The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Four Thousand Steps A Day - The Sequel.

Episode Date: March 18, 2021

Remember all that talk including on this podcast about 4000 steps a day to stay healthy, then 10,000 steps a day.  Well, time for new research to tell us what's the right total. And have you ever heard of National Napping Day?  Get ready, you will now.  And how about taking a university course in "happiness"?  

Hello Peter Mansbridge here with the latest episode of The Bridge. Remember that old thing about 10,000 steps a day? Really? Is that how many you need to do? That's coming up next. Well, some of you old-timers in the bridge circuit will remember that it was about a year ago I told that story about the need to do 4,000 steps a day to keep yourself in, you know, some kind of shape during the pandemic. I had seen an article in, I'm not sure whether it was, you know, the Washington Post or the New York Times, but it had suggested 4,000 steps a day was the idea. And I ended up telling a story that day about Albert Speer,

the former Nazi cabinet minister for Adolf Hitlerler who had been found guilty during the war crimes trials at nuremberg after the war and he ended up going to spandau prison and in prison what he did was he walked around the prison yard over and over and over again and he actually came up with this idea of i'm going to imagine a trip. I'm going to walk around Germany. I'm going to walk around France. I'm going to walk around different places. And I'm going to imagine the trip as I'm walking every day.

And he did this for years. He was in the Spandau prison for most of the rest of his life. Not all of it, but most of it. And he talked in his book. I think it was the Spandau prison for most of the rest of his life. Not all of it, but most of it. And he talked in his book, I think it was the Spandau Diaries, after the war, about this whole idea of walking and what to imagine while you're walking, because it can get boring. And I brought that up because I was walking,

as I've started to do again now that the snow has gone, in my backyard, walking around and around and around. And, you know, you can either listen to podcasts, which I do, history podcasts, or you can imagine that you're walking on some big trip somewhere. Anyway, at that time, and this was about a year ago that article suggested 4 000 steps a day is what you needed well people started to stretch that out and it became 10 000 steps a day and that became kind of year but researchers have started studying well you know is 10 000 steps a day is that what you does that really make a difference or is that just some

arbitrary number and part of the research has ended up online at CNN. And they've got an article about this whole idea of 10,000 steps, whether it's really necessary. And they give a little background, first of all, a little history, a little history that I wasn't aware of. In ancient Rome, distances were actually measured by counting steps. ground first of all a little history a little history that i wasn't aware of in ancient rome distances were actually measured by counting steps in fact the word mile remember when we used to use that word mile was derived from the latin phrase mila passum which means a thousand paces. That's about 2,000 steps.

It's suggested that the average person walks about 100 steps per minute, which would mean it would take a little under 30 minutes for the average person walking constantly to walk a mile. So in order for someone to reach the 10,000 step goal, they would need to walk between four and five miles a day. That's around two hours of activity. That's according to the research here. But the CNN researchers have concluded

that health benefits at 10,000 steps. Recent research from the Harvard Medical School has shown that on average, approximately 4,400 steps a day is enough to significantly lower the risk of death in women. This was when compared to only walking around 2,700 steps daily. The more steps people walked, the lower their risk of dying was before leveling off at around 7,500 steps a day. No additional benefits were seen with more steps past 7,500 steps a day.

Although it's uncertain whether similar results would be seen in men, it's one example of how moving a little bit more daily can improve health and lower risk of death. Okay, so 10,000 steps a day is a nice round number, but it doesn't appear to make any difference whether you do 7,500 or 10,000. 7,500 seems to be the number, at least for women. Now, the WHO, the World Health Organization, it recommends adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity per week,

or 75 minutes of vig intensity physical activity per week, or 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity. Research also shows that even low-intensity exercise can improve your health. The moderate-intensity exercise improves it to a greater extent. Well, that's kind of obvious. This means your steps throughout the day can contribute to your 150 minutes of target activity. And finally, activity can also help mitigate the harms of sitting down for long periods of time. Research has shown that people who sat for eight or more hours every day had a 59% increased risk of death compared to those sitting less than four hours per day.

However, they also found that if people did 60 to 75 minutes per day of moderate intensity physical activity, this seemed to eliminate this increased risk of death. Therefore, potentially undertaking brisk walking could help mitigate the negative effects of sitting for too long. I don't know about you, but those of us who have been kind of indoors for most of the last year have probably done a lot more sitting than they traditionally have done. And the lesson here is you've got to be careful about that. If you're going to sit for long periods of time, whether it's sitting at your computer or sitting at your desk

or sitting on your couch reading or lying on your couch watching TV, you better mix it up a little bit with some physical activity. It doesn't have to be intense. It can be moderate. But it should involve some walking. What I found interesting, most interesting about this article, is that they were actually pretty close to where we were on that show a year ago when we suggested 4,000 steps a day.

