Short Wave - Checking In On Our Pandemic Habits: What To Lose And What To Keep?

Episode Date: March 8, 2022

Over the last few years, we've all found different ways to cope with the pandemic. Some people started drinking more, moving less, maybe eating more. Now that the pandemic is at a lull, health experts say it's time to take stock of these habits. Short Wave host Aaron Scott chats with health correspondent Allison Aubrey about how our daily habits have been affected and changed — for better or worse — and how one might start to change ones they want to change.You can follow Aaron on Twitter @AaronScottNPR and Allison @AubreyNPR. Email Short Wave at [e-mail] pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hey there, Shortwavers. Aaron Scott here, and I have the pleasure of chatting with Alison Aubrey, who joins us regularly. Hey there, Alison. Hey, Aaron, it's great to be here. I remember when you were an intern on the Science Dock. I know that was a while back. It's been a couple of years.

Yes, indeed. Thank you very much. And I'm super excited that we got to do our first episode together. So what are we going to be talking about today? We are going to talk habits. as we all kind of get to the end of this second pandemic winter. We've all developed various ways to cope over the last two years. Some of them helpful, some not so helpful.

Baking comes to mind for me. Baking is great, just not every day. So when it comes to our eating habits, alcohol consumption, daily exercise, turns out some of these bad habits are persisting, and it might be time for a reboot. All right. So today on the show then, Allison and I talk about how the initiation of lockdown rules in March,

2020 had a profound effect on people's daily habits and how to think about trying to get back to a more healthy lifestyle. You're listening to Shortwave, the Daily Science Podcasts from MPR. All right, Allison, so a few weeks ago, you spoke with Emily about trying to get back to the doctor for regular health screenings. Today, we're going to focus on what people might do on their own when it comes to their personal health and well-being. Let's start with exercise. We all know it's good for us. How has the pandemic affected our physical activity? Well, two years ago at the start of the lockdown restrictions, physical activity fell off pretty significantly.

There's a very clever study where researchers tracked people's daily steps via smartphone using an app and found initial declines of up to about 30 percent or so. Now, maybe this isn't too surprising given people were not going out. Everything was closed. I spoke to the study author. His name is Jeff Tyson. He's a cardiologist at UC San Francisco. And he continues to track steps. So the research is ongoing. They've collected about 100 million measurements from nearly a million people.

And it turns out people are still moving less compared to before the pandemic began. People's activities globally have not come back to pre-pendemic levels. There is variation, but it's been almost two years. I think it is possible that people are just less used. to being active. Lots of us know somebody who went the other direction, becoming more fit amid the pandemic. I'm jealous of those people myself. But in many countries, including here in the U.S., people, on average, are still moving less. Right, right. We have the Emily Kwong's of the world who take up running marathons. We heard about it last week. Very impressive. I, on the other hand,

I identify a little bit more with the folks who working from home can find at the end of the day, the furthest we went was up and down the stairs a couple of times to the kitchen. I get it. But it's also, I think, pretty commonplace for so many of us. So were the researchers at all surprised that our activity hasn't returned to normal? The researchers I talked to who study behavior change say they weren't not surprised to see that these pandemic habits really still persist. Here's Katie Milkman. She's a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania.

And she wrote the book, How to Change. You know, I wish it surprised me, but it doesn't. We know when a shock arises and it forces a change in our behavior for an extended period of time, there tend to be carryover effects because we're sticky in our behaviors. And this pandemic has certainly been a shock to our systems. And lots of the things that we've gotten accustomed to over the last two years are sticking around. This includes our exercise, our physical activity, as well as changes to our eating habits. and pattern of alcohol consumption. Right. Food and booze. Let's talk about those. So many of us recall there was a rush of liquor store sales when lockdowns first began.

