Latest / The You Project / #1882 The Sit-Down Society - Harps

Transcript

#1882 The Sit-Down Society - Harps · The You Project

0:00
Speaker 1: Oh good a gang, your bloody champs. I hope you're greats.
0:04
Speaker 1: It's Monday. It's one fifty four in the Metropolis. It's me.
0:10
Speaker 1: I'm just planning tonight's session with my group Monday night mentoring,
0:16
Speaker 1: and just been writing myself some notes. I don't know
0:20
Speaker 1: why I wrote write notes, because I've spoken about the
0:23
Speaker 1: same thing ad nauseum for years and years. But well,
0:25
Speaker 1: I do know, because I'm always developing, and I'm always
0:28
Speaker 1: opening new doors and exploring new ideas and thinking about
0:34
Speaker 1: how do I so tonight Week three is you and
0:38
Speaker 1: your Body, And I've been thinking I should really make
0:41
Speaker 1: week three week three and week four because it's such
0:44
Speaker 1: a big area and trying to do justice to such
0:49
Speaker 1: a huge component of the physical experience, the human experience,
0:55
Speaker 1: you know. And by you and your body, we mean
0:57
Speaker 1: everything you know like straight length and posture and immune
1:01
Speaker 1: system and nervous system and you know, skeleton and bone
1:06
Speaker 1: density and function and health and clinical issues like the
1:10
Speaker 1: whole kind of shooting match and sleep and bio feedback
1:15
Speaker 1: and how your social life affects your body and movement
1:21
Speaker 1: in general and all that kind of stuff. But anyway,
1:24
Speaker 1: enough about the promo for the bloody, which it wasn't
1:26
Speaker 1: meant to be, but it sounded like I didn't it
1:29
Speaker 1: for the mental ship. But so I've been I've been
1:34
Speaker 1: going down a rabbit hole of the impact of sitting.
1:39
Speaker 1: Sitting as much as we sit now, it's hard to
1:43
Speaker 1: get really accurate data on sitting and the impact of
1:50
Speaker 1: sitting physiological, psychological, practical impact of being on your ass
1:55
Speaker 1: for a long time. And so what I'm about to
1:57
Speaker 1: share with you, it's not bro science. Some of it
2:02
Speaker 1: is actual science. Like there's a study here that I've
2:05
Speaker 1: looked at which is kind of a systematic review or
2:09
Speaker 1: a meta analysis of thirteen studies involving over a million participants,
2:16
Speaker 1: so that that's quite big. But then there's also just
2:18
Speaker 1: the incidental kind of observations that I've made over the
2:21
Speaker 1: years with the people that I've worked with. But there
2:24
Speaker 1: is quite a bit of research and investigation and science
2:28
Speaker 1: available to us now about the impact of I guess,
2:34
Speaker 1: broadly speaking, just being still and not moving much. And
2:38
Speaker 1: one of the byproducts of living in a time when
2:42
Speaker 1: there has been so much you know, innovation and technology
2:48
Speaker 1: and automation is that we are now way, way, way
2:54
Speaker 1: more sedentary than we were you know, back in for example,
2:59
Speaker 1: the nine and fifties, you know, three quarters of a century.
3:03
Speaker 1: Fuck three quarters of a century ago, and think about that.
3:06
Speaker 1: What about this that since nineteen fifty this is the US,
3:09
Speaker 1: but I would guess, or this is US data, but
3:12
Speaker 1: I would guess we would be similar. So since the
3:16
Speaker 1: nine end fifties, sorry, nineteen to fifty cententary jobs in
3:20
Speaker 1: the US have increased by eighty three percent, meaning people
3:25
Speaker 1: have moved from jobs which were essentially physically active or
3:28
Speaker 1: occupations that saw them moving a lot, to people who
3:33
Speaker 1: do jobs sitting at a desk, sitting in a chair.
3:37
Speaker 1: And so we are truly where the sit down generation.
3:40
Speaker 1: And not only is there a physiological cost, but there's
3:44
Speaker 1: a psychological cost. There's a sociological cost. There's an emotional cost,
3:49
Speaker 1: like sitting on your ass for extended periods of time,
3:52
Speaker 1: says the man who is currently sitting on his ass.
3:57
Speaker 1: Ain't great for you. And we know this, But I
3:59
Speaker 1: just want to unpack some of the some of the
4:01
Speaker 1: info and some of the data and talk about what
4:03
Speaker 1: we can do and how we can move the needle
4:05
Speaker 1: a little bit. Because the average, the average Aussie, I'm
4:11
Speaker 1: not the data. I found was like a decade old.