So let's go for 7 500 it's funny because i've been thinking about this lately seeing as i've started the whole backyard thing again i mean i've been walking around the block and doing other walking periods but i couldn't walk in the backyard because of the snow but in the last, the snow has pretty much all gone. Not 100%, but pretty much here in Stratford. And so the backyard is open for walking, open for dreaming about those walking trips. And I found it great to be back out there. Now, here's another thing that's kind of related to health. This is something you probably did not know about the week just gone by.

Do you know what day Monday was? Monday, March 15th. You know, we talked about it on that day being the Ides of March and the whole Caesar thing and all that. But there was more to Monday than the Ides of March, which technically is sort of anywhere 15, 16, 17, 18, sort of kind of is the Ides of March. But Monday, March 15th was, and March 15th 16, 17, 18, so it kind of is the Ides of March. But Monday, March 15th, was, and March 15th is, a specific day.

It actually has a name to it. It's National Something Day. Do you know what that something is? It's National Napping Day. And apparently it's been that way for a few years now. Do you nap? You know, one of the most famous nappers, and I run the risk every time I bring this guy's name up

because there are some people who are definitely not fans of Winston Churchill. And listen, this guy had a very storied career and some of the stories weren't great. But that one period, and it was mainly kind of the summer and the fall of 1940, that was his moment. That was his moment for his country and for much of the allied world, where he stood up to Hitler and he gave powerful speeches

and he inspired his nation, and you know the story. Now, in the background, he was a napper. He used to nap every day. Never for long periods of time. He would nap for, I don't know, 15, 20 minutes in the afternoon. He just, he was out. He'd wake up and he said he'd felt totally refreshed,

but he couldn't get through his day without that nap. And I can remember when I was reading The National, I would try to take in the afternoon a nap, a short nap. And it made a difference for me. If I didn't take it, man, I was pretty, I was pretty whacked by 10 o'clock at night. If I did take it, I was refreshed at 10 o'clock at night. And let's face it, they paid you at the National to be refreshed at 10 o'clock at night.

Not at 10 o'clock in the morning, even though you were in meetings throughout the day and making decisions about various things in terms of the news agenda and you needed to be wide awake. You really needed to be wide awake at 10 o'clock at night. There's no point in having a guy there or a woman there half napping on the air. So, National Napping Day.

And as a result of National Napping Day, which was instituted in 1999. Now, if you didn't know it was National Napping Day, you probably didn't know who started it. He was a psychologist and a professor at Boston University by the name of William Anthony. He's in a permanent state of napping now. He passed away a few years ago. But the intent when he started, and his wife, Camille,

started National Napping Day was to overcome American cultural prejudice against napping and to raise awareness about the health benefits of catching up on quality sleep. Here's what he said in a BU, that's Boston University article in 2006. We figured this would be a good day to celebrate the importance of napping because everyone is one hour more sleep deprived than usual. That's, of course, because the clock's going forward on the weekend before March 15th.

Because of their efforts, some workplaces have observed the day with nap breaks. Boy, I don't know where those workplaces are. Do you have a workplace where they say to you, okay, nap time? Here are the arguments for napping. Because NASA is one of the places that advocates napping and advocates it for its astronauts and pilots. A study at NASA on drowsy military pilots and astronauts found that a 40-minute nap, that's a long one,

improved performance by 34%, an alertness by 100%, according to the Sleep Foundation, the Sleep Research and Resources site. Taking a nap may make you more alert for the period right after you wake up and maybe hours into the day. A short snooze may also make you feel more relaxed. Boy, I can see some of you out there, the nappers, going,

yeah, right on, Mans's would you make this argument because my spouse doesn't buy it they think this is crazy well it's not taking a nap once or twice a week could lower the risk of heart attacks or strokes according to a 2019 study published in the journal heart all right there you go there are the arguments for napping and mark it on your calendar national napping day march 15th circle that number you'll want to use it now here's something of interest to those who you know who have been at a workplace that basically shut down a year ago and

said, from here on in, you're working from home. The best way for us to deal with this pandemic is you work at home. Remote home working. And a lot of different workplaces, industries have argued for that. And one place that's done, you know, as I said, a lot have, but one place that I know of that's definitely done it is the news business. You've witnessed over the past year, many news organizations where their editors and reporters and producers, publishers, the whole bit have been working from home. Everybody's

hooked together by computer and Zoom calls and you name it, but that's where they're working from and a lot of the television you may watch the anchors aren't in a studio they're at they're in their house they're at home that's why i hear dogs barking every once in a while and what they do is they use a green screen they you screen. They use screens behind them or they use the latest technology where they can just key in pictures. You can do it on Zoom. Whatever you want as a background. And it looks like they're in a studio.

