The Art of Manliness - Why Screen Time Leaves You Exhausted — And How to Reverse Its Effects

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00:02:11.980 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the aom podcast which since 2008 has featured

00:02:18.160 conversations with the world's best authors thinkers and leaders that glean their edifying

00:02:22.660 life-improving insights without the fluff and filler the aom podcast is just one part of the

00:02:27.500 mission to help individuals practice timeless virtues through thought word and deed also be

00:02:32.700 sure to explore our articles in art of manliness.com read the deeper dives we do in our sub stack

00:02:36.860 newsletter at dyingbreed.net and turn our content into real world action by joining the strenuous

00:02:41.460 Life program at strenuouslife.com. Now on to the show. You hear a lot today about how our ample

00:02:54.420 screen time is affecting our mental health, but how is it affecting our bodies? How's that impact

00:02:59.000 on our bodies affecting, well, our mental health? My guest today will impact the ways that our

00:03:03.420 digital technology is sapping our vitality and offer simple protocol to get it back. Her name

00:03:08.400 is Manusha Zomorodi, and she's the host of the TED Radio Hour and the author of Body Electric.

00:03:13.300 Manusha explains why a day spent sitting in front of screens can leave you exhausted,

00:03:16.780 even though you haven't really done anything, and how small bouts of movement throughout the day

00:03:20.320 can counteract that drain and keep you feeling energized and focused. She shares how much

00:03:24.600 activity you need to offset periods of being sedentary and how to realistically incorporate

00:03:28.320 these movement breaks into your routine. We also get into the specific effects digital technology

00:03:32.260 is having on our eyes and ears, what you can do to prevent the damage. After the show is over,

00:03:36.640 check out our show notes at awimp.is slash body electric. All right, Manoush Zomorodi,

00:03:54.880 welcome back to the show. It is so great to be back. It's been a while, Brad. It has. 2017 was

00:04:00.220 the last time we talked. Whoa. It's been nine years. And it was about your book about boredom,

00:04:05.780 Bored to brilliant. And it's how boredom can be good for us. You got a new book out called

00:04:10.260 Body Electric, The Hidden Health Cost of the Digital Age and New Science to Reclaim Your

00:04:16.040 Well-Being. And yeah, you're exploring the health cost of always being on our screen, sitting down,

00:04:22.060 looking at iPads. What led you to explore this beat for the past few years?

00:04:28.000 Yeah. So I've been a journalist for 30 years, but my sort of specialty about 15 years ago became

00:04:34.360 tech and business. And everyone was talking about, you know, upgrading and valuations and all those

00:04:40.380 things. But I was looking around and seeing that my technology, this sounds so quaint now, but my

00:04:45.760 new iPhone was changing the way I did everything. It was changing the way I parented. I could be

00:04:52.000 at the playground and on a call at the same time. Is that good? We don't have to debate that right

00:04:57.100 now. But for me, it was becoming really a anthropological experiment that was happening

00:05:03.480 honest. And one of the things I noticed was that I started to think differently. So in terms of the

00:05:10.160 first book, I would notice that I was having trouble sort of being more creative than I used

00:05:16.020 to be. And I sort of looked around and thought, like, what is different now? And the difference

00:05:20.460 was that whenever I had a crack in my day, a spare moment waiting in line for coffee, waiting for the

00:05:26.560 subway, I could be productive. I could look at my phone. I could check the headlines, the weather,

00:05:31.520 ping my husband, you name it. And it made me wonder, what were the effects of never being

00:05:38.000 bored? And as a Gen Xer, I was told, oh, only boring people get bored. But what if being bored

00:05:45.320 was actually a good thing, this thing that we thought was terrible and to be avoided at all

00:05:49.060 costs? So that led me down this road to understanding the neuroscience of boredom

00:05:54.960 or what really cognitive neuroscientists call mind wandering. So boredom as a gateway to mind

00:06:01.300 wandering, which activates a particular network in the brain that is responsible for our most

00:06:07.360 original thinking, problem solving and something called autobiographical planning. This is

00:06:12.480 telling ourselves the story of our life, creating a narrative. And that helps us then set goals and

00:06:18.940 work towards those goals. So to me, like mind, mind blown. Okay, so I need to get more boredom

00:06:25.520 in my life. That was like 10 years ago. Apparently boredom is back, though, from what I hear,

00:06:29.360 Brett. It's very big on socials. I guess the people, you know, who were 10 years old when

00:06:33.780 that book came out are just sort of facing that issue now. So then, like, after sort of thinking

00:06:38.620 about that, you know, I think we've seen in the last sort of decade since that book came out

00:06:43.460 a greater understanding of the connection between how our brain works and our body functions. And so

00:06:50.780 for me, with this new book, like, I couldn't understand why I was so damn tired at the end

00:06:56.580 of a day sitting on my laptop, I was like, I haven't done anything. Why am I physically

00:07:01.680 exhausted? And that was the question I basically was trying to solve that ended up in this book.

00:07:08.760 Was there a particular moment where you had, like, you can think about where it's like, boy,

00:07:13.560 you know, sitting at this computer all day, this probably isn't good, not only for my brain,

00:07:18.420 but just for my overall physiology and health. Yeah, well, I felt it. And, you know, I think for

00:07:23.780 a lot of us, things came into very stark vision during the pandemic. You know, it was literally

00:07:29.540 that moment where I was on my laptop for work, on my phone, checking in on my family, ordering

00:07:34.240 groceries online. You know, Netflix was the only way to entertain ourselves. And I was

00:07:38.520 bone numbingly tired. Like I was safe. I was healthy. I had no reason not to feel like I

00:07:46.400 couldn't spring out of my chair. And so to me, that felt like a paradox. Like I just couldn't

00:07:51.840 understand how you could get more tired from doing nothing. And, you know, the last time I

00:07:56.560 took biology was in high school. So my favorite thing is to track down the absolute experts in

00:08:01.700 whatever field I'm curious about and have them explain it to me and then sort of bring that back

00:08:07.280 to, you know, us normies and try to make some changes based on what we the science, you know,

00:08:12.880 a lot of science is locked up in journals. And I my idea is like, well, let's get it out there and

00:08:17.260 let's apply it and try to change the way we live based on what we know works.

00:08:22.540 So let's do like a sort of a big picture overview of the state of Americans sitting at their

00:08:28.400 screens and just staring at them all day. How much are Americans doing that?

