people it was streaming for six hours. For other people it was doing homework for six hours. But it was that sort of long periods in the evening that they needed to break up with time and people, it's not going to come as a surprise to you that at first they needed to set their timers. They needed a reminder that it was time to get up, and we were like, if you need to skip it, like, we didn't want to be like, I didn't want people to turn into like robots doing laps around their dining room.

00:21:38
Speaker 1: You know.

00:21:39
Speaker 4: It was more like, start to develop the habit, set the timer. If you're in flow, flow by all means, flow's beautiful thing. If you're in the midst of writing something, go for it. But if you're starting to like notice the signals that your body is sending you that foggy brain. For me, it's a back ache, it's also the shoulder thing trying to work on right then listen, And so what we also heard from people was that by the end of the two weeks, they didn't need the timers as much anymore. They didn't need the reminders because they had started to learn to listen to the signals to pick them up, and actually their body would start to tell them like, dude, you gotta get up. I can't do this anymore. You got to get up. So that was really interesting. When it came to people in offices, again, it was the people in power, right, like the people the bosses, who would they were able to say, I'm trying this thing, You're welcome to try with me, and a lot of people were super psyched about that. Or like one boss said, whenever we have a meeting, you are welcome to stand up in place and shuffle side to side or march in place, or we can take walking meetings, but if we're with clients, let's not do it. So there started to be like sort of norms in a lot of offices, and then other people who maybe didn't have as much control, they just.

00:23:03
Speaker 3: Started to schedule.

00:23:05
Speaker 4: Twenty five minute meetings instead of thirty minute meetings, or fifty five minute meetings instead of sixty, and or they would suggest cameras off because there's a lot of good data that you actually don't need to see everyone on zoom all the time, and so they would walk and listen to zooms that they were trying that they were doing, so just sort of little tiny hacks that they had or just I mean, they call it friction maxing right now, like walking across the office if they weren't an office to go see someone and asking them to take a lap around the cafeteria or something while they chatted. So just sort of adding back this sort of I mean, I think it's embodiment, right, It's like using our bodies again in our lives, which sounds so silly, but it's.

00:23:50
Speaker 3: Kind of so true.

00:23:52
Speaker 2: And I really enjoy that we got to work the term maxing into our discussion. I think that's a best of both worlds. First but better late than never.

00:24:01
Speaker 1: It finally fits.

00:24:03
Speaker 2: No, that's beautiful, and I love the non absolute nature of that, because I do feel like the first thing that's going to turn most people off is like, oh, I couldn't do it once, so this is stupid, Like no, no, we're.

00:24:13
Speaker 3: Giving a big bluepole. You do it when it works, and then you're probably likely that I.

00:24:17
Speaker 4: Mean honestly, Yeah, And Keith, he has tested different doses. Even moving for one minute an hour makes a difference for your blood pressure, so like any movement is better than none.

00:24:30
Speaker 3: That is awesome.

00:24:31
Speaker 2: Are there any effects that you found that were like very surprising, Like maybe the physical ones were less of a shock, but like the mental ones were different.

00:24:41
Speaker 4: Well for me, again, you know, I took high school biology, but that was pretty much the extent of it. But understanding what was happening in our bodies, I can't unsee it. So Keith said to me this image. I'm sorry in advance that it will never leave you. But he's like, well, you have to think of when you're sitting all that time, that there's like a garden hose where you kink a garden hose and you'd like pressure starts to build up. You have to think of your legs and your torso as like kinked garden hoses. And actually the pressure that builds up, well, first of all, it's not great for the inner lining, the blood cells that do the job of bringing in oxygenation and pushing it up to the heart. And then also he explained that when our leg muscles are stimulated, they're actually kind of like sponges. They like suck up the glucose, which I was like, oh my god, I had no idea. I was like sitting here and thinking, oh, my back hurts, but actually I was kinking my garden hose and no, wonder you get that tired, foggy lethargic, can't concentrate feeling, your brain does not have enough oxygen and when that happens, CO two builds up, so you literally are kind of expixiating yourself. So that's fun. Then the other thing that I learned, also again had not occurred to me, that sitting like this, you can't actually totally fill your diaphragm, so you're not getting enough oxygen into your lungs. And there have been some sort of more anecdotal studies, but that people tend to hold their breath when they're on a screen. And I've noticed one. I'm like, what are they saying in the email? Yeah, exactly exactly. Linda Stone got creator of that term. And then the other one that really surprised me. And this is a new term. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but interroception this new sort of field of study, which is fascinating. Is that something that you've come across.