And while technically the qualities of everything from audio and video aren't quite as good as they can be in a studio, and you've seen this certainly on podcasts, including this one, they're pretty good, all things considered. I mean, I've been doing this daily program for more than a year now. I've never done it outside of my home. Whether that home is here in Stratford or our little condo in Toronto. That's where it's done from.

In this case in Stratford where most of them are done, it's done sitting at my desk, at my laptop. And I, you know, connect with those I need to connect with in the workplace, whether I'm doing documentaries for the CBC or whether I'm doing this for SiriusXM, you know, or contact them by email or telephone. And they're all at their homes, right? Like nobody's in the office space. Well, you know, all good things come to an end.

And getting to work from home, which for some people has been a good thing, not all, will come to an end as the pandemic grinds its way to a halt. And in doing so, news organizations, just like other professions, are starting to think through, well, how is that going to work when people start coming back to work? So I found it interesting this week that the New York Times put together a one-pager, basically, that went to all its staff.

Because it was a year ago last week that the New York Times, just like many other news organizations, said, stop coming to the office. In their case, they said, for the next two weeks, while we deal with this situation, you're going to work from home. So the famous sixth floor of 628th Avenue in New York, headquarters for the New York Times, was kind of shuttered, which they expected would last, well, two weeks. It's been 53 weeks. And reporters and editors,

etc., have been working from home. And it's worked out, actually, pretty well for the New York Times, as it has for a lot of legitimate, good, solid news organizations. For the New York Times, the Washington Post, their subscriptions have gone up.

And, you know, it was only two years ago that the publisher of the New York Times suggested that the print edition would be gone within five years. Now, it still may be. It may all go digital. But they've been injected with all kinds of new cash as a result of new subscribers in the past year. The past couple of years, really, Trump helped them a lot by being Trumpian. But the pandemic has had people desperate for reliable information. So anyway, they sent out this one pager to all their staff and it's interesting way through most of it is your basic what you would expect with a signal

that you know by this september we hope to have you back into work and that's kind of a common sort of date that people are thinking about i think think the CBC has told much of its staff the same kind of thing. We're looking at September. Nothing in stone yet, but that's what we're looking at. But the New York Times takes it a step further. They're figuring, okay, we're going to reopen, but it ain't going to be like it used to be. It's going to be different because we're going to be

living differently. And one of the ways they're living differently is that newsroom in the New York Times building on 8th Avenue has been pretty much centered on the 6th floor.

Starting in September, they're going to have also space on the 7th floor and the 8th floor and part of the ninth floor. Because people have to spread out. They can't be all bunched up like they've been in the past. And while they want people to come back to the building, they also recognize that some people feel, you know what, I've been more productive from home.

And so they're looking at ways of combining these two ideas of working two or three days a week in the building, two or three days a week outside of the building. So this is going to be, you know, an exercise that will take some time to kind of figure out how this is all going to work out. But I love the last line, and I think this is going to be true of so many different places, so many different workplaces. The last line of this one-pager from the New York Times to its staff.

Like so many of you, we are homesick for our office and miss the camaraderie, serendipity, and creative rush of being together. We're looking forward to seeing you in person again this year once we've been vaccinated. And obviously that's a precondition, and September being the date, they figure everybody definitely who wants to be vaccinated will be vaccinated.

I'm not sure what they're going to do about those who've chosen not to be vaccinated will be vaccinated. I'm not sure what they're going to do about those who've chosen not to be vaccinated. That's a question they don't seem to answer in this one pager. But I imagine they'll be getting around to that in the not-too-distant future. All right, still to come on this, the potpourri edition, the Thursday edition of The Bridge. Do you think if you knew about it,

you'd go to a course on happiness? That's right. Would you go to a course on happiness. That's right. Would you go to a course on happiness? That's coming up. So are you happy? Happy, happy? And if you're not happy, do you think you could be made to be happy

by taking a course? That's right, like a university course. Well, Yale University has a course. they have a happiness class it's called psych 157 psychology and the good life and get this it is one of the most popular classes to be offered in the 320 year history of Yale now I was only ever taught in person once and that was during the spring 2018 semester there was a 1200 person lecture course in the largest space on campus.