00:08:34.140 Yeah, it's not good, Brett. It's not good. By some estimates, the average American sits 187

00:08:41.400 days out of the year. So more than half the year, nine to 10 hours a day. We know also that the

00:08:48.380 average American is interacting with media about 12 and a half hours a day. So I mean, that includes

00:08:54.040 like double screening, right? So I don't know about you, but my life revolves around chairs

00:09:01.700 and sitting. In the morning, I check my phone and where do I go? I go to the office to sit at my desk

00:09:07.020 to look at two different screens.

00:09:09.060 Then I come home.

00:09:10.000 I check my phone again to make sure I know where my daughter is.

00:09:12.820 I listen, you know, while I take the dog out for a walk, I meet my husband.

00:09:16.140 We're rewatching Mad Men on the couch.

00:09:18.400 Like, essentially, we have built our lives around sitting and screens, and it's really

00:09:23.900 not that different for older or younger people either.

00:09:27.180 Like, kids are on laptops in the classroom.

00:09:30.960 They come home to do their homework on their laptops.

00:09:33.240 They're texting with friends.

00:09:34.340 They're watching YouTube.

00:09:35.320 older adults. How do they stay connected? There's amazing online courses they can take,

00:09:42.060 the WhatsApp family chat groups. And I say that not as judgment, but just as a fact that this is

00:09:47.620 our connected society. But it just annoyed me that at the same time that screens have become

00:09:53.940 so ubiquitous, it's now estimated the average 19-year-old moves as much as the average 60-year-old.

00:10:01.060 Type 2 diabetes in young people have doubled. And it is estimated that by the end of this decade, 500 million more people will have at least one more chronic illness. And many of those are preventable. So I think we talk so much about the mental health effects of being online, but we have been missing a key part of the equation, which is the physical health effects, the effects on our bodies.

00:10:27.940 Yeah. So being sedentary increases your risk of diabetes. What else is it doing to us?

00:10:33.480 Yeah. So, I mean, obesity, that's sort of a catch-all term from essentially metabolic

00:10:38.160 dysfunction for some people. Other people, it's just lifestyle, as you mentioned, diabetes.

00:10:42.820 I think what we're leaving out, though, when we talk about the illnesses is the sort of mental

00:10:47.800 health effects that come from these physical chronic illnesses, right? So we're seeing

00:10:54.280 rising levels of anxiety, inability to concentrate, depression, etc. And I think we think, oh,

00:11:02.520 that's because terrible things are happening in social media. But actually, a lot of that is

00:11:07.780 related to sitting and looking at screens as well. So when I went to talk to scientists to try to

00:11:14.660 understand, like that was the question for me. I was like, what is happening in my body when I am

00:11:19.580 sitting and staring at a screen for hours on end. And what I was told was really three things. So I

00:11:26.680 can go through those if that's okay. Okay. So the first one is that when you sit, you are bent at

00:11:33.260 your waistline and at your knees, right? And so think of a garden hose, like when you kink a garden 1.00

00:11:39.820 hose and the water gets backed up in it, the same thing is essentially happening at your legs and at

00:11:46.640 your torso. And what is happening then is that there is less circulation. And your leg muscles,

00:11:53.680 I had no idea, are doing incredibly important work. And they need blood flow and oxygenation

00:11:59.700 to do this. They are flushing out glucose constantly. They are pushing oxygen up your

00:12:06.200 body, up to your brain. But they need to be stimulated in order to do that. If you don't do

00:12:12.420 that, that is when you start to see blood pressure rising, blood sugar rising, and do it long enough,

00:12:19.180 those chronic health issues start to creep in. Then the other thing I learned was, you know,

00:12:23.680 when we sit, we don't breathe properly. Our diaphragm is contracted, essentially, and full

00:12:30.400 breaths. Again, this is oxygenation. When you don't get enough oxygen into your brain, this is called

00:12:36.620 neurovascular coupling, usually the neurons up there can flush out the CO2 if you keep the

00:12:42.420 circulation going. But if you don't, what does CO2 do? It makes you feel sleepy, foggy, tired,

00:12:48.920 that sense like you can't concentrate. It's a metabolic thing that is happening. It is within

00:12:54.040 your body. And then the third thing is kind of new and interesting. I started to learn about a

00:13:01.100 relatively new field of study called a sense called interoception. So I had never heard of

00:13:06.540 this. I've heard of like introspection or, you know, perception. But interoception is the study

00:13:12.340 of the signals that our body is sending us internally. So some of those are subconscious,

00:13:18.580 like our body tells us to breathe. We're not usually aware of that. Or it, you know, heart

00:13:23.640 rate speeds up if we're anxious about something. But then there are other times where we are more

00:13:28.780 aware of it or we should be more aware of it. Like, oh, my stomach's growling. I should go eat.

00:13:34.140 But what I had noticed and what newer studies are starting to also show is that when we are

00:13:40.920 locked in on screens, we ignore what our body is telling us. It might be telling us we need a break

00:13:47.780 or we need to just get some air, some fresh air, or we need to move our body or we're getting

00:13:54.540 anxious or we can't focus. And I think certainly I saw this in myself and I hear from a lot of

00:14:00.440 other people like I just got to power through. I just got to keep going. I got some stuff on my

00:14:04.640 list. I'm just going to put in one more hour. I can get this done. And like, oh, what's that

00:14:08.040 other thing? And then suddenly, you know, you have 87 tabs open and you're kind of spinning your

00:14:13.560 wheels and you're sort of getting things off your checklist and you feel like you're working really

00:14:18.360 hard. But the next day you come back and you're like, wow, that was total crap that I actually 0.97

00:14:23.700 produced yesterday. So to me, I was like, oh, okay. So there are like really good biological 0.98

00:14:31.720 reasons why I'm tired and cranky and anxious and can't concentrate.