4:14
Speaker 1: But it seems that the average Aussie spends somewhere between
4:18
Speaker 1: seven and ten hours a day sitting. Now I reckon, well,
4:22
Speaker 1: that might be right, because I guess there are people
4:24
Speaker 1: that are a lot more mobile and a lot more
4:26
Speaker 1: active in other people that are a lot less than
4:27
Speaker 1: if we even it out. But interestingly, the average American
4:32
Speaker 1: sits for nine point five hours per day, or the
4:36
Speaker 1: yeah spends nine point five hours sitting, which kind of
4:40
Speaker 1: I thought that was quite a bit. And then you
4:43
Speaker 1: think about so I'll mate sits for nine and a
4:48
Speaker 1: half hours, and then he or she sleeps for let's
4:52
Speaker 1: say eight hours, or they're in bed for eight hours
4:55
Speaker 1: or whatever. So that's seventeen and a half hours out
4:57
Speaker 1: of twenty four. That's about you know, let's round it
5:01
Speaker 1: up to eighteen eighteen out of twenty four, or seventy
5:03
Speaker 1: five percent exactly. We're talking about seventy five percent of
5:06
Speaker 1: the average American's life spent lying or sitting, which is
5:12
Speaker 1: inconsistent with health and wellness and movement and resilience and
5:15
Speaker 1: all of that, isn't it. So this is not a judgment,
5:19
Speaker 1: This is just let's just talk about this is really
5:22
Speaker 1: about about awareness, I guess, and so many people think
5:28
Speaker 1: of excessive sitting, which we do as the new smoking.
5:35
Speaker 1: And there was a study done which I alluded to before,
5:39
Speaker 1: which involved over a million people in that study, and
5:42
Speaker 1: it found that people who sit for more than eight
5:44
Speaker 1: hours a day, which I reckoni is a lot of us,
5:48
Speaker 1: have a risk of dying increased risk of dying compared
5:52
Speaker 1: comparable to those people who smoke. So, you know, analogous
5:57
Speaker 1: to smoking, the risks, And of course there's a bunch
6:01
Speaker 1: of variables around that, and that makes a great headline
6:04
Speaker 1: and all of that, but the bottom line is that
6:07
Speaker 1: you know, we think about so what are some of
6:09
Speaker 1: the potential dangers of excessive sitting. I've got a bunch
6:13
Speaker 1: here I want to share with you, so metabolic dysfunction.
6:15
Speaker 1: So when I talk about excessive sitting, there's no absolute,
6:20
Speaker 1: scientifically defined parameter around that. Oh, if you sit for
6:24
Speaker 1: more than this, that's excessive. And there are other variables
6:28
Speaker 1: like do you go to the gym? Do you do
6:30
Speaker 1: like you might sit for eight hours a day, but
6:31
Speaker 1: you also walk for three hours a day, Well that's
6:33
Speaker 1: probably going to offset the eighth, isn't it. Or you
6:36
Speaker 1: might sit for eight hours a day, but every every
6:40
Speaker 1: hour on the hour, you get up and do five
6:42
Speaker 1: minutes of movements. So in that eight hours of sitting,
6:44
Speaker 1: you've done forty minutes of moving and you know, so
6:48
Speaker 1: that's going to offset that somewhat as well. But so
6:51
Speaker 1: let's just look at some of the physiological consequences or
6:56
Speaker 1: potential consequences of having your ass on a seat for
6:59
Speaker 1: an extended period of time. And so number one is
7:04
Speaker 1: metabolic dysfunction. So blood sugar, insulin, and fat metabolism or
7:11
Speaker 1: burning fat are impaired when we sit for long periods
7:15
Speaker 1: of time, So blood sugar goes up, We're more predisposed
7:20
Speaker 1: to have a slower metabol metabolism, put your teeth in harps,
7:26
Speaker 1: go back to speech therapy, and more likely to gain fat.
