TED Radio Hour - Body Electric Part 4: Below the Belt

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

In part four: host Manoush Zomorodi explores the connection between our posture and our mood. A lot of us associate our neck and back pain with spending hours hunched over our phones and laptops. But what if that hunched posture is also making us feel tired, stressed, and anxious? Neuroscientist Peter Strick discusses his groundbreaking research on why exercising our core muscles lowers our stress.Also in this episode: how a faulty, incorrect study went viral — claiming smartphones were causing people to grow horns on their backs. Science journalist Nsikan Akpan sets the record straight. Later, writer Paul Ingraham shares his daily strategy for doing movement snacks and strength building while balancing deadlines.Click here to find out more about the project: npr.org/bodyelectricAre you signed up for Columbia's study, or following along with the series? We want to hear from you! Send us a voice memo at [e-mail]. Talk to us on Instagram @ManoushZ, and on Facebook @tedradiohour.See 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

Okay, I hope this isn't TMI, but for the last several years, I have seen a rotating cast of professionals, including an orthopedist, physical therapist, chiropractor, acupuncturist, massage therapist, and pelvic floor specialist. All for my aching back. Actually, I should specify my sacroiliac joint dysfunction. Sometimes they've helped. Sometimes they haven't. And so I have also spent hours online, usually before. or bedtime, Googling and trying to find the source of my discomfort. One night in 2019, I came across a story that, wow, peaked my interest.

So there was this article that had gone viral from the Washington Post about how smartphones are making millennials grow horns on the back of their neck. And experts think it's from using our phones so much. All kinds of news outlets were reporting this story all around the world. You might say your kids act like little devils, but what if their phones are actually causing them to grow horns? They're really bone spurs. The researchers speculate they're caused, by the way, the head tilts toward or forward when they're using a cell phone or similar device.

The horn-like spurs typically don't present until far later in adulthood. It's fascinating. All these news reports were based on one study that had been published in the Distinguished Science Publication. Nature. Seacan Akpan heard the news too. Off the bat, I just sort of felt like, I'm a millennial. I use my smartphone all the time. I did not have a horn on my back. And I didn't know any other millennials who had horns on their back. So I was pretty skeptical.

So Sikon is actually a science journalist with a PhD in pathobiology. And at the time, he was working at PBS News Hour, where he had a reputation for picking apart eyebrow-raising health claims. This one set off all kinds of alarm bells for him. This story was so viral. I had, you know, I had multiple people in my lives, like, sending it to me being like, is this real? Can you believe this? And I was like, no, absolutely.

I do not. I do not believe it. And so I was like, this is a huge claim. Let me go look at this study in scientific reports, which is a branch of nature, which is one of the preeminent science journals in the world. And so when I looked at that, study, there were some immediate red flags that told me that maybe this conclusion was poo-boo. First, Sikon saw that the researchers were chiropractors who were selling, wait for it, posture pillows.

And so, you know, putting out into the world, hey, we think we found this thing about how people's posture is really bad when they look at their cell phones and now they're growing horns, like, here's this pillow that can help you. Like, they didn't really declare that. Next, the study assumed that phone use and these bone growths were connected in some way. They said, okay, we asked these patients about their cell phone usage, and then we looked at whether or not they had these bone spurs on their necks or signs of them. And then, like, they just essentially just, like, said, oh, we think that there is some type of correlation here. Finally, the researchers drew big conclusions by looking at x-rays, from people who were already seeing a chiropractor.

One of the big takeaways in the study was that, oh, we think that this could be happening in a third of the population, of the total population. Like, that's a literal quote, 33% of the total population. That's a lot of people. It's a lot. A lot of people. Wouldn't we all know if we had bonespurs on the backs of our necks? Yeah, exactly.

You would think, oh, man, I should have noticed this. at some point. Sikon wrote an article laying out all these issues, debunking the research and calling out some of his fellow journalists for picking up the story. Nature issued a correction. But the Washington Post, one of the most reputable and biggest publications, it only posted an update to its article. Saying like this story has concerns.