00:14:37.660 Yeah. And speaking of that interoception, sort of not being able to pay attention or

00:14:41.680 read your body signals. Another thing I've noticed when I sit down a lot is that I don't

00:14:45.160 really pay attention to whether I'm hungry or not. And so it's like, I'm not really hungry,

00:14:50.120 but I'm like, well, I'm kind of bored. I need something to kind of power through this. So I'll

00:14:53.420 just eat some Reese's peanut butter cups like three Reese's peanut butter cups like I will eat

00:14:59.860 and have absolutely no recollection of having eaten an entire bag of well in my case it's popcorn

00:15:06.020 but it's amazing right and of course that's what our technology is designed to do to keep us

00:15:11.240 focused to keep us swiping to keep us clicking through to keep us there that's the whole point

00:15:17.600 of it. And these sort of more subtle, I would say, ancient signals that we're getting from inside,

00:15:25.620 they get drowned out pretty easily. What's interesting about your book is that

00:15:30.400 you highlight that people have been noticing the ill consequences of being sedentary thanks to our

00:15:37.280 new form of labor all the way back in the 19th century. In the 21st century, it's a lot more

00:15:42.760 cute because it's all digital. We're at a desk. But people in the 19th century, they're shifting

00:15:46.940 away from agrarian to more sort of knowledge work that we think of today, or even just working in a

00:15:52.820 factory where they might be sitting down but moving their hands. What were these people, these writers

00:15:58.820 and thinkers noticing about how that change in work was affecting our bodies, but also maybe

00:16:04.160 their souls even? I love that you picked up on this. And that is where the title actually comes

00:16:09.520 from. Body Electric is based on the poem by Walt Whitman. And like back in the 1800s, there was

00:16:16.220 this move from, you know, you could used to be able to or you used to have to use like a thresher

00:16:22.660 to, you know, thresh the wheat. And then there the industrial revolution begins. We start to have

00:16:28.540 engines and combines and people can sit and do this labor and there's increased production.

00:16:33.680 And in order to manage this increased production, to account for it, to ship it to the right places,

00:16:40.840 to create, you know, essentially supply chains. We needed clerks. We needed people who managed

00:16:48.260 systems, who managed other people. And as we all know, that requires sitting at a desk,

00:16:54.620 not at a laptop back then, but certainly at ledgers. And so there was a sort of a spate

00:17:00.860 of poetry and people noticing that the clerks' vitality, I guess is the best way to put it,

00:17:07.900 was diminished, that they were of slighter stature, that they were pale, that they were,

00:17:14.520 as one newspaper put it, tired, not tired because of their work, but tired with their work. And

00:17:21.460 Whitman is saying his poem, The Body Electric, is actually an ode to the human physique at its

00:17:30.080 ultimate, when it is relishing the world, when it is using its muscles, when it is breathing the air,

00:17:36.620 when it is in the sunshine and outdoors.

00:17:39.080 And that sort of joie de vivre,

00:17:42.220 unfortunately, was not really to be found

00:17:44.240 for people who were stuck at desks indoors,

00:17:46.480 even nearly, well, 150 to 175 years ago.

00:17:50.800 Yeah.

00:17:51.120 Yeah, there's a line from Whitman.

00:17:53.160 He wrote an article in Life Illustrated in 1856

00:17:56.060 talking about clerks at their desk.

00:17:58.260 He said this, I thought it was really good.

00:18:00.080 Describe to them. 1.00

00:18:00.720 He said, a slender and round-shouldered generation

00:18:03.180 of minute leg, chalky face, and hollow chest. Great description. So sad, right?

00:18:09.320 And what's interesting too is a lot of these writers and thinkers around the same time,

00:18:13.120 like late 19th century, early 20th century, not only were they noticing it affecting

00:18:16.780 people's bodies, but it gave rise to this idea of neurostenia, which was basically like you were

00:18:23.920 just overly anxious, you were depressed, and they developed all these health cures for neurostenia.

00:18:30.600 And the health care was like, well, you got to get out to go to some sanitarium and get fresh air and take cold baths.

00:18:37.440 Like, it's basically the same stuff we're doing in 2026.

00:18:41.260 So true.

00:18:42.040 They were doing back then.

00:18:43.400 Cold plunges, et cetera.

00:18:44.560 Cold plunges, yeah.

00:18:45.380 Yeah.

00:18:46.100 Well, you know, it's like you just want to feel something, right?

00:18:49.320 You just want to feel alive, like touch grass, I guess.

00:18:52.220 What's old is new again.

00:18:54.140 Okay.

00:18:54.400 So sitting down, looking at a screen, not great for us.

00:18:57.420 You feel crappy.

00:18:58.140 You feel tired.

00:18:59.320 Diabetes.

00:18:59.720 you feel creaky and cranky. But then you came across this study by this guy named Keith Diaz

00:19:06.480 that offered a really simple solution to this problem. What is that?

00:19:11.420 Almost too simple. Yeah. What is that solution?

00:19:13.140 Almost too simple. So I was walking my dog, listening to the news, and I heard

00:19:17.920 about this study that had come out. This was January 2023. And it was a physiologist at

00:19:24.240 Columbia University Medical School. And Keith's sort of mission in life is to try to understand

00:19:30.300 what is the minimum amount of movement that the human body needs in order for a sedentary,

00:19:37.020 and I would add, screen-filled life not to kill them prematurely. And what Keith had found in his

00:19:43.960 lab was that five minutes of gentle movement, so about two miles per hour, not fast, on a treadmill

00:19:52.680 for every half hour during extended periods of sitting

00:19:57.120 offset the harms of high glucose, blood pressure.

00:20:02.740 It made people feel less fatigued.

00:20:04.760 They were able to concentrate and it improved their mood.

00:20:08.280 And when I heard that, I was like, wait a minute.

00:20:11.500 It can't be that easy.

00:20:13.080 That's it?

00:20:13.640 Just move gently for five minutes every half hour?

00:20:16.980 And then I was like, oh, wait a minute.

00:20:18.960 That's kind of often actually.

00:20:20.980 Like, would people actually do that?

00:20:24.740 Would they be able to interrupt all their sedentary screen filled lives to add this sort of five minute break within their day?

00:20:32.400 And so I reached out to Keith and I was like, what do you think?

00:20:35.260 Think people could do this?

00:20:36.320 He's like, I don't think people can do this.

00:20:38.220 And it makes me depressed because, you know, it doesn't matter if I can show something in the lab.

00:20:43.460 If this doesn't actually translate to real life, it makes no difference.

00:20:47.780 So you and Keith decided to do a big study to see if people would do it, which we'll talk about. But you actually, you first tested this on yourself to see like, does five minutes of walking every 30 minutes, does that actually change your physiology? And so you went over to Keith's lab and hooked yourself up to some monitors to see what would happen.

00:21:07.060 I did. So he invited me. He's like, well, why don't you try it for yourself and see if you disagree with me that people can do this. So I was like, great, I will be your lab rat.

00:21:16.940 So for a week before I went to the lab, I wore a heart rate monitor, a very sort of fancy accelerometer, pedometer, glucose monitor, the whole jammy.

00:21:26.860 And then I went up to his lab and I spent two days there.

00:21:30.340 So the first day they had me in a room.

00:21:33.640 They were like, work on your laptop.

00:21:36.280 Like a normal day?

00:21:37.660 Yep, all day.