7:30
Speaker 1: Of course, and of course sitting versus standing where we're
7:34
Speaker 1: expending less energy. Standing versus walking, we're expending less energy
7:38
Speaker 1: and so on. So it has an impact on our
7:41
Speaker 1: metabolism and also on our endocrime system. What's happening with
7:46
Speaker 1: our hormones. Number two on the list is that people
7:49
Speaker 1: who excessively have compared to people who don't, have an
7:53
Speaker 1: increased risk of heart disease type DO, diabetes, obesity, stroke,
8:00
Speaker 1: and also certain cancers, which is pretty fucking terrifying. Number
8:04
Speaker 1: three on the list is a muscle atrophy or muscle wasting,
8:09
Speaker 1: especially through the bum glutes, hip flexes. Those are the
8:13
Speaker 1: muscles at the front hamstrings. So everything really, I mean everything,
8:19
Speaker 1: like everything your core and just think about if you're sitting,
8:23
Speaker 1: and also think about this like posture. Think about what's
8:26
Speaker 1: happening posturally with people when you sit as I'm doing now,
8:30
Speaker 1: like I'm adjusting my posture right now, so I'm sitting
8:33
Speaker 1: up straight like a bloody tree. If you think about
8:36
Speaker 1: sitting at a desk all day and you're looking at
8:39
Speaker 1: a computer and you are working over the top of
8:43
Speaker 1: a keyboard, then unless you're a complete kind of weirdo,
8:49
Speaker 1: you're probably who's sitting like bolt upright like a robot,
8:53
Speaker 1: which none of us do. Then you're probably sitting with
8:57
Speaker 1: your shoulders forward of your hips rather than over your
9:01
Speaker 1: hips in alignment, and you're probably sitting with your head
9:04
Speaker 1: at least, if not all the time, at least part
9:06
Speaker 1: of the time, with your head forward of your shoulders,
9:09
Speaker 1: so you've got your hips in the chair. Then you've
9:11
Speaker 1: got your shoulders forward of your hips, then you've got
9:13
Speaker 1: your head forward of your shoulders, and you've probably got
9:17
Speaker 1: your forearms up on the desk part of the day,
9:21
Speaker 1: which means you are probably sitting in a chifotic kind
9:26
Speaker 1: of posture, which means kind of a little bit of
9:28
Speaker 1: a hunchy back, shoulders sitting forward and rolled a little bit,
9:32
Speaker 1: and you're probably predisposing well, you're definitely, if that's the case,
9:36
Speaker 1: predisposing yourself to neck issues, shoulder problems, headaches, and a
9:41
Speaker 1: bunch of a bunch of other really unpleasant things. And
9:45
Speaker 1: so our body just wasn't built to sit. Of course
9:50
Speaker 1: we can sit, but it wasn't like this is not
9:53
Speaker 1: how we work optimally. Number four on my list is
9:57
Speaker 1: poor circulation, so which can to swollen legs, varicos vein,
10:02
Speaker 1: and even DVTs in extreme cases. Number five on my
10:06
Speaker 1: list is mental fog, potentially because we've got reduced blood
10:10
Speaker 1: flow because we're not moving, we're sitting still, our hearts
10:14
Speaker 1: beating slower where we don't have that same level of
10:17
Speaker 1: blood throat blood flow around our body. So we've got
10:21
Speaker 1: reduced cognitive performance at tension and memory. In other words,
10:26
Speaker 1: sitting consistently means our brain works less efficiently and less effectively,
10:33
Speaker 1: so there's cognitive impairment. So just standing, of course, we're
10:37
Speaker 1: going to talk about some options and solutions and some
10:40
Speaker 1: potential strategies in a moment, but let's just continue with
10:44
Speaker 1: the potential dangers. My second last one is mood and
10:47
Speaker 1: mental health. So there's a real strong correlation between sedatory
10:51
Speaker 1: behavior in general, which probably sitting is at the top
10:55
Speaker 1: of the sedentary behavior pyramid, So there's a strong correlation
10:59
Speaker 1: between that and depression and anxiety as also, we know
11:03
Speaker 1: there's a strong relationship between movement and exercising and walking
11:07
Speaker 1: and even being out doors and mobility and getting your
11:12
Speaker 1: heart rate up and getting a bit sweaty. We know
11:14
Speaker 1: there's a correlation between that and reduced depression and greater
11:18
Speaker 1: levels of calm and happiness and contentment and all of
11:21
Speaker 1: those things. So there's not only a physiological component to this,
11:25
Speaker 1: but there's also a psychological and mental health and cognitive
11:30
Speaker 1: component as well. And I guess overall, and this is
11:35
Speaker 1: a bit this is a bit die, but we know
11:38
Speaker 1: that all of that can equal a shorter lifespan, and
11:40
Speaker 1: not only a shorter lifespan, but a shorter health span,
11:44
Speaker 1: so higher all cause mortality. Even people who exercise a bit,
11:50
Speaker 1: Even people who exercise. We know that exercising is great,
11:52
Speaker 1: of course, but even people who say exercise one hour
11:56
Speaker 1: a day but still sit a lot, they are still
12:00
Speaker 1: at a higher level of risk. Of course, sitting a
12:03
Speaker 1: lot and not exercising is even worse. But you're not
12:07
Speaker 1: going to offset excessive sitting and lying with sixty minutes
12:12
Speaker 1: of something. It's certainly going to help, but it's not
12:15
Speaker 1: going to totally undo that. I was I was talking
12:19
Speaker 1: to a guy. It was last year. Now I was
12:21
Speaker 1: going to say the other day. It wasn't the other day.