What's happened since then? Well, last year in the U.S., people spent about $47 billion on beer products, 20 billion on wine, and 21 billion on spirits. This is data from Nielsen. So clearly, we are a nation of drinkers. And the pandemic drinking trends really mirror. the trend with physical activity. The most abrupt change occurred early in the lockdown. In fact, after that first week of stay-at-home orders back in March of 2020, Nielsen tracked a 54% increase

in the national sales of alcohol. So you're saying I'm not alone in that my recycling bin seems to be a lot more full than it used to be. That's right. Which is to say that, I mean, this also was happening at the same time that bars and restaurants were closing. So where people were drinking was also presumably changing, right? That's right. More people just got into the habit of drinking at home. One study found a 41% increase in heavy drinking among women in the early months of the pandemic. This was defined as drinking five or more drinks for men or four or more drinks for women within a couple of hours. And surveys also found more people reporting that they were drinking to cope. Yeah, and that can be a hard habit to break. So drinking was up at the

start of the pandemic, what's happening now? What has happened over the last year is that alcohol sales have declined some. This is also data from Nielsen that they shared with me, but drinking levels have not returned to pre-pandemic levels, suggesting that many people are still in the habit of drinking more at home. And all that alcohol cannot be great for their health. Is there any research that documents the effects over the past two years? There's a lot of overlap with stress, with anxiety so people may drink to cope and that might feel good in the short term, but in the end, they can set themselves up for more health problems. For instance, scientists have documented a rise in blood pressure amid the pandemic and alcohol is one of the risk factors. A study published in

the journal's circulation found that compared to the months leading up to March of 2020, there was a study rise in blood pressure among some 500,000 people across 50 states who were all part of study. I spoke to Michael Honenberg. He's a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital about this research. Blood pressure went up on average by over two points, over two millimeters of mercury. That's a small absolute change in a given individual patient, but at a population level that actually translates into quite a bit of excess risk. And so one thing I worry a lot about is whether this might translate into higher rates of heart attack, stroke, and other such complications across the population in the years to come.

Now, the researchers that published that paper say the possible reasons for this rise in blood pressure include increased alcohol consumption, as we just said, less physical activity and stress. That's something we've talked about a lot on the show. I mean, it's like just a giant overstuffed stress sandwich this pandemic we've been living in. And I'm guessing speaking of sandwiches that wake in also fits into the. this conversation, right? Yes, enough excess weight is also a risk for heart disease, and there's both

CDC data and studies pointing to an increase in weight gain amid the pandemic. One from researchers at UCSF found people gain more than a pound a month in the early months of the pandemic. And even if that weight gain has flattened out, which it likely has, Dr. Honenberg says it can be tough to shed that weight. People are still exercising less. Many have gained weight, anecdotally, a wine that we hear in clinic a lot is. I've gained some pounds since COVID started, but who hasn't? People are eating more, people are drinking more, people are exercising less. The big question is, what do we do about it? It sounds like it's probably going to be a lot to change our daily habits. Where do people begin? Well, there's a lot of science on the best ways to get started and also on the best ways to improve your

chances of success. To begin, always start with a bite-sized goal. If you want to run a marathon, start with a mile. If you want to lose 20 pounds, start with a strategy to lose five. It also helps when setting a new goal to join with someone else, a friend, a partner that can help you. And another strategy that really works is this, bet on yourself. Katie Milkman says there's a whole body of science to back up the idea that we are more likely to achieve our goals if we have to forfeit to give up something if we don't stick with it. There's wonderful research on cigarette smokers who want to quit and having a lot of way to put money on the line they'll have to forfeit if they don't achieve their goals within six months improve success rates by 30%. So you can literally put money on the line on a website or

with a friend that you say you'll forfeit if you don't achieve a goal. And that turns out to be hugely motivating. I love that. Gambling for good. That's right. So it is almost spring, which means for a lot of the country, we're going to get to set our clocks forward an hour this coming weekend. For many of us, that means warmer weather and more hours of daylight and sunshine. Exactly. Two things happening right now, a lull coming in the pandemic, so it seems, given the current trends, and the start of spring, Katie Milkman says together, it is a perfect time for a fresh start. My research on the fresh start effect has actually shown that there are moments in our lives that feel like new beginnings, and they include the start of spring. And if we give them a little nudge,

we can see really positive results. So with this change of seasons, this turning point in the pandemic, it could be the right time to try to get back on track. Thank you so much, Alison. This conversation has filled me with some hope. It has been a total joy talking with you, and I hope that this is the first of many conversations. Oh, I'm so glad to hear that.

It's great to be here, Aaron. This show is edited by Jane Greenhalsh and Giselle Grayson, who is also our senior supervising editor. The show is produced by Thomas. Lou fact check by Katie Seifer. Neil Carruth is our senior director of on-demand news programming and Anya Grunman is our senior vice president

of programming. Thank you for listening to Shortwave, the Daily Science Podcasts from NPR.