00:21:38.580 Just work on your laptop.

00:21:39.620 I had bathroom breaks.

00:21:41.100 I had time to eat my lunch.

00:21:43.100 But basically I just powered through for eight hours.

00:21:45.740 And all the while, they were collecting my blood sugar data, my blood pressure, heart rate, and I was filling out regular surveys regarding my mood and ability to focus.

00:21:57.480 And then the second day when I was there, every half hour, Keith's lovely assistant guided me over to a treadmill in the corner, and she'd type in 2.0 miles per hour, and I would take a sort of gentle stroll for five minutes.

00:22:12.460 And again, they measured all of those things. And when they compared the two days, it was kind of crazy, actually. My blood sugar was cut nearly in half. My blood pressure dropped by five points. My concentration was so much better. And I mean, my energy levels and mood were just far superior. I mean, that was so obvious to me. I could feel it.

00:22:34.620 Like, the day I didn't move, I slithered back onto the subway to go home.

00:22:39.360 I was exhausted the day I took the breaks.

00:22:41.640 I was like, great, this was super fine.

00:22:43.040 OK, bye.

00:22:44.000 You know, I just sort of skipped my way out.

00:22:45.860 And when I saw those results, I was like, well, this is too powerful not to try to get regular people to do this, especially since it is something, you know, you don't need money to move for five minutes every half hour.

00:23:01.560 And maybe there could be effects even if it was not quite that often.

00:23:06.020 So, yeah, so Keith and I, we took our teams at NPR and at Columbia and we launched a global clinical trial.

00:23:13.660 This was exciting for me as a journalist to do a proper medical study.

00:23:17.420 And we had 20,000 people sign up, which was really cool.

00:23:21.400 And what were the results of that?

00:23:22.240 Did people see benefits and were they able to integrate these short walks into their daily routine?

00:23:28.460 Yeah. So what we did was we had them choose a cohort. So you could decide to move for five minutes every half hour, five minutes every hour or five minutes every two hours, because not only did we want to measure the effects, but we really wanted to understand the feasibility of it.

00:23:44.720 Like, you know, who who managed to stick with it the most? And I was really surprised. I mean, keep in mind, of course, Brett, that like this is a self-identifying audience, right?

00:23:54.860 Like their public radio. Yes, for sure. Like they're like, I have this problem. I want to do something about it. So so we have to have that caveat. However, of the people who signed up and started the two week period of integrating these breaks into their lives, 80 percent stuck with it, which I was quite surprised about.

00:24:14.960 They saw, on average, a 25 percent decrease in fatigue levels.

00:24:21.020 Anecdotally, they told us about aches and pains going away, being able to concentrate again.

00:24:26.680 There was reports of better mood, essentially, not only just being able to focus.

00:24:32.700 And surprisingly, 82 percent said that they found it doable and they liked taking the breaks.

00:24:40.980 So to me, I was like the data, you know, was clear.

00:24:44.960 Oh, and I should say there was a dose response relationship. So the people who took the breaks every half hour saw greater decreases in fatigue, greater increases in concentration and mood. But the difference was pretty slight.

00:24:59.340 So for the book, I just thought, you know, we have we know broadly what the data say. But what I wanted to understand was how did people do it in a world that is in schedules and, you know, universities and offices and lives built around screens and chairs?

00:25:18.280 What did they do in order to succeed? That's where I was like, how did they hack their lives to be able to do this without being annoyed by it and without upending all the things that they needed to do? Like, how did they deal with the interruptions?

00:25:34.440 Because I should also add, Brett, like this did not impact productivity. To me, that was the most surprising. I expected people to be like, well, I didn't get as much done, but I felt better. That was not the case. In fact, we saw a slight improvement in productivity, which is actually what I had observed when I went and did it in the lab.

00:25:55.800 So I just found that every time I took a break, I did not look at a screen while I took my breaks on the treadmill.

00:26:02.020 But I noticed that I would – at first I was annoyed because I was like I was in the middle of something.

00:26:06.980 But then I would sort of strategize.

00:26:08.960 I'd be like, okay, when I get back to my desk, I really need to answer that one email and I need to say these three things.

00:26:15.360 And I would just get back and be super efficient and focused and get it done instead of faffing around and not reading all the way to the end of emails and clicking over to check one thing.

00:26:27.720 I just did the work.

00:26:29.860 Yeah.

00:26:30.380 That simply.

00:26:31.360 Yeah.

00:26:31.500 When you're on those walks, you're thinking about your work a little bit in your head.

00:26:36.040 Like, hey, what do I got to do when I get back?

00:26:37.920 And when you got back, you're like, I know what I got to do because I've already thought about it.

00:26:41.660 And so you just were able to do it.

00:26:43.340 Exactly.

00:26:44.180 Exactly.

00:26:44.540 And I think that's what a lot of people saw is that the quality, maybe the quantity was less, but actually if the quality is better, then you're not spinning your wheels like you often do.

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00:29:15.080 And now back to the show.

00:29:16.960 So how did people integrate this in their lives?

00:29:19.120 Like what were some strategies and tactics that they used?

00:29:22.180 Super interesting.

00:29:23.320 So what I ended up doing was going through and creating sort of three buckets.

00:29:27.780 One was younger people, students, and educators.

00:29:31.200 and we could not let people under 18 into the study but there were a bunch of teachers who

00:29:37.000 tried to do it with their classrooms then I had the middle group which was information workers

00:29:42.180 knowledge workers people who generally make a living off of sitting and looking at a screen

00:29:47.060 and then the third group which was older adults who maybe were retired and thinking more about

00:29:51.860 the longevity and health effects for students some of it was I can put it to you two ways one

00:29:59.880 was there were teachers who really felt very frustrated because there is no mandate for

00:30:05.560 recess in schools and so it is really left up to teachers to figure out how to get movement

00:30:12.940 integrated into their classrooms and it's not a nice to have right there is a ton of research

00:30:18.560 that shows that movement helps students learn better there is a direct correlation between

00:30:25.940 those things. And the teachers see it too. It's not just that kids are wiggly. Their bodies are

00:30:31.480 growing and need the circulation and they need the oxygenation. So some teachers, they turned it into

00:30:37.420 a science project in their class. They were like, look at this weird NPR project. This was a high

00:30:44.460 school teacher. And she said, we're going to do this to understand data collection. We're going

00:30:49.080 to do this to experience it ourselves and track ourselves. And then we're going to talk about the

00:30:53.700 placebo effect and see if that has anything. So they turned it into a science project, which I

00:30:57.960 thought was such a creative way of doing it. But I also heard a lot from professors who maybe would

00:31:03.760 have powered through a three-hour workshop, who then integrated breaks into their workshop and

00:31:09.820 found they had a better time teaching, their students were more attentive, and on the whole,

00:31:17.120 people actually retained the information better. So there's a lot more into that. And my whole

00:31:23.320 thing is that I think we need to teach interoception at a much younger age, teach really little ones

00:31:29.380 to start to listen to what their bodies are telling them because they are surrounded by

00:31:33.240 screens all the time. So that's part of that chapter. Information workers, I really went deep

00:31:40.120 in trying to understand scheduling, right? Because that's the thing. And what you saw,

00:31:44.300 of course, was that the people who are in power, those are like team leaders or executives,

00:31:49.540 they set the tone. They can say instead of half hour meetings, we're going to schedule 25 minute

00:31:55.380 meetings. So you get that five minute break or 55 minute meetings instead of an hour.