12:24
Speaker 1: It was. It was last year. But I've spoken to
12:26
Speaker 1: a lot of people in a similar boat, and we
12:31
Speaker 1: were talking about He came to me, and we were
12:34
Speaker 1: having a look at the overall kind of model of
12:38
Speaker 1: living that he's in the middle of it. In other words,
12:40
Speaker 1: we're looking at his last We're looking at work, we're
12:42
Speaker 1: looking at food, We're looking at exercise habits or lack
12:46
Speaker 1: of habits, as it happened to turn out, we're talking
12:48
Speaker 1: about incidental activity, occupational activity. We're talking about smoking and
12:55
Speaker 1: booze and a whole bunch of stuff. And I said
12:59
Speaker 1: to you him, Okay, I want you to tell me
13:03
Speaker 1: a typical day from when you get out of bed,
13:06
Speaker 1: and this is a really interesting exercise for you to do.
13:10
Speaker 1: And I've done this. I've done a version of this
13:14
Speaker 1: hundreds of times with people where I'd say, all right,
13:18
Speaker 1: I want you to not that often lately because I'm
13:21
Speaker 1: not working as an excise physiologist, excise scientist, personal trainer anymore,
13:24
Speaker 1: but over the years I did this hundreds of times
13:27
Speaker 1: and often would get a similar outcome. So I can't remember,
13:31
Speaker 1: I can remember the numbers, I can't remember exactly what
13:33
Speaker 1: his day looked like, but I'm going to roughly describe
13:36
Speaker 1: it to you. So we would get out of bed, okay,
13:38
Speaker 1: So he's just spent eight hours in bed. He gets
13:41
Speaker 1: out of bed, and he walks to the kitchen and
13:42
Speaker 1: he sits and eats, and then he has a shower,
13:46
Speaker 1: which of course he's standing, and then does a few
13:49
Speaker 1: bits and pieces. Then not long after, he's in the
13:51
Speaker 1: car sitting, and then he has a whatever, a thirty
13:55
Speaker 1: forty five minute drive, and then he gets to work
13:57
Speaker 1: and then he walks, however many steps to his desk
14:00
Speaker 1: in his office, and then he's at work. He owns
14:03
Speaker 1: his own business, he's in the corporate space, and then
14:06
Speaker 1: he's sitting for eight to twelve hours. Well, no, that's
14:11
Speaker 1: not true. He's at work for eight to twelve hours,
14:14
Speaker 1: depending on the day. But apart from lunch where he
14:19
Speaker 1: gets up and goes he works in a building where
14:22
Speaker 1: there's a cafe at the bottom of the building, apart
14:24
Speaker 1: from those steps there, And obviously then when he's doing lunch,
14:27
Speaker 1: he's sitting anyway, it's not like he's it's not like
14:30
Speaker 1: he's standing eating a sandwich. And then at the end
14:34
Speaker 1: of the day, which has been mostly sitting, doesn't work
14:37
Speaker 1: out at a gym, by the way, or didn't at
14:39
Speaker 1: this particular stage of the conversation. Then he would get
14:43
Speaker 1: back into his car. Then he would drive home seated.
14:46
Speaker 1: Of course, be good ones. They bring out those new
14:49
Speaker 1: standing cars, rn't it. And then he gets home and
14:55
Speaker 1: didn't go for walk. Typically would not go for walk
14:58
Speaker 1: because he was tired from work all day. And then
15:01
Speaker 1: he would collapse on the couch because he deserved it,
15:03
Speaker 1: because he'd worked hard. It's been a long day's kind
15:06
Speaker 1: of toil. And then he would go sit at the table,
15:11
Speaker 1: have dinner with the family. He might do a few things.
15:15
Speaker 1: He might do the dishes, there might be a few.
15:17
Speaker 1: But after that then he would go sit on the
15:21
Speaker 1: couch or he would go sit in his home office
15:23
Speaker 1: and do more work. But either way he would be sitting.
15:26
Speaker 1: And then he would go to bed and be lying
15:28
Speaker 1: for another eight hours. And that was basically his autopilot.
15:31
Speaker 1: That was his groundhog day. And we figured out that
15:38
Speaker 1: this dude spent about ninety minutes a day standing or walking.
15:45
Speaker 1: So a typical day, not every day, not all the time,
15:48
Speaker 1: but an average, especially workday for him Monday to Friday.