It was a course on happiness. People couldn't get there fast enough. Well, they're still getting there because the course became this 10-week version of the course available to the public on Coursera. It's titled The Science of Well-Being. It became instantly popular, attracting hundreds of thousands of online learners. But when lockdowns began last March,

two full years later, after it had been the first and only time it was taught, the enrollment numbers skyrocketed. This according to the New York Times. To date, over 3.3 million people have signed up, according to the website. Signed up for a course on happiness. We octupled the number of people taking the class, said Laurie Santos, a professor of psychology at Yale and the head of the university's Silliman College.

Everyone knows what they need to do to protect their physical health, wash your hands, social distance, wear a mask. But people were struggling with what to do to protect their mental health. Wash your hands, social distance, wear a mask. But people were struggling with what to do to protect their mental health, says Laurie Santos. So this is what they do in the happiness course. Because obviously,

you would like to take the happiness course, right? I guess it's not that hard. Here's what they're asked to do. Track their sleep patterns. Keep a gratitude journal. You know, write down what you're happy about, where you give your thanks, and why.

Perform yourself random acts of kindness. And take note of whether, over time, these behaviors correlate with a positive change in your general mood. You got all that? Now, here are a couple of people who took the course, and this is what they say they did too, it had done for them.

I'm cherry-picking from this article. Tracy Morgan. She's a programming supervisor at the Bob Snodgrass Recreation Complex in High River, Alberta, Canada. This was online, so this course was online, so anybody anywhere in the world could take it, right? Well, Tracy Morgan signed up for the class last June,

says the New York Times, as she was in lockdown with her children and her husband. As she said to the paper, there's no reason I shouldn't be happy. I have a wonderful marriage. I have two kids. I have a nice job and a nice house, and I just could never find happiness. Since taking the course, Ms. Morgan, who's 52, has made a commitment to do three things every day. Practice yoga for one hour, take a walk outside in nature, no matter how cold it may be, and it can get cold in Alberta.

Even though High River, High River is south of Calgary, right? High River is where Joe Clark was from. And finally, write three to five entries in her gratitude journal before bed. So she's grateful for three to five things a day. She writes them all down. Because apparently, finding reasons to be grateful

can increase your general sense of well-being. Here's another one, Gretchen McIntyre. She's a home health aide in Massachusetts. She's studying for her bachelor's degree in psychology. She took the class and calls it life-changing. A night owl, she'd struggled with sleep and enforcing her own time boundaries it's hard to set those boundaries with yourself sometimes and say i know this book is really exciting but it can wait till tomorrow sleep is more important that's discipline right but i'd never done it that way

where it's like it's going to make you happier it's not just good for you it's going to actually legitimately make you happier and it obviously did for her now not everybody has bought into this happiness thing so i'll just read you one uh fellow who's not big on this matt nadel 21 years old he's a senior at yale was among the 1200 students taking the class on campus back in 2018 he said the rigors of yale were a big adjustment when he started at the university in the fall of 2017 i was stressed i didn't know exactly how to manage that he said he was disappointed that the class was a sort of review of the kinds of obvious good advice

you may get from a grandmother. Get enough sleep, drink enough water, just do your best. I knew that sleeping was good. I knew that my grades didn't matter for long-term happiness, that I wasn't going to be a happier, better person because of having good grades.

Did the class impact my life in a long-term, tangible way? The answer, he says, is no. While the class wasn't life-changing for him, he did say that he's more expressive now when he feels gratitude, which is great. But that's about all. There you go.

There's your course in happiness for today. Hope you enjoyed it. Are you happy now? Do you know what to do to be happy? You know, after you've taken your nap and you've walked your 7,500 steps, you now know the other things you've got to do to ensure that you're going to be happy.

Because that's the kind of service we give here at The Bridge. We like to collect all these things to make you more fulfilled, to make you a happier person. I know you're happy. I know you're happy. I know you're happy because you write. You write to the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com, the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com.

And you especially write on Thursdays because you know that Friday is the weekend special where I get to pick some nice stories from nice people from across the country and sometimes around the world. So if you've got something you want to say, send it along to me, and don't wait too long. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. That wraps her up for today, but we're looking forward to being here tomorrow and hoping you'll be here with us.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. This has been The Bridge. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours. Thank you.