00:32:00.060 They can say it's OK to not have your Zoom camera on and move if you need to move during a meeting.

00:32:08.200 Go for it. Some people who maybe were not in charge could just say like, oh, I need to turn

00:32:12.860 off my screen. I have terrible Wi-Fi. And then they would do their movement break, which really

00:32:16.880 cracked me up. And then they would start to create rules. Like another boss said, when we're having

00:32:21.860 an internal meeting, anyone is welcome to move during a meeting as they need to. But if we're

00:32:26.620 with clients, like, let's make sure we don't do that because it's not socially acceptable, right?

00:32:31.320 Like, I think once a team decides that it's okay for heads to be bopping up and down on a Zoom,

00:32:37.620 then it's not a big deal. But it really needs that cultural sort of shift that we are able to do

00:32:43.860 better work and we have higher job satisfaction and also potentially less sick days. So the wins

00:32:51.900 are big. And then older adults had a completely different issue because what I heard from a lot

00:32:57.200 of retired people was actually they were more active during the day. They were volunteering

00:33:01.780 or helping out with grandchildren or whatever. But come, say, four or five o'clock, there was

00:33:08.480 sitting for the next six, seven, eight hours, you know, watching TV, Netflix, scrolling on their

00:33:15.880 phones. And those were the hours that they needed to insert interruptions into. And they made a big

00:33:22.060 difference. I mean, one of Keith's other studies, I should add, for people who replaced half an hour

00:33:27.820 of sitting with movement, decreased their risk of an early death by 18%. So we're not talking about

00:33:35.580 huge changes here. We're talking about just getting more movement into your life. And if

00:33:40.740 you need to start by looking at your phone while you're doing that, you know, whatever, who cares?

00:33:46.260 Baby steps. We just want you to live longer and healthier. Yeah. After I read the book. So I'm

00:33:51.400 pretty active. I take a morning walk every morning mile. And then I take another walk mid-morning.

00:33:57.400 But after I read your book, I was like, I need to start taking these five minute breaks. So I just

00:34:01.400 set a timer every 25 minutes i get up it doesn't matter if i'm doing in the middle of something

00:34:06.460 i'll go take a walk for five minutes or if i can't take a walk i have a problem going outside and

00:34:11.480 taking a walk when it's really cold outside i'm kind of a wuss so i'll just do jumping jacks i'll

00:34:16.260 move i'll just kind of look like a weirdo like moving my arms up and down doing yeah 1980s or

00:34:20.460 robux yeah that counts yeah totally and i think what you're doing is is exactly right like is it

00:34:27.700 time to move yes but if you are like i'm in the middle of something and i am in flow well then

00:34:33.120 like okay fine don't take a movement break it's no big deal what i sort of am sick of a little bit

00:34:38.900 is this idea that we are so all or nothing like we're either on the the traveling soccer team for

00:34:45.360 our kids or they don't play soccer at all what about just going out in the backyard and kicking

00:34:49.460 the ball around more often like we don't need to be training for a marathon or just sitting on our

00:34:55.740 butts like what if we just got up and you know i like to do this works for me i get up and i just

00:35:01.600 walk around there's a big conference table and i walk around that for a couple minutes and

00:35:05.460 and then i get a glass of water and i go back to my desk and it helps yeah a lot you're kind of

00:35:11.020 like a prisoner that gets your like yard time walk around the yard for i try not to think of

00:35:16.740 myself as a prisoner but yeah that's what i was thinking the other day when i was taking a walk

00:35:19.920 just around in my driveway because i needed to yeah why not why not it worked yeah but what's

00:35:24.700 interesting too. You highlight a lot of people may be listening to this. Like, okay, yeah,

00:35:27.460 you can get these health benefits by taking these five minute breaks. But it's like, well,

00:35:30.280 I exercise every day. I had this hard workout for an hour. I do CrossFit. I do a run. But you

00:35:37.140 highlight research that that's probably not enough if you're sitting down the rest of the day.

00:35:41.160 In fact, it's definitely not enough. And it's so unfair. It sounds so unfair. So Keith told me

00:35:47.360 about his own journey when there started to be research into this idea that even if you do a

00:35:52.760 morning workout or you go for an evening run, if the majority of your day is then spent sitting

00:35:58.880 and looking at a screen, it doesn't matter. Like, don't give up your workout. Obviously,

00:36:04.680 you're building muscle, cardiovascular strength, all the rest of it. But it is not enough to offset

00:36:11.560 the harms of sitting for long stretches for the rest of your day or evening. And he just said to

00:36:17.300 me, he's like, this was shocking to him. He's like, we had been taught when we were getting our PhDs

00:36:21.980 that exercise is the ultimate medicine, that it is the cure for everything.

00:36:27.120 So to then read that you could, you know, check it off your list first thing,

00:36:31.740 but it doesn't make a difference the rest of the day, that just sort of shocked him.

00:36:35.720 I mean, I guess the good news is, is if you haven't been moving at all,

00:36:39.380 you are going to see benefits just by starting to take five-minute walks.

00:36:43.960 Or as you have said, you know, if you can't walk, there's options with your arms.

00:36:48.320 The point is to get the blood flowing and raise your heart rate just a little bit.

00:36:52.100 But you don't have to go crazy.

00:36:53.840 And then the other thing, too, you highlight that this is interesting.

00:36:56.180 A few years ago, standing desk became all the rage because people heard, you know, sitting is the new smoking.

00:37:01.840 Like, OK, well, I got to stand up while I'm working.

00:37:04.560 Can standing, like standing all day at work, can that offset the downsides of being sedentary?