So if you go and you look at this original Washington Post story... It's still there. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and it's not like people go back to the viral news stories later to make sure they're true. Once a headline is out there, it sticks in people's minds and it sticks around the internet. Yeah, I just think that it kind of builds into kind of like an erosion of trust with news and with journalism. When a news outlet reports, hey, here's a thing. these researchers say it's real

and like it involves something that you use every single day. Seekon, the thing is I think many people do suspect that technology is doing something to them physically. And I think the reason why this research did go big is that many of us thought like, oh, finally, here's an answer, something definitive about what is happening to us. Do you think that that's it? Yeah, no, I think that's absolutely it, right? I think there is a, there's an underlying curiosity about what are the negative effects of the technology that we use every single day. And I think we're wondering, like, there's got to be, there's got to be some downside.

Sikon is now the health and science editor at WNYC, by the way. And I wanted him to tell this story for two reasons. One, it just goes to show how much misinformation about our health is out there, which we knew. But two, there are no simple answers to how our digital habits are affecting our very complex human bodies. Your complex human body. Looking down at our phones and laptops isn't suddenly morphing our skeletal structures. But our posture does impact our health. health and our mood in ways that we are beginning to understand.

This is Body Electric, a special series from NPR investigating the relationship between our technology and our bodies. I'm Anous Zamerooti, and on this fourth episode, we are going below the belt. We are taking a deep dive into the latest real science about our posture and what is making us feel so tired and worn out at the end of a day spent looking at a screen. Here's a hint. It might be all in your mind. Literally. We'll be right back.

We're back. So what is bad posture from all that sitting, typing, and tapping really doing to us? It's not giving us bone spurs. Maybe it does give you tight muscles or a lower back ache. but also it might be why we feel so drained at the end of the day. Turns out there's a connection between our posture, hunching over our gadgets, and feeling stressed out. Our story starts with a frazzled neuroscientist

at the University of Pittsburgh Brain Institute. I'm Peter Strick, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and chair of a department. So about eight or so years ago, Peter was feeling particularly tense. Work pressures were getting to him. A major part of my life is just supporting the people in my lab and keeping my research program going. And that can be stressful. And it's not like Peter was good at keeping his stress bottled up inside.

I can get short with people and yell at the dog. And I don't do things to lighten my... my lord. And my kids see that. His children suggested that he do yoga or Pilates to relieve his stress. Peter thought that was a really dumb idea. I thought they were nuts. I didn't think that there was any really objective data that suggested that yoga, Pilates, have any real impact on stress. So Dr. Peter Strick wasn't just being a curmudgeonly father. He happens to be a leading expert on the relationship between the brain and movement. And so even though there are lots of studies

that show exercise like yoga and Pilates are good for our mental and physical health, he needed to know exactly what was going on in the brain that could prove yoga and Pilates decrease stress. I need to see that there's a neural connection, that there's a real biological basis. At this point, we need to have a brief anatomy lesson. When we get stressed, the brain sends signals to the adrenal glands.

If you put your hands right on your lower back, kind of around your waist, that is where your kidneys are. And sitting on top of your kidneys are your adrenal glands. And inside each little gland is the adrenal medulla. The adrenal medulla has special powers. They can release a kind of fairy dust. Well, really, it's just a hormone. You've probably heard of it. adrenaline. This hormone is what gets your heart pumping, primes you for fight or flight.

And we haven't known really anything beyond that. Yeah, until recently, most scientists believe that moving your core muscles had nothing to do with how the brain and the adrenal glands communicate. That's correct. When you say something like how you move as an impact on organ function, there's some people who are just going to say, oh, that's ridiculous. But Peter happens to be the inventor of a method that can trace the signals that get sent between our brain and our muscles, those pathways. We won't get into the details, but in the late 90s, he pioneered a way of using the rabies virus in chimps to map out these connections. Using a virus to go from one neuron to another and reveal large,

to scale neural networks. Yeah, so several years later, his kids are bugging him, and he is thinking, hmm, well, let's see if my method can find out if moving our core muscles has any effect on the adrenal glands and networks in our brain.

Essentially, can using your core muscles relieve stress? And I said, well, let's give it a try. I mean, why shouldn't it work? So we injected the adrenal medulla with a virus, and we traced it back into the brain all the way to the cerebral cortex, and then mapped which cortical areas influenced the adrenal medulla.