00:26:44
Speaker 2: Not until your bookieve you mentioned it in the book, but that is not something I had heard of before.

00:26:50
Speaker 4: Really interesting, I also had not heard of it, which is this idea the interroception is listening, whether consciously or subconsciously, to the signals that you're body is sending you about what it needs. So like you probably don't even notice, like you're hot, you take off your jacket. But also I'm not listening to the signals my body is sending me because I'm listening to the signals coming out of my screens. So resetting that idea of like, Okay, what does my body need right now? Does it need a walk, oxygen, a snack, a break, sunlight, all of those things. Just reconnecting with that idea of what we need biologically not necessarily, like the list of stuff that we have that just will never end. Guess what if you want to keep going your body needs all this totally.

00:27:43
Speaker 2: We're gonna take another break and then I'm gonna ask you, do you see question about your own habits? All right, we are back, and you talk a little bit about this in the book. But as someone who took in all of these people's observations and then the science and actually got to be a labrat, which must have been so powerful. How has your life changed been new since all of this, Like, how are you living differently? Well?

00:28:18
Speaker 4: I used to be a gym rat, and when I learned well, first of all, I never really enjoyed it. I always thought of exercise as like something to like check off the list, right, got to do it, get it done, it's over. During the pandemic, I fell off the wagon. But the more I learned about the fact that even if you work out in the morning, if you sit for the rest of the day, that workout doesn't really matter. You are in just as much jeopardy your health. If you sit for nine to ten hours a day, you're sixty percent more likely to have cardiac issues other chronic health problems. So that's sort of felt freeing to me. I was like, oh, so if I move more often and I just do it regularly and I don't have to change my outfit, I can sort of like ath leisure. Hello, it's what I wear anyway. So I just move more generally, I walk the dog four or five times a day. I'll go to the far coffee place. It's like as my reward and come back. There are some days where I really struggle and I'm like, no, you know you're gonna feel better. You always feel better. Don't try to power through. You actually know why you cannot. I always pay the price if I don't do it. So that and the fact that I'm a perimenopausal woman means I need more strength training, so I'm trying to get that to two three times a week into my life as well. But generally I'm just trying to be in the world, and I find that is working for me. Like I end up walking about five miles a day total. I like tracking my steps. It works for me. I know it makes some people crazy. And then I'm trying to like keep pilates in there. You're a pilates person, right I am.

00:30:08
Speaker 2: Now I have a wild story with a heart thing listeners know about that.

00:30:13
Speaker 3: You probably don't.

00:30:14
Speaker 2: But I used to be a marathon runner. I now I'm just weight training and plates but also walking. I love walking, and I actually do more of it now that I don't run anymore, which is kind of funny. Like I used to be tired, well, sometimes I would take during the pandemic, I was not in a running phase. I was like weightlifting and I would take walks at work because I still have to go to work and see patients, and I'd walk outside and then I stopped doing it when I got into heavy running because I was like, oh, my legs are too tired. And I ran eight miles this morning. Now that I can't run, I'm dying to walk at lunchtime and it's like a highlight of my day.

00:30:44
Speaker 3: I do it every day. But honestly, after reading your.

00:30:46
Speaker 2: Book, I'm like, I need to also like I'm not sedentary when I'm seeing patients because you're like seeing a patient, then you're walking your office, you're walking back, so there's steps happening. But like I'm like, ooh, I want to get little five minute walk around the block breaks.

00:30:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, a la minute into my life as well. So you actually can.

00:31:03
Speaker 4: Ask you, as a pediatric end of chronologist, like what are you seeing in kids right now?

00:31:10
Speaker 2: I mean I wouldn't just say it's right now. So I've been in practice. Let's see, I've finished my fellowship in twenty thirteen, so thirteen years like in postgraduate training in South Florida.

00:31:22
Speaker 3: I do think it's.

00:31:23
Speaker 2: Gotten worse and it's gotten more complex with the new therapies we have, because it may just be that I'm getting more referrals because people assume there's more you I can do medically. Although it's funny, I'll get like eight year olds and there's not that much from a pharmaceutical standpoint you can do for an eight year old. But I see heartbreaking cases of obesity and metabolic disease every day.