15:53
Speaker 1: Also often a Saturday would be a work day as well,
15:56
Speaker 1: because he was the boss. But at the very least
16:00
Speaker 1: Monday to Friday he would spend somewhere in the ballpark
16:04
Speaker 1: of twenty two to twenty two and a half hours
16:06
Speaker 1: sitting or lyne. And I don't need to tell you
16:11
Speaker 1: what shape he was in. Now, this is not this
16:14
Speaker 1: is not criticism, This is awareness. Is like, well, when
16:19
Speaker 1: you don't eat well and when you drink a fair
16:21
Speaker 1: bit of booze. He didn't smoke, which was good, and
16:24
Speaker 1: you have a very stressful job and By the way,
16:27
Speaker 1: when you do really stressful work, you produce lots of
16:32
Speaker 1: interesting hormones. Let's say that cortisol, adrenaline, nora pronefrin, which
16:36
Speaker 1: can help you basically fuck up your endocrime system and
16:40
Speaker 1: gain weight and also create sell your inflammation cellular say
16:44
Speaker 1: that clearly harps inflammation, which can lead to disease, and
16:47
Speaker 1: a whole lot of other things. Right, So there's all
16:50
Speaker 1: of these compounding shit variables. Because although he was managing
16:56
Speaker 1: his business, and although he was managing his money and
16:59
Speaker 1: building brand and building career and building wealth and doing
17:02
Speaker 1: all of these things that you're taught to do. I
17:05
Speaker 1: feel like I'm diverting a little bit and diverging from
17:08
Speaker 1: the sit down conversation. But nonetheless, what he wasn't doing
17:12
Speaker 1: was he wasn't working on him. And so one of
17:17
Speaker 1: the decisions that he and I made, prompted by me
17:21
Speaker 1: when I said, all right, well, let's put some practical
17:23
Speaker 1: things in place, was he decided, with my prompting that
17:29
Speaker 1: he would do a minimum of ten thousand steps a day. Now,
17:32
Speaker 1: depending on how fast you walk and how tall you
17:35
Speaker 1: are in your stride length and there's a bunch of variables,
17:39
Speaker 1: but on average, So minimum, by the way, minimum ten thousand,
17:43
Speaker 1: that's the requirement. That's the minimum requirement. So some days
17:46
Speaker 1: he was doing fifteen, some days he was doing ten.
17:49
Speaker 1: And what happened with him was honestly, like, really, this
17:56
Speaker 1: is not just a story for the show, but nothing
17:58
Speaker 1: short of astounding, because I reckon his average steps per
18:03
Speaker 1: day were three or less, three thousand or less, and
18:07
Speaker 1: so he went to ten thousand plus so it was
18:09
Speaker 1: three or four or sometimes five x. And with that
18:14
Speaker 1: came a myriad of positive changes psychological, emotional, even behavioral
18:20
Speaker 1: and social, but also of course physiological. So his body
18:23
Speaker 1: got better, his brain worked better, he reduced his blood pressure,
18:27
Speaker 1: he reduced his risk of a whole lot of stuff,
18:30
Speaker 1: He dropped some weight, he felt better, felt better, his
18:33
Speaker 1: back pain diminished, and so on, and so this was
18:37
Speaker 1: through and that was really only it built from there.
18:41
Speaker 1: But for the first three months that was all he
18:43
Speaker 1: kind of focused on, was just moving more, was sitting less,
18:47
Speaker 1: moving more. And so there is a real solution that
18:54
Speaker 1: doesn't need to be complicated. You don't need a gym,
18:57
Speaker 1: you don't need three degrees, you don't need a PhD.
19:01
Speaker 1: But I think it's a really good thing when we
19:04
Speaker 1: talk about health and wellness and human optimization. It's such
19:11
Speaker 1: a simple thing. Not, by the way, simple doesn't mean
19:16
Speaker 1: easy or painless, but it's such a simple thing. Like
19:19
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where, oh, you don't need
19:22
Speaker 1: to join a gym, you don't need resources, you don't
19:24
Speaker 1: need you don't need to be trained, you don't need
19:27
Speaker 1: to learn anything new, you don't need a fucking cheer squad.
19:31
Speaker 1: You just need to sit less, and you need to
19:33
Speaker 1: figure out how you're going to do that. And many
19:36
Speaker 1: of you will know the me story of you know
19:40
Speaker 1: about I guess it's about seven months ago now, I
19:44
Speaker 1: and this is embarrassing, but fuck it, it's just true.