And that's where the surprise came. That there were multiple cortical areas, and some of them are involved in the control of movement, some of them are involved in cognition, and others are involved in control of affect. Do you get that? Basically, they discovered that stress is controlled by more than just the thinking part of the brain. Other parts of the brain, too, which control our senses and our muscles.

They're all talking to the adrenal medulla. And that was what was so surprising to me that from our results, we saw that connection. This was a really big deal. And so there's a clear link between how we move, think and feel. Not only that, but they found that the area of the brain that talks to the adrenomodula, it was getting signals from the core muscles. So your back and thoracic muscles, that region. Can we go back to your story about sort of poo-pooing your kid's suggestion that you do Pilates or yoga? And then finding that, you know, there is a little bit of, you know, there is a

is a connection, as you just explained. So what happened? Did you decide, all right, I am going to give this a shot? Yeah, absolutely. The muscles that control posture, our core muscles, have an impact on an organ that is involved in stress. That was sort of a wake-up call for me, that I better do something about working on my core. So Peter tried Pilates, and he found out it's not really his thing. I'm not doing Pilates. I've got a personal trainer who's working on my core in other ways with free weights and other exercises. It's great fun and it's also working. What do you mean? I think that I'm less stressed out.

Would you agree then that poor posture, let's say you're sitting at a laptop for hours on end, it affects how you use your torso, affects your axial control? and therefore also impacts the brain makes you feel stress, exhaustion. Yeah. So the brain is influencing all of our organ systems and how we move influences all of our organs. Organs that are involved in the immune system, our heart, stomach, lungs, all these organs are influenced by the regions that are involved in the immune system.

cortical control of your trunk axial muscles. And my mother used to tell me, Peter, stand up straight. Well, what we've shown is that the regions of the brain that are involved in standing up straight may have an influence over our first responder in times of stress. Yeah, and it really makes me think that if more people understood the growing scientific evidence of this mind-body connection, that they would give it a try. Boy, do a lot of us spend all day not moving our core muscles at all. Oh, absolutely.

You know, the evidence for this is just overwhelming. What I think we're able to do is show that there is an actual biological substrate that underlies these so-called psychosomatic disorders. And you look up in Google psychosomatic, it's a put-down. You know, it's all in your mind, as if you're a... mind wasn't your brain and something biological. There are illnesses like chronic fatigue syndrome, which at one point was considered psychosomatic. We now know long COVID. That's not psychosomatic. It's real. The brain has a connection to all of these organs that means that brain function can impact

your immune system. Brain function can impact your heart. Brain function can impact organs that are critical for stress responses. And I think that that's key. That once you show that there's biology behind these things, then people who understand, this is real. I talk to people and they say, oh my gosh, I've been at my computer all day. My butt is killing me.

And all I can do is lie down on the couch and watch Netflix. And it seems like there's two things happening here. One is that they physically feel worn out. and the other is that they mentally feel worn out. And it seems like this is just a snowball effect that the feeling crappy in your body affects your brain and then feeling bad in your brain affects your body. And is it just wrapped up in ways that we are just starting to untangle?

Yeah, I think that that's really important. That it is a two-way street. You know, slump and then stand up straight. and see what that does to your mood and affect. Where do you think things are going with this, Peter? Like, what's going to happen in the next couple decades? I think there's a whole world to explore in terms of how the brain influences the function of our organs. Really getting people, kids moving, I think is important for health of all of our organ systems.

That's neuroscientist Peter Strick. And after talking to him, I have this image of our little organs and our big core muscles and our big old brain all talking to each other and deciding to make us relax and feel better. I also really love that Peter's kids made him eat his words. My kids have said, you know, Dad, you ought to try that. And I said, come on, give me a break. I don't have time for this crap. But as it turns out, again, they're right. All right. When we come back, one man's approach to improving his posture while balancing all his deadlines.

If you get your flow on, keep it. Shut up, timer. See in a sec. So, if you've signed up for the study with Columbia, you are now trying to get movement into your day, either moving five minutes every half hour, every hour, every hour. every hour or every two hours depending on the cohort you signed up for. Or maybe you are just trying this whole weird thing on your own, which is great. We've heard from a bunch of you, and here's what you've told us so far. Hey, Body Electric, my name is Matt.

