Latest / In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson / 5-Minute Breaks That Save Your Life - TPR's In Focus - Oct. 13, 2026

Transcript

5-Minute Breaks That Save Your Life - TPR's In Focus - Oct. 13, 2026 · In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson

• 0:00
  Support comes from the Janice Hawkins Cultural Arts Park on
• 0:04
  the main campus of Troy University,
• 0:06
  featuring the International Arts Center, the Fred Noll Hollis
• 0:11
  Museum, and the Hua Bao Zhu Gallery.
• 0:14
  More information at troy.edu/artspark.
• 0:26
  From Troy Public Radio, this is the Storyline
• 0:30
  book series from In Focus, and I'm Carolyn Hutcheson.
• 0:35
  You've heard Manoush Zomorodi on NPR, and today
• 0:39
  we visit with her about her book, Body Electric.
• 0:43
  She noticed that as a result of the digital age,
• 0:46
  many of us spend most of the day on our electronic devices
• 0:51
  and sitting down. So she did some research and
• 0:54
  came up with a solution to get us moving again, even for 5 minutes.
• 1:17
  Manoush, it is truly an honor to welcome you to
• 1:20
  Alabama, Georgia, and Florida on the Troy Public Radio
• 1:24
  Network. It is an honor to be with you, Carolyn. Thank you for
• 1:28
  having me. Manoush, you have written what I consider one
• 1:32
  of the most important books of the year.
• 1:36
  Tell us how you became concerned about
• 1:39
  our use of digital media. Your book,
• 1:43
  of course, is called Body Electric. Well,
• 1:46
  for me, Carolyn, it was really during the pandemic that it came to
• 1:50
  a head. I was healthy, I should say that. But all day long,
• 1:54
  I was sitting and looking at a screen, whether it was
• 1:57
  for work or socializing or making sure my parents were okay.
• 2:02
  And then in the evening, I would roll over to the couch
• 2:05
  and watch some more. And I just couldn't understand why I felt so
• 2:10
  physically tired, just utterly exhausted
• 2:13
  and spent. Because I think, you know, we've heard a lot over the past few
• 2:17
  years about the mental health effects of too much social
• 2:21
  media or all the sort of content misinformation
• 2:25
  that we get. But I wanted to understand what was going on
• 2:28
  in my body biologically because of all
• 2:32
  this time spent sitting and looking at screens. And so I
• 2:35
  went on this sort of odyssey to figure it out.
• 2:39
  And one of the people I came across really made an enormous
• 2:43
  difference in I thought about things. So this was a man named Keith Diaz.
• 2:47
  He is a physiologist at Columbia University Medical Center,
• 2:51
  and in 2023, he published a study to find the
• 2:56
  least amount of movement that the body needs in order not
• 3:00
  to have an early death. And what he found was that just
• 3:04
  5 minutes of gentle movement every 30
• 3:07
  minutes slashed the health risks of prolonged sitting.
• 3:11
  Dramatically lowering blood sugar and blood pressure.
• 3:15
  And there was even another study he did that found that inactive people who traded
• 3:19
  30 minutes of sitting for 30 minutes of movement every day could
• 3:23
  lower their risk of a premature death by 18%.
• 3:28
  So I was like, wait a minute, why does just a little bit of movement
• 3:32
  throughout your day have such an outsized impact? So he invited
• 3:37
  me actually to join his lab study, and I did. So one
• 3:40
  day I sat and worked on my laptop like a regular day
• 3:43
  without moving. And then another day, I took these 5-minute gentle
• 3:48
  movement breaks, just walking 2 miles per hour, a stroll.
• 3:52
  And my blood sugar was cut in half. My blood pressure went down
• 3:56
  by 5 points. My concentration and my mood stayed
• 3:59
  solid throughout the day on the day that I moved. It was quite
• 4:03
  extraordinary. Manoush, I was looking at your
• 4:07
  TED Talk, Sitting All Day Is Killing You.
• 4:11
  That was back on January 5th. If that's not a wake-up call,
• 4:15
  I don't know what is. And it's
• 4:19
  not hyperbole, unfortunately. By the end of the decade,
• 4:23
  it's expected that all the sitting that we do is going to lead
• 4:27
  to 500 million new cases of conditions
• 4:31
  like heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. And many of these
• 4:34
  conditions are preventable. Another stat
• 4:38
  that blew my mind was that the average 19-year-old today moves about
• 4:43
  the same as the average 60-year-old. And that's
• 4:48
  not because the 60-year-old or the 19-year-old are lazy necessarily,
• 4:52
  right? We have built this world around sitting and looking
• 4:56
  at screens, whether it's our computers, our phones, our laptops, our iPads,
• 4:59
  our TV. Our worlds revolve around them. And so we
• 5:04
  need to talk more about the things that we're not getting as much
• 5:07
  since our innovation has led us to this moment. We need to