00:31:44
Speaker 3: We had an.

00:31:45
Speaker 2: Enormous boom, enormous of new onset type two diabetes. We actually wrote this up and presented it, and so did a lot of other places, like during COVID, And honestly, what was the one major thing that happened. These kids stopped going to school. They sat down all day. It's like, I mean, yes, there may have been some nutritional changes as well, but I really actually think of it as like the lack of natural movement in their lives that made the biggest, most widespread impact. And it was like new diagnosis after diagnosis, to the point where after the pandemic it kind of slowed down for a while because I think anybody that was like living on the edge was diagnosed. And I mean yet still every day I have people come in and it's like, if you have any sort of genetic predisposition, to wakeain and if the family is not like living in a way to purposely prevent that, because I think nowadays you almost sort of have to, like how do I mitigate the naturally obesigenic effects of our environment. Then kids are struggling, and it's not their fault. It's like they're surrounded by hyper palatable food without opportunity to move very much, and like we're again, they come in. Some of them know it's probably not quote hormones. They're just looking for help, which is absolutely understandable, and others wonder what's causing this, and it's like, again, as I said in the beginning, ninety nine times out of one hundred, it's society and genetics and just multifactorial rather than it being like some sinkler disorder, like fifty years ago, i've been oh it's thyroid, or oh it's cushings or something like that.

00:33:14
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, right right.

00:33:15
Speaker 4: I mean, based on all the reading and research that I've read, it's a real shame because movement seems to correlate to learning better as well. So actually, if we want our kids to do better in school, we need to add more movement into their lives. And I don't know about you. Like I was not an athletic kid, and I went to a very very sporty school. And I see that I live in New York City, Like if you are not on the like like at five years old, they start deciding who goes on which kind of soccer.

00:33:49
Speaker 3: Team, to the point that, like.

00:33:51
Speaker 4: Kids who just want to move because it feels good and it's nice to be with your friends, you don't have options.

00:33:57
Speaker 2: No, you're so right. There's not an just like casual movement built into curriculums. And I don't know, like with this hopefully we've seen this movement a little bit away from screens in school. I feel like that's the next step. How do we figure out how to like have a walking break for these kids, or a dance break, or just having them kind of start to understand that daily and regular movement is like part of what just helps us be vibrant humans, and how do we incorporate that life?

00:34:28
Speaker 4: And I feel for teachers. I mean they have a such a hard job. I know with my kids, I would see, like one time, have you ever done go noodle?

00:34:37
Speaker 2: I think during the pandemic one of my kids schools was into that yeah.

00:34:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, but it's up to the teacher. If they're into go noodle, which is like dance breaks, then your kids get dance breaks. If they don't know about it, or if they're not interested in it, or they feel that they don't have time, that it doesn't happen. There's no sort of general culture of like kids need to move and they need it off, and it's not just because they were wiggly, it's because it's good for their brains, it's good for their cardiovascular health. There was one study in the book that I was just shocked about which showed how, like kids, teenagers, hearts grew larger the less they moved, which set them up for potential cardio risks, major risks. So the world feels very chaotic right now. But if there's one thing we can do to feel a little more positive and energized and like just enjoy life, it's just a move like that's it. Five minutes. Try to do it more often.

00:35:37
Speaker 2: Bottom line, And we didn't even get to talk about eyes. Can we talk about eyes for like two minutes?

00:35:41
Speaker 4: Oh sure?

00:35:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm throwing this in here because I have two kids on myopia management treatments and I was like, oh you this. Now, in my defense, I have like very strong genetic tendencies as well, like I'm in negative twelve that both of my parents were, and like, who knows, maybe it's from reading too much and not going out, but I think it's a mix, right. But as it started happening, our eyed doctor recommended doing this and explain that part of it is that kids are not like looking at the horizon in the bright sunshine enough anymore and that's part.

00:36:12
Speaker 3: Of what's making it worse. And now we have tricks to kind of.

00:36:14
Speaker 4: Reverse it, yes, which is amazing. Wait, can I ask what kind of treatments are they getting? Like worth?

00:36:20
Speaker 2: Okay, they're both on atropine drops. We tried the contacts in my older one that like the ones you wear during the day that reshape the lens.

00:36:27
Speaker 3: I don't remember what they're called, but he could not put them in.

00:36:29
Speaker 2: So we're like, oh, we're going to try that next dar.