19:48
Speaker 1: I was I was informed by my phone, who apparently
19:54
Speaker 1: counts my steps, who knew I was informed by my
20:00
Speaker 1: phone that I didn't walk enough, and essentially that I
20:02
Speaker 1: was a lazy fuck. Didn't say it in those exact words,
20:06
Speaker 1: I'm going to be honest, but pretty much it was saying,
20:09
Speaker 1: you're a lazy fuck. You need to move more. And
20:12
Speaker 1: when I looked at how many steps I was walking
20:15
Speaker 1: on average a day, mister bloody inspiration education, you know,
20:18
Speaker 1: exercise science, I was walking around four to five thousand
20:23
Speaker 1: steps a day, which is shit. And as a result,
20:28
Speaker 1: I was reasonably tired and sluggish, and I didn't know it,
20:33
Speaker 1: but my brain definitely wasn't working anywhere near optimally. It
20:38
Speaker 1: was working, but it was probably, you know, it was
20:41
Speaker 1: probably struggling a little bit, as it seems to be
20:44
Speaker 1: right now as I talk. But anyway, so I increased.
20:48
Speaker 1: I went from that day when I got that message,
20:50
Speaker 1: I went, well, fuck it, that's it. I'm going to
20:51
Speaker 1: do a minimum of ten thousand a day myself, which
20:54
Speaker 1: I used to do but over the years I just whatever,
20:57
Speaker 1: It's all bullshit, isn't it. I was about to give
20:59
Speaker 1: you some big fucking reason. Fuck your reason, harps. Anyway,
21:02
Speaker 1: the last six or seven months, six or seven months,
21:05
Speaker 1: I've walked minimum of ten I would say I've averaged.
21:09
Speaker 1: I had a looked just before I started this, and
21:12
Speaker 1: it's kind of two o'clockish. It's two fifteen exactly now,
21:15
Speaker 1: and I've already done nine thousand today, So today will
21:18
Speaker 1: probably be I don't know, a fourteen to fifteen thousand
21:21
Speaker 1: step day. But in the moving, in the moving, in
21:26
Speaker 1: the getting up out of my desk, in the increased
21:30
Speaker 1: energy expenditure and mobility. A bunch of great things have
21:33
Speaker 1: happened for me. My body is better, My lower back
21:36
Speaker 1: is less sore, my blood pressure of genetically high blood pressure,
21:39
Speaker 1: thanks Mom and Dad, that's naturally lower now, my resting
21:43
Speaker 1: heart rate is lower, and I'm typically walking about three
21:47
Speaker 1: times as far as I was averaging this time last year,
21:52
Speaker 1: which is good. So there are simple things that we
21:56
Speaker 1: can do. I've also, you know what else I've started doing.
21:59
Speaker 1: What did you start doing? Thanks for asking. I've also
22:01
Speaker 1: started doing, which I've spoken about once or twice, but
22:05
Speaker 1: I've started doing walking meetings and walking coaching. So yes,
22:09
Speaker 1: I still meet the odd person and then some normal
22:12
Speaker 1: people at the cafe. But also what I do is
22:15
Speaker 1: I ask people if they want to meet at the cafe.
22:18
Speaker 1: We walk for thirty minutes, then we sit for thirty minutes,
22:21
Speaker 1: so it's an hour, but we go and we walk
22:24
Speaker 1: thirty minutes, which is again depending on all those variables,
22:27
Speaker 1: somewhere in the ballpark of thirty sorry, three four thousand
22:31
Speaker 1: steps something like that in that timeframe, depending on a
22:35
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff. But so I've figured out a way.
22:39
Speaker 1: This is literally what I did. I said this to myself.
22:42
Speaker 1: What are the things that I currently do on my
22:47
Speaker 1: ass that I can do not on my ass? So
22:54
Speaker 1: what can I do standing or walking or moving or
22:59
Speaker 1: in any place position other than sitting on my bum
23:04
Speaker 1: And so as much as I can when I'm coaching,
23:06
Speaker 1: when I'm mentoring, if it's on the phone, even if
23:10
Speaker 1: it's on this sounds precarious, but even if it's on
23:13
Speaker 1: a video call, I will walk around quiet streets. I'm
23:16
Speaker 1: not walking down the middle of a busy street, but
23:19
Speaker 1: I just amble around suburbia chatting to someone on a
23:22
Speaker 1: video call, keeping my self, keeping my awareness and alertness
23:29
Speaker 1: about me, And that for me has been a real
23:33
Speaker 1: game changer as well. And there are a few other
23:36
Speaker 1: things that we can do. Obviously, stand up workstations are
23:40
Speaker 1: becoming more and more popular. One of the this is
23:44
Speaker 1: full disclosure, right, So I have a fucking million dollar
23:47
Speaker 1: stand up workstation. It's got two motors, it's electric, it's
23:50
Speaker 1: razzle dazzle. I will sometimes sit at this fucking desk
23:54
Speaker 1: that I'm at right now for two weeks and not
23:57
Speaker 1: stand once. I'm being honest, I'm being honest. But then
24:02
Speaker 1: I will do a week where I'm standing by the way.