00:37:09.620 No. And this was such a drag, too, because I had people say that to me.

00:37:12.920 They're like, oh, I'm so glad I have a standing desk.

00:37:15.120 And I was like, oh, I'm so sorry to tell you this.

00:37:17.760 There have been massive studies looking at all the different clinical trials about standing desks.

00:37:25.440 And unfortunately, the consensus is that standing at the very best doesn't really, you know, cause much harm.

00:37:33.560 It gets you up.

00:37:34.260 Maybe it relieves some back pain.

00:37:35.820 But at the very worst can actually cause circulation problems, increase your risk for stroke and varicose veins and things like that.

00:37:43.480 it's the movement that stimulates the muscles. And when the muscles are stimulated, they suck 0.92

00:37:49.760 in the glucose. They push the oxygen up. Just standing, unfortunately, is not the answer.

00:37:56.760 It's so sad again. Yeah. But the answer, it's easy. It's just five minutes of gentle movement

00:38:02.280 every 25 minutes. If you can't do that, at least an hour. Do an hour. Every two hours. I mean.

00:38:08.060 Just move more. Just move more. Yeah, exactly. What we ended up finding was that most people,

00:38:12.740 you know if you if you hate the timers there's another thing like some people would just set a

00:38:17.800 goal like i'm going to take four or five minute breaks today and then just when it pops up and

00:38:21.680 it feels doable you know what i mean and i think what what i also found so interesting and they're

00:38:27.180 starting to be more research into this this is not in the book because the research is very

00:38:30.960 preliminary but this idea that the number one thing people did was set timers in order to get

00:38:36.900 themselves moving and that makes sense right you can't remember to get up you're in the middle of

00:38:40.360 something. But what ended up happening, and I've seen this in myself, and it sounds like you

00:38:45.220 probably do too, is that your body begins to send you pings and messages. That like, even if you

00:38:53.640 don't set the timer, it'll start to say like, yo, I'm feeling a little rough around here. Can we

00:38:59.220 please get up? Can we please get up? And many people told me that by the end of the two-week

00:39:03.900 study, they didn't need to use their timers anymore. And I was just talking to some researchers

00:39:08.940 at the NIH who are looking into this idea of interoception and motivation and how the

00:39:16.820 body begins.

00:39:17.620 They think it has something to do with sort of circadian rhythms, but not what has to

00:39:21.940 do with, you know, night or morning or anything like that, but that the body gets itself on

00:39:26.280 a sort of rhythm and it begins to anticipate and alert the brain that it wants something

00:39:32.660 or needs something, which I think is really interesting.

00:39:35.800 Yeah. And as you increase your movement, you increase your interoception.

00:39:39.180 So you were able to notice those urges to move more.

00:39:43.500 Totally. And like Keith said to me, he's like, you know, I feel like we don't want like people walking around in circles like robots.

00:39:51.300 Like that's not the goal. But I think for younger people, if you tell them, you know, this will help with your anxiety, your ability to focus.

00:40:00.480 We hear a lot about people having more depressive symptoms.

00:40:04.720 This will help you feel more positive.

00:40:08.260 And then for people, you know, of a certain age, I'll include myself, I've started thinking about chronic illness.

00:40:13.500 I don't want a chronic illness.

00:40:16.020 And if this is something I can do that makes me feel better and protects my health for longer so I can live not just longer but live well, then why the hell not?

00:40:26.240 Yeah.

00:40:26.440 Yeah. One bit of advice I'd give to people who want to start this, and you talk about this in

00:40:30.360 the book, is don't use your smartphone or smartwatches nudges that they have. I think

00:40:36.420 the Apple Watch has this where like, if you haven't been moving for a while, it's like,

00:40:40.000 get up and move. I talked to someone, it was a psychologist who brought up research that

00:40:45.120 those nudges, like those automatic nudges, they actually backfire because you start to resent

00:40:50.420 them. It's like, I don't want to do that. And I noticed that with the Apple Watch, because I set

00:40:53.640 that up in the apple watch apple watch my first god is like oh i can have it remind me to move

00:40:57.920 when i haven't been moving and i would just be like dismiss dismiss dismiss shut up for the rest

00:41:02.040 of the day so if you want to set up a nudge like you have to like make it yourself like set up a

00:41:06.820 timer so don't don't rely on the ai to tell you to move and the way i like to think of it is that

00:41:12.220 setting it with intention is you're making a contract with yourself right like you're saying 0.99

00:41:16.660 like in one hour i will take a five minute walk and instead of being like stupid machine you're 0.99

00:41:22.960 like, oh yeah, okay, I made a plan, better get up and go. That's not to say it'll be easy. Like 0.99

00:41:27.860 there are some days where I'm like, I don't want to, I'm comfortable in my chair, but I feel better

00:41:32.900 every single time. So something else you do besides exploring these overall systemic health

00:41:40.200 benefits of moving gently several times throughout the day, you also talk about what staring at our

00:41:46.480 screens all day is doing to our eyes and to our ears. So how are screens messing up our vision?

00:41:54.180 Well, I did not know that they are changing the shape of our eyeballs. So our eyes are extremely

00:42:02.100 malleable and cooperative. If you tell them that you want to look at something that is close to you

00:42:08.760 a lot, they will conform. They will change shape and become sort of egg-like shapes and you will

00:42:15.540 go nearsighted. And what they've seen is that in the past few decades, this is happening to younger

00:42:21.280 and younger kids and more and more kids. I think there's some statistic that it's like one out of

00:42:27.040 three kids is now nearsighted. And I spoke to Maria Liu at Berkeley, who has been studying

00:42:33.780 exactly because because for the longest time, people thought, oh, if you're nearsighted,

00:42:37.940 it's genetics, like tough luck. And she was convinced that it was actually lifestyle and

00:42:43.780 behavior that were these soaring rates that she saw in her native China that were starting to come 0.65

00:42:49.480 to the U.S. This is, you know, 20 years ago. And so she went into the lab and she actually fitted

00:42:54.460 chicks with contact lenses that made them nearsighted and then tracked how their eyeballs 1.00

00:43:00.780 changed shape. And we see the same things in humans that the more you stare at a screen, 0.97

00:43:06.820 the better your eyes will get at doing that. It's basically saying to your eyes, I don't need you

00:43:11.280 to look into the distance, and so they lose the ability to do so. The good news is that as long

00:43:17.360 as your eyes are still growing, and this is actually into your 30s, there are treatments now

00:43:22.940 that will reverse the effects. You can literally turn back the clock, and you need to combine that

00:43:28.880 with things like going outside. I was like, like looking at the window? She was like, no, you have

00:43:35.340 to go outside. Your brain, when you're inside, knows that there are walls, and it won't be able

00:43:41.140 to get the full horizon effect that your eyes need.