00:36:33
Speaker 3: So we're just doing the atropine drops.

00:36:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, just for people who are like, what the hell are they talking about? So I had no idea that essentially, the more you stare at screens, the more your eyes are like, oh, okay, you want to look at screens, so I'll get better at looking close. For you, I will change I mean I talk like these eyes are having a conversation, but essentially they are. They're saying, I will change shape so that everything that is close is very sharp for you because you don't to look into the distance. So you literally become nearsighted. And obviously for people whose eyes have stopped growing, once that happens the ship is sailed, you are near sighted for life. But with kids, and it's happening younger and younger. There's actually treatments that can reshape the eyeball and make it so they don't have to wear glasses and stave this off for as long as possible. And I didn't know your eyes keep growing even into your thirties, so there is an opportunity here, like get outside, look into the horizon, get the serotonin. They haven't shown this in humans, but I believe it that when light hits the back of your retina, it releases serotonin. It makes you feel positive. They don't quite know what it is about sunlight that's so good for eye health and growth, but it somehow it is so like I feel like the best thing you can do with like a kid is go for a walk and look for birds. Love it.

00:37:59
Speaker 2: Don't look at but definitely look for birds.

00:38:01
Speaker 4: No, look for birds. Look if you're in near water, look for boats. Those two things I love. The best thing you can do for the ocular health of a child and yourself. I would add, I love it. Well.

00:38:14
Speaker 2: This book was great in this conversation. I could talk to you all the day about this stuff, but I know listeners are going to want to read more. So tell them the full name of your book. And then we have to do a love of the week, which I didn't warn you, but we're still going to do it any.

00:38:27
Speaker 4: Oh, Okay, hopefully I'll come up with it.

00:38:29
Speaker 1: Okay.

00:38:29
Speaker 4: So the book is called Body Electric The Hidden health Costs of the Digital Age and New Science to reclaim your wellbeing. It's out May fifth. Buy it if you feel like you don't have this issue. You move a lot by it. For the person in your life who is sitting on their butt and needs to get up, I think they might get something out of it, and I just want us all to feel a little better.

00:38:52
Speaker 2: You'll get something out of it, and it's a fun read. So I highly recommend it, so I give you time to think while I share my love of the week. I don't know, maybe it's controversial, but I will say that my love of the week is when I take my walk breaks. I love my Apple air Pods pros like so much. I know it can be great to also just clear your mind, but sometimes music will do that for me, and I'll do that on a walk break. But they just make me look forward to every time I'm going to take a walk, and I love them.

00:39:21
Speaker 3: They're great, fascinating.

00:39:24
Speaker 4: Okay, so love of the week would you prefer it to be a thing?

00:39:27
Speaker 3: Anything?

00:39:27
Speaker 2: A concept, a thing, a type of weather, a recent trip you took, a movie.

00:39:33
Speaker 3: It could be anything.

00:39:35
Speaker 4: Okay. I'm getting very excited because I love spring flowers. They really I'm very allergic to trees and flowering trees. But this year, so as much as I'm excited about this period, I also have to prepare. So I left myself a note on my calendar a year ago, March. First, start your allergy medicine so that I don't do it usually happens, which is feel miserable during this period that I love so much. So I started taking my nasal spray and I feel great and I'm able to enjoy all the flowering trees in my neighborhood. It's been quite a delight.

00:40:15
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, I love this.

00:40:16
Speaker 2: And as we're recording this, you're more than a month into nasal spray treatment, so yeah, you're prepped.

00:40:22
Speaker 3: You are ready.

00:40:23
Speaker 2: We have some beautiful and feelings flowering trees that I don't know what they are, but they're so so pretty. And every time we drive by it, I'm like, look, kids, look at that pink trees. It is so fun to see the season so fun. Yeah, it's great. It does feel like renewal.

00:40:36
Speaker 4: We could use it. It was a long winter, it was.

00:40:39
Speaker 2: Well, this has been such a pleasure. As always, thank you so much for coming on. I guess remind listeners also just where they can find you out in the world.

00:40:47
Speaker 4: Yes, you can find me on Instagram or at my website which is manooche Z m an o u sh Z and I also host NPR's Ted Radio Hour, so you can find me there.

00:40:58
Speaker 3: Awesome, Thank you so much for coming.