24:05
Speaker 1: I have been standing more in the last few weeks,
24:08
Speaker 1: but there have been times in my ownership of the
24:12
Speaker 1: aforementioned desk where I would go four weeks without even
24:15
Speaker 1: thinking to the table up into a standing position. So
24:22
Speaker 1: stand up workstations are good, but apparently only if you
24:26
Speaker 1: use them, so they're great. Our body wasn't meant to
24:31
Speaker 1: I don't know it was our body designed. If you're
24:34
Speaker 1: a god person, you're going to say it's designed. If
24:37
Speaker 1: you're an evolution person, you're going to say it evolved.
24:40
Speaker 1: Either way, pick your origin story. So our body either
24:46
Speaker 1: was designed or evolved. You choose not to be sitting
24:52
Speaker 1: it evolved. Slash was designed to move. To move. We
24:57
Speaker 1: need mobility for help. We need more ability for function
25:02
Speaker 1: of joints and ligaments and tendons and muscles, and our
25:04
Speaker 1: heart and our cardiovascularan respiratory system, and you know, our
25:10
Speaker 1: bone density, a skeleton stability, skeletal stability, balanced coordination, all
25:15
Speaker 1: of these things that don't happen, in fact, the opposite
25:18
Speaker 1: happens when we're sitting. So as much as you can,
25:23
Speaker 1: so here's a couple of things. Here's an idea or two.
25:29
Speaker 1: One do an inventory or a stock, take on your
25:34
Speaker 1: own sitting hours or sitting habits, and don't bullshit yourself, like,
25:41
Speaker 1: don't bullshit yourself. Don't pick a good day. Don't go
25:44
Speaker 1: on today because today was good. Pick a normal, typical day.
25:49
Speaker 1: And look, you might go through this process and come
25:51
Speaker 1: out the other side and go, nah, I'm good, shut up, harps,
25:54
Speaker 1: and I'll go well done. You you're probably the exception.
25:58
Speaker 1: And if you are the exception, and if you're a
26:00
Speaker 1: person who does not typically sit very much, well done,
26:03
Speaker 1: carry on. Ignore me. Ah tickety boo. But if you
26:08
Speaker 1: are one of the people that, like me, really needs
26:11
Speaker 1: to or you know, I still need to improve, but
26:13
Speaker 1: I'm much better than I was. If you need to
26:16
Speaker 1: stand more, walk more, sit less, then maybe here's an idea.
26:23
Speaker 1: And this is a bit uncomfortable, but fuck it. Uncomfortable
26:26
Speaker 1: is where we grow. Ah, why don't you track your
26:30
Speaker 1: sitting hours for four weeks? Why don't you do that?
26:34
Speaker 1: And why don't you or even one week and don't
26:37
Speaker 1: change it? Or maybe you don't need to do that.
26:40
Speaker 1: Maybe you can just go you know what, typically I'm
26:43
Speaker 1: sitting for this long. Either that, or perhaps keep a
26:47
Speaker 1: diary for a while and just you know, you might
26:50
Speaker 1: track it, you might find that you're okay or maybe not,
26:55
Speaker 1: so that in conjunction with more steps, you might People
27:00
Speaker 1: in the corporate space are really encouraged every thirty to
27:03
Speaker 1: sixty minutes to get up and do something for you know, generally,
27:06
Speaker 1: if it's every thirty minutes, it might be just a
27:08
Speaker 1: two minute something. If it's hourly, it might be a
27:11
Speaker 1: four minute something. I have also, this is a thing
27:16
Speaker 1: that I do periodically, which I should do more. I'm
27:20
Speaker 1: going to say, but it's not a bad idea is
27:23
Speaker 1: if you are going to sit perhaps an idea. Now,
27:29
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've got any injuries or stability
27:31
Speaker 1: issues or how old you are, So this is not
27:37
Speaker 1: a recipe or a formula or absolute advice, but this
27:39
Speaker 1: is a thought that you might want to consider. That is,
27:42
Speaker 1: sit on a ball. Get it out, for god's sake.