00:43:45.400 She also said you need to go outside.

00:43:47.740 They're not entirely sure why vitamin D and sunlight are so powerful for healthy eyes.

00:43:55.040 But that combination of being outside, looking into the horizon, scanning the horizon, and

00:44:01.120 doing it regularly tells your eyes that they need to be good at looking close and far.

00:44:08.240 All right.

00:44:08.420 So, I mean, this is especially if you're a parent of young kids, make sure they're not just looking at screens.

00:44:13.320 Make sure they get outside and look at the horizon.

00:44:15.180 If you're over 30 and you're already nearsighted, it seems like the clock has already ran out on you.

00:44:20.300 Kind of.

00:44:21.000 If you, yeah, but it does matter.

00:44:23.060 Like if you're in your 20s, you got to be on top of it.

00:44:25.800 You know, if you work inside or you work in a lab or whatever, you will go nearsighted faster.

00:44:30.720 So, you know, to me, I was like, wow, I could have done something.

00:44:35.140 I could have staved it off.

00:44:36.140 But you're right.

00:44:36.700 Once your eyes stop growing, you're sort of cooked.

00:44:38.900 Yeah.

00:44:39.160 But it's still good for you to get outside when you're on that walk.

00:44:42.080 Don't look at your screen.

00:44:43.140 Look at the horizon.

00:44:44.400 You might not be able to change the shape of your eyeball if you're 45.

00:44:47.500 But I think it's still good for you.

00:44:49.140 I mean, I got football-shaped eyeballs.

00:44:50.700 I'm in astigmatism.

00:44:51.920 But I still like to get out there and scope out the horizon.

00:44:54.480 It does feel nice on the eyeball.

00:44:56.800 And there's a good reason why it feels nice.

00:44:58.280 There's actually been research into animal eyes.

00:45:01.160 certain mammals, they have seen that sunlight that hits the back of their retina releases serotonin.

00:45:08.080 They have not been able to show this in humans because it's hard to prove. But like you say,

00:45:13.400 I don't know about you, but when I get some sunlight, like, you know, it just feels good,

00:45:16.740 right? Yeah. What about your health? Because what a lot of people use their digital devices for

00:45:24.220 is to listen to stuff. You know, they're always walking around with, you know, AirPods in their

00:45:28.180 years. Yes. So there has been a really fascinating study going on between Apple and a Michigan

00:45:36.440 researcher named Rick Neitzel. This is the Apple hearing study where they have tens of thousands

00:45:41.620 of people enrolled through the iPhone. So they've been able to track noise exposure, you know,

00:45:47.000 how long they're listening to something, the volume, also the external noise. So do people

00:45:52.860 put on noise canceling do they raise the volume in order to counteract you know they're walking

00:45:58.300 by a construction site or something like that and rick told me you know because i was like well you

00:46:03.140 just need to turn down the volume right he was like yet not only that though it's the duration

00:46:09.740 of listening your ears it turns out also need breaks so you know that feeling when i don't know

00:46:16.620 about you guns and roses man would come out and you couldn't hear for a couple days yeah those

00:46:21.840 are the cilia, the little tiny hairs in your ear that have been damaged. And if you give them a

00:46:27.480 break and you let them relax, they will eventually recover. They can recover. But if you do that

00:46:34.400 often enough or you wear down your cilia and you never give them a break, once they die, 0.95

00:46:39.720 they do not grow back. So they are seeing and expect to see more levels of people losing their

00:46:45.740 hearing at much earlier ages. And, you know, for a while people were like, well, why didn't we see

00:46:50.480 that when we first started when you know had consumer devices like the sony walkman and they

00:46:55.820 think that the reason why that didn't really have that much of an effect or damage people's hearing

00:47:01.120 was because the battery life was so crappy and now of course we charge our phones and we listen

00:47:06.900 non-stop so again take breaks yeah exposure something is being used in your body when you

00:47:14.080 are exposing yourself to exterior sound uh information vision and your body just needs

00:47:19.580 to regroup. And hearing loss, I think they're starting to see more hearing loss in younger and

00:47:24.500 younger people because they're always got their AirPods in really loud. But hearing loss can

00:47:29.160 eventually contribute to dementia down the road. That's right. And also it's related to people

00:47:34.500 losing their balance and falling, the vestibular sort of feeling of being able to hold yourself

00:47:40.000 without falling over. So yeah, there's very good reasons to protect your health. And there's

00:47:46.400 actually this has not been shown yet but there's suspicions that um having noise canceling on all

00:47:53.380 the time might disrupt some sort of connection between your ears and parts of the brain they're

00:48:00.620 not entirely sure so for comprehension but that's very preliminary you also talk about how our

00:48:06.440 digital lives are impacting our sleep so how are our screens messing up our sleep well i mean i

00:48:14.180 I thought it was, I was like, it's going to be blue light, right?

00:48:17.680 Blue light is the devil.

00:48:18.820 And actually, they don't think that blue light is the problem.

00:48:22.740 It's so minimal what blue light does in terms of, look, there are some people who would

00:48:28.300 say, no, I'm very sensitive to it.

00:48:29.920 Absolutely.

00:48:30.660 And children absolutely are sensitive to blue light.

00:48:33.780 But on the whole, the new thinking is that rather than the devices themselves messing

00:48:39.580 with our sleep it's the fact that we are displacing our sleep with time on screens so somebody can't

00:48:47.580 sleep what do they do they look at a screen it's not necessarily the screen that's making them

00:48:51.880 unable to sleep it's because they turn to the screen or we have the phone on next to us and

00:48:57.500 it's not you know looking at the phone right before we go to bed necessarily that's making

00:49:01.720 it impossible for us to sleep it's constantly being interrupted you know i have my phone on

00:49:07.160 next to my bed because I'm nervous wreck. I have elderly parents and I have teenagers, but I did

00:49:12.620 learn to set it up. So they are the only people who can call me in the middle of the night.

00:49:17.020 So it's this idea that, you know, just one more show, just like, let's keep playing game and you

00:49:22.940 lose track of what time it is. It is displacing the amount of sleep that you got. And that it's

00:49:27.680 not necessarily the screens itself. Yeah. We had a chronobiologist on the podcast a while back ago.