00:41:00
Speaker 1: Well, that was great. Sarah's interviewing at Manushto Murati about her new book Body Electric and all the things we can do to stay healthier even as we are living our digital lives. So in the theme with that to this week's question, any tips for saying active or healthy with work travel or travel personally, Because whether you're personal or work travel, it's still going to be changes to your routine. So, Sarah, what do you try to do?

00:41:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, I try to do the same types of things that I do when I'm home. I mean, well, my work travel is generally like recording trips with you or bestly plans live or going to an ENDO conference. So I'm not like a road warrior that does like a million weeks per year. But I think if I was, I would still do the same thing, which is the same types of workouts I do at home and do them early in the morning. I recognize there are certain jobs where you have to be out late at night and that would become work challenging, but thankfully that's not really my situation. So I'll just try to make sure I stay at a hotel with a gym, and I have like totally no shame about putting a workout on YouTube on my phone, having my earbuds in and then like getting the weights and doing whatever it is or maybe walking on the treadmill and like putting a audio peloton on, and then often if I can, especially i'm at a conference, I need that. Like, just like we talked about in the episode, getting that walk in the middle of the day is necessary. I cannot be butt in seat for like twelve hours and stay focused and feel good. So it's the word be adding in some purposeful steps as well. And again I know this is going to depend on the type of work travel and some people just need to sit in meetings all day long. But man, if there's any way of getting one of those meetings converted to a walking meeting or figuring out how to get outside for even fifteen minutes, I think it could make an incredible difference.

00:42:47
Speaker 1: What about you, Yeah, I as to say, using the time before all your meetings start or your conference start is critical if you can do it. So stay in a hotel that has a gym, get yourself down there. Sometimes this is really great if there's a time change, like if you're on the East Coast and you're at a conference in California, because you're gonna pop awake at four am anyway, So if it's twenty four hour gym just get yourself down there, and maybe the other people from the East Coast will be there too, but maybe not. So you're gonna have it to yourself from like four to four forty five am, and then go about the rest of your day if you can stay somewhere that's got cool places to walk nearby. I know that I had a really fun like speech two years ago. I guess that I was. I hadn't realized that the hotel was in fact right by the water, and when I saw that, I looked on the map, I'm like, oh, well, I wasn't planning on bringing my running shoes, but now I'm definitely going to because I know I can run along this trail by the water in the morning. And so that was something that got me up a little bit early to do it. Or just even plotting out your schedule and if you see that, like, Okay, my last meeting ends at like four thirty and I'm meeting We're gonna have a little bit of downtime and then I'm meeting my clients at for dinner at seven, right, really use that time. Yes, you were going to want to do all the email you didn't do during the day and catch up with the stuff from your normal work that you weren't doing while you were in meetings. But just do the twenty minute walk first, and then you can do all the email right because it'll still be there, it'll fill any amount of time you give it. But you could do your twenty minute walk and then do that and then go to dinner and feel at least like you weren't sitting down all day. The one other thing I would say is like, be careful with how much you're drinking, because it can be easy to drink more than you would in your normal life, Like most of us are not really having two drinks on a Tuesday, but if you are at a work dinner, that could happen without you really choosing it, just especially if they order a bottle of wine for the table and somebody's like pouring more in your glass. So just be wineful of that because that can definitely interfere with sleep and energy and everything else. And then eat fruits and veggies if you see them totally don't pass them by, Like if they're on the appetizer station for your conference dinner, load up on those, like just don't let those go to waste because that's also going to keep you feeling more digestively healthy in the course of your trip. Yeah.

00:45:16
Speaker 2: I mean, if you're someone who travels like twice a year, you might not have to feel like you care that much how you eat on the road. But if you're somebody who travels as a matter of routine, like you have to recognize those days are adding up and you probably need to treat them more, just like regular eating days versus I'm on vacation.

00:45:31
Speaker 1: So because you're not on vacation, you're not Yes, it is usually your normal job with that not like, oh, I'm working so hard I deserve to have three glasses of wine on a Tuesday. I mean, maybe you are working really hard, but that's going.

00:45:45
Speaker 2: To make the morning after size the next day, the.

00:45:47
Speaker 1: Morning exercise that much harder. Maybe there's another way to reward yourself for working really hard. So well, this has been best of both worlds. Sarah has been interviewing Manuch Zomarodi about her book The Body Electric. We will be back next week with more on making work and life fit together.

00:46:05
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore shoebox on Instagram and you.

00:46:13
Speaker 1: Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together