• 5:11
  talk about basic biology, why leg muscle muscles be stimulated
• 5:15
  and contract. Or if walking's not an option for you,
• 5:19
  you can also move your arms. The point is that
• 5:22
  we need to get our blood flow going. When our blood
• 5:26
  flow and circulation works, it flushes the glucose
• 5:30
  out of our blood, it delivers more oxygen to our
• 5:33
  brain, it makes us feel energized, able to concentrate,
• 5:38
  focus. It also keeps diabetes away, keeps obesity
• 5:42
  away, and high blood pressure away. I was amused
• 5:46
  in your TED when you started dancing around, and the audience did
• 5:50
  too. Carolyn, here's the thing, is like, I live in
• 5:54
  a neighborhood where if a kid isn't really amazing
• 5:58
  at soccer, then he gets cut from the team by the time he is
• 6:02
  8. And I just think we have to stop thinking about movement
• 6:05
  as like you're on a crazy, nearly professional sports team,
• 6:09
  or you're killing yourself at boot camp, or you are
• 6:13
  running 6 miles. Like, no, we're not talking about relentless, you know,
• 6:16
  biohacking or workouts.
• 6:20
  What we're talking about is basic movement. So what ended
• 6:23
  up happening was a couple years ago, we had a clinical
• 6:26
  trial, a study where we asked public radio listeners to
• 6:30
  try out taking these movement breaks, and 20,000
• 6:34
  people signed up. And it was really amazing. Like, 80% of
• 6:38
  the people who signed up to do the 2 weeks actually stuck with it.
• 6:41
  82% actually enjoyed taking the movement breaks.
• 6:46
  They saw their fatigue cut on average by 25%.
• 6:50
  And actually all the interruptions, as much as you would think they would be really
• 6:54
  annoying and you wouldn't get all your work done, it's not true. The productivity
• 6:57
  actually went up. People told us that they were happier,
• 7:01
  that they felt more in touch with their bodies, that they were able to concentrate
• 7:06
  again. Some people lost a few pounds barely trying, got rid
• 7:10
  of some aches and pains in their back. I can attest to that one myself.
• 7:14
  And people just felt like this was something that was free,
• 7:17
  that was easy to do, and that made a huge difference.
• 7:22
  Trish, before we run out of time, you're a mom. Yes.
• 7:25
  You mentioned kids. Yes. So many children
• 7:29
  these days are on the screen. Schools have taken those cell
• 7:32
  phones away from those children during school hours.
• 7:36
  What is your advice to parents who are listening to you? Yeah,
• 7:39
  I just think we shame kids for their screen time and
• 7:42
  it's not necessarily their fault. I think screens are part
• 7:47
  of life as a teenager these days. So to me, it's like instead
• 7:51
  of saying like, you've had enough screen time, let's make it positive. Have you had
• 7:54
  your stroll time today? Did you get outside and go for a walk?
• 7:59
  If you've got little kids, you know, making sure like there are balls and jump
• 8:03
  ropes and chalk to write on the driveway with. There are options
• 8:07
  that it's not— that screens don't become the boogeyman that they desperately
• 8:11
  want to get. That's how it was for me and TV when I was a
• 8:14
  kid. But that we're sort of getting outside,
• 8:17
  moving, not any pressure, doing it as a family. It's actually
• 8:21
  really good. For your eye health to look into the distance to get vitamin D.
• 8:25
  It's really good for your ear health not to be listening on headphones
• 8:29
  all day. There are so many reasons to just take simple
• 8:33
  breaks. It is something free and cost-effective,
• 8:37
  and we don't need to shame our kids about their screen time. We just need
• 8:40
  to give them more alternatives. You have stated the case. Body Electric:
• 8:44
  The Hidden Health Costs of the Digital Age and New Science.
• 8:49
  To reclaim your well-being. How do you feel after you've
• 8:52
  put all of this into effect? Oh, I feel so much better. I'm going
• 8:57
  to take a movement break right after our conversation, Carolyn. I hope you do,
• 8:59
  too. Manoush, thank you so much for being our guest today on Troy
• 9:03
  Public Radio. I so enjoyed our conversation. Thank you for
• 9:07
  having me. That was NPR's Manoush Zomorodi,
• 9:11
  author of the book Body Electric, which is also available
• 9:16
  in audio format. One reviewer said, quote, this is
• 9:19
  a hard book to put down, and another said it encourages
• 9:23
  all ages to, quote, take a stand, meaning take a break and
• 9:28
  stand up. Thanks for joining us today for the Storyline book
• 9:32
  series from In Focus, which is a podcast wherever
• 9:36
  you get your podcasts. Feel free to get in touch at infocus@troy.edu.
• 9:41
  I'm Carolyn Hutcheson, and this is listener-supported Troy
• 9:45
  Public Radio.