27:44
Speaker 1: What's the fucking recommendation apps sit on a ball? Why
27:48
Speaker 1: do I say sit on a ball versus sit on
27:50
Speaker 1: a chair? All right, good question. When we sit on
27:53
Speaker 1: a chair or a bench or a stool or whatever,
27:56
Speaker 1: we really don't need to balance because our ass is
28:00
Speaker 1: sitting on a flat thing that's not moving. You know,
28:02
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of balance and stability involved because
28:05
Speaker 1: we've got to keep our spine erect. But what happens
28:09
Speaker 1: when we sit on a convex round, So on a
28:13
Speaker 1: surface that's rounded on vex, and the bottom of it's
28:18
Speaker 1: rounded and the top of it's rounded and it's pumped
28:20
Speaker 1: up quite a bit, we are now sitting on something
28:23
Speaker 1: that's unstable, kind of like my mind. And what that
28:28
Speaker 1: means is, if you're sitting on something that's unstable, you
28:33
Speaker 1: now need to use your stabilizing muscles through your ankles,
28:39
Speaker 1: your knees, your legs, your core, your hips to keep
28:44
Speaker 1: you stable so you can sit relatively still at your
28:48
Speaker 1: desk and do the work that you need to do.
28:51
Speaker 1: But also, unlike sitting in a chair, it's much less
28:59
Speaker 1: likely that you're going to slump because you can't lean
29:03
Speaker 1: your back against anything and in fact slumping within it.
29:07
Speaker 1: I'll put it this way, if you sit on a
29:08
Speaker 1: ball the wrong way, you're probably going to create more
29:11
Speaker 1: problems than solutions. But the idea of sitting on a
29:13
Speaker 1: ball is that you become more awareness of balance and
29:18
Speaker 1: posture and stability and what's happening with your spine in
29:22
Speaker 1: real time, and where your head is compared to where
29:26
Speaker 1: your shoulders are compared to where your hips are. So
29:29
Speaker 1: now rather than sitting in that forward flexion position of
29:33
Speaker 1: hunchy mcunster, the hunchback of Notre Dame, that chipodic kind
29:37
Speaker 1: of shoulders rolling forward, head sitting forward human question mark,
29:43
Speaker 1: instead of doing that, now we're sitting in a more upright, aware,
29:47
Speaker 1: conscious position. Now, ah asterisk. Would I suggest that you
29:55
Speaker 1: start sitting on a ball eight hours a day, I
29:57
Speaker 1: definitely would not. I definitely would. I would suggest that
30:02
Speaker 1: you start in small installments, just like I suggest that
30:07
Speaker 1: you don't go from eight hours sitting at a desk
30:11
Speaker 1: to eight hours standing at a desk, because also that's
30:14
Speaker 1: not a smart mood. But what we're going to do
30:16
Speaker 1: over time, whether it's sitting on a ball, whether it's
30:19
Speaker 1: doing two minute activities every thirty or four minute every
30:22
Speaker 1: sixty minutes, or whether it's at a stand up workstation
30:28
Speaker 1: or on a ball or whatever it is, that we're
30:29
Speaker 1: going to integrate it intelligently and systematically over time so
30:34
Speaker 1: that it's not just another thing that we do where
30:37
Speaker 1: we did it for three weeks and then our back
30:39
Speaker 1: and then we went fuck it, and we were averted
30:41
Speaker 1: to our old ways. So we need to do it
30:45
Speaker 1: intelligently and methodically so that rather than it being a
30:51
Speaker 1: short term kind of intervention that doesn't last, but it's
30:57
Speaker 1: something that sets us up for a healthier back, healthier posture,
31:01
Speaker 1: healthier metabolism, healthier body composition, healthier heart and lungs over
31:07
Speaker 1: the long term. So and in closing, So it ain't
31:16
Speaker 1: it's not about never sitting, of course, it's about what's
31:22
Speaker 1: it about. It's about, I guess it's about reclaiming movement
31:26
Speaker 1: as your default state. It's about respecting your biology. Like
31:31
Speaker 1: your body, your muscles, your ligaments, your tens, your spine.
31:37
Speaker 1: None of that was made for marathons of stillness. Like
31:41
Speaker 1: you weren't built to be sitting at a desk. You weren't.
31:46
Speaker 1: Your heart wasn't made to beat quietly in a chair
31:50
Speaker 1: all day. Your body's a vehicle, not a chair accessory.
31:54
Speaker 1: You need to move it often on purpose, even when
31:57
Speaker 1: you don't need to, even when you don't need to,
32:01
Speaker 1: even when you can. You know you can comfortably sit
32:04
Speaker 1: in a chair all day, but you also know what
32:06
Speaker 1: that's going to do to you over the long term,
32:08
Speaker 1: and just like smoking, the damage doesn't happen in a
32:14
Speaker 1: day or two. It creeps up on you over time.
32:17
Speaker 1: So maybe it's time for you, maybe to sit less
32:23
Speaker 1: see tomorrow