00:49:33.180 He mentioned that it's like, it's not like the light from a screen is not enough to disrupt

00:49:37.820 your circadian rhythm. So you don't have to wear those goofy Elton John blue blocker glasses,

00:49:44.080 but yeah, just, but you need to know yourself, right? If you were a person who loses track of

00:49:48.780 time or you can't help, but be like, Oh my God, I wonder what happens in the next episode.

00:49:53.660 Like you need to know that. Okay. This is a problem for you. Turn it off. Don't blame the

00:50:00.180 screens though for you're not sleeping well blame yourself essentially and then the other way that

00:50:05.740 screens can mess up our sleep or just being on screens all day is we're not moving and being

00:50:09.880 sedentary can also mess up your sleep because you're not building up sleep pressure like your

00:50:14.400 body needs movement to feel like you're tired at the end of the day and if you don't if you're just

00:50:17.720 sitting around all day your body's like well i'm not tired we don't need to go to sleep i think to

00:50:21.320 me that was the best explanation for the feeling of being wired and tired this idea that like you

00:50:29.120 We're exhausted and yet like on alert, I guess, is the way to think of it.

00:50:36.400 And I hate that feeling so much.

00:50:39.480 And what I have noticed, I do track my steps.

00:50:42.360 And what I have noticed is I need to hit, if I hit 12,000 steps every day, that's when

00:50:49.440 I can sleep properly.

00:50:50.860 It makes a huge difference for me.

00:50:53.720 It's so obvious.

00:50:54.620 If I only get 8,000, I do not sleep as well.

00:50:57.100 I need the full sort of mental and physical fatigue to be able to rest, to really enjoy and sort of let go.

00:51:06.600 Speaking of step count, did Keith Diaz, did his research find that you had to hit a certain amount of steps a day to get these benefits or it didn't matter as long as you moved five minutes?

00:51:16.400 Keith hates step trackers, which it really cracks me up.

00:51:19.980 He said that when he started wearing one, it made him weird.

00:51:23.540 like he would be doing laps around his living room to try to get his step count up he's like

00:51:28.020 it does not work for me it becomes my master i don't care he's like what you need to do is put

00:51:34.200 in the time you don't need to go crazy no like sprinting needed if you want to do jumping jacks

00:51:39.920 go for it but you really don't have to it's just putting in the time putting one foot in front of

00:51:45.540 the other last question so you're a parent i'm a parent too our kids they've lived in a world where

00:51:51.860 they don't know a world without screens. Like they've probably seen one since they were one

00:51:56.980 years old. What can we do to help our kids integrate screens in their lives in a healthier

00:52:02.180 way? Yeah, I mean, I think that we've become so negative about screens to the point where

00:52:10.200 it might be backfiring. I just think, you know, shaming kids for time that they spend

00:52:15.260 on their phones when really, you know, a lot of the time it's how they connect with the world

00:52:20.180 and with their friends. I just want us to think about what we're missing when we are on screens,

00:52:27.600 and that is movement and getting outside. So like, you know, instead of like, oh, my God,

00:52:32.040 get off your phone, just be like, hey, did you get some stroll time in today? Did you go for a walk?

00:52:36.980 I think if they're younger, you know, taking a lap around the block after dinner,

00:52:41.520 a dog is actually a great way to get them moving. Having conversations about, you know,

00:52:47.180 if you're going to have iPad time again for the little ones like how do you feel before you're

00:52:51.780 starting on your iPad you feel good okay and then afterwards how do you feel and if they're grouchy

00:52:57.360 be like okay so now we know that maybe you spent too long on your iPad you know maybe let's let's

00:53:02.180 do it a little less next time so that you don't feel grouchy I think for teenagers you know it's

00:53:07.360 hard right like boy is it hard but I have seen that my kids walk themselves essentially they

00:53:15.120 make sure that they get out and air themselves multiple times a day. And they just, they don't

00:53:21.720 feel right. If they don't, they're like, oh, I need a walk. And that is just music to my ears.

00:53:27.740 Yeah. So just have those conversations, encourage them to develop their sense of

00:53:31.740 interoception and maybe offer some gentle nudging.

00:53:35.860 Yeah. And I think it's more saying, you know, what you can do and should do as opposed to what

00:53:41.240 you can't and shouldn't. Let's frame it as positive. Let's frame it as enjoying the world.

00:53:46.240 Let's frame it as, you know, touch grass. Touch grass. Well, Manoush, this has been a fantastic

00:53:51.960 conversation. I think everyone, hope everyone goes out and starts taking their five-minute walks,

00:53:56.200 but where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

00:53:59.540 Oh, yeah. So, well, I'm the host of NPR's TED Radio Hour, and you can find out more about the

00:54:04.000 book. I'm manoushz.com, M-A-N-O-U-S-H-Z.com. And that's me on Instagram as well. And Brett,

00:54:12.820 my God, congratulations. Like, I hope I'm on again in another nine years.

00:54:17.660 Let's make it happen.

00:54:18.880 Let's do it.

00:54:19.840 All right. Well, Manoush Zomorodi, thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure.

00:54:22.400 Mine too.

00:54:24.320 My guest here is Manoush Zomorodi. She's the author of the book, Body Electric. It's available

00:54:27.820 on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find more information about her work at

00:54:31.320 our website, manushz.com. Also check out our show notes at awim.is slash body electric,

00:54:36.780 where you can find links to resources where we delve deeper into this topic.

00:54:46.980 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AWIM podcast. If you haven't done so already,

00:54:50.640 I'd appreciate it if you take one minute to give us a review on the podcast player that you use.

00:54:54.520 And if you've done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend

00:54:58.100 or a family member who would think

00:54:59.320 there's something out of it.

00:55:00.440 As always, thank you for the continued support.

00:55:02.220 Until next time, it's Brett McKay.

00:55:03.660 Remind you to not listen to anyone's podcast,

00:55:05.380 but put what you've heard into action.

00:55:24.180 Hey, before you go, here's one more episode to consider.

00:55:26.680 In episode number 716, we dig into a paradox.

00:55:30.140 How do you make your life easier without becoming passive?

00:55:32.740 It's all about clearing friction, choosing your battles wisely, and crafting habits that

00:55:36.580 help you move forward with less drag.

00:55:38.540 You can find it at aom.is slash effortless.

00:55:41.400 That's aom.is slash effortless.

00:55:43.540 A lot of great actionable insights in this episode.

00:55:45.420 Check it out today.

The Art of Manliness - May 05, 2026

Why Screen Time Leaves You Exhausted — And How to Reverse Its Effects

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