On the days when I got up and walked around, I had pretty consistent energy throughout the day. On the days when I didn't get up and walk around, I could feel my brain tightening, my anxiety increasing. I wish it was easier to take care of my body without then simultaneously being late to respond to an email. How can I work in five minutes of walking while driving? I could pull over, get out, walk. Can I do some sort of like car yoga shifting my hip? I truly believe that this change of a lifestyle is hopefully a game changer for me. This is Mari out in Oregon. And my breaks today have been far easier because it's a gorgeous day outside. But I've also heard from a few people, the hardcore amongst you, that regularly strolling throughout your day is not enough.

Other folks say that making time for exercise snacks and getting to the gym for a workout is really tough. So what if there was an exercise regimen that combined these mini breaks and the intense endorphin rush that you get from, a big workout. My journey started long before I had any chronic pain myself. Well, meet Paul Ingram, chronic pain sufferer, health misinformation debunker, and founder of the website, Painscience.com. I was a registered massage therapist here in Canada, and while I was doing it, I started writing articles for my clients because there was never enough time to talk to them

about all the things we wanted to talk about during appointments. And then that exploded. Those articles got popular. I started getting a global audience and it kind of took over. So Paul was doing this work when, ironically, I developed chronic pain myself, starting in 2015. I've had a lot of undiagnosed health problems that include a whole bunch of pain. Basically feels like premature aging to me.

So that, you know, put a whole new spin on my work. So Paul's work requires him spending the majority of his time at a computer, researching and writing. His chronic pain means he has to be really diligent about getting movement into his day. So we asked Paul to take us through his routine, one that he's come up with based on all he's learned about pain management while taking into account his lifestyle. Here is his daily strategy. Lots of movement snacks. That's my number one strategy for preventing immobilization suffering. I try not to sit for longer than 20 minutes at a time.

I get up and I go out onto the nice balcony that my office has, and I pick up a pair of 20-pound barbells, and I do 10 squats, and then I do 10 barbell curls, 10 deadlifts. And push-ups, I do a mini-workout. It takes about 90 seconds. Or I do a chore, or I've got an errand to run, and that counts as exercise, too. But rule number one is, don't sweat it too much. If something's really uncomfortable, we stop doing it. And so if there's something about our working situation that is excessively unpleasant, we will usually knock it off. You know, when I'm out there on the deck, I'm not thinking I'm preventing back pain. I'm preventing back pain. I'm thinking, wow, it's really beautiful out here. And I need to exercise because fitness is good for a thousand other reasons. Back pain is just one small part of the picture. And when I go home, I don't want to be fussed about it. I got a nice, comfy, big old blue chair, and I sit down in that with my laptop and work there and don't sweat it, literally.

This makes me so happy. So for this week, Move because it feels good. Move because you like being alive. And because moving can make you like being alive. Next week, episode five of Body Electric. We are going even further into the mind-body tech connection with the latest research into how information overload affects our mental and physical health. Silence is an increasingly endangered species.

Make sure you're back for that. Meanwhile, if you're trying to get movement snacks into your life, let us know how it's going. Tell us the best moment you've had so far and the worst. Or as my daughter calls it, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Record a voice memo and send it to bodyelectric at npr.org and thank you. You can also find us online. I'm at Manus Z on Instagram, and we're at TED Radio Hour. on Facebook. To find all of our episodes, go to npr.org slash bodyelectric or go to the TED Radio Hour

podcast feed. Body Electric was produced by Katie Montalione and edited by Sanaz Meshkampur with production support from Rachel Faulkner White. Our original music is by David Herman. Our audio engineer was Gilly Moon. Our fact checker was Chloe Weiner. Thanks also to Anya Grundman, Lauren Gonzalez, Lindsay McKenna, Yolanda Sanguini, Beth Donovan, Irene Noguchi, Julia Carney, Fiona, and to Dr. James Hamblin and his 2016 article in the Atlantic that turned me on to Peter Strick's research. I'm Anish Zamorodi, and you've been listening to Body Electric from NPR.