久坐的健康危机
你是否曾在一天工作结束后，关掉笔记本电脑，感觉只剩下爬到沙发上的力气，然后刷刷手机或看部剧？甚至可能同时进行？是的，很多人都有同感。尤其在疫情期间，这种状态似乎成了常态，但原因不明。明明身处安全健康的环境，为何却提不起精神去客厅跳舞？能量都去哪儿了？作为一名记者，我过去十年一直致力于研究科技习惯如何改变我们。因此，我决定深入探究为何长时间面对屏幕会让我们如此疲惫。我们都听过屏幕对心理健康的影响，但身体健康呢？事实证明，长时间盯着屏幕不仅重塑了我们的日常，更在悄然改变我们的身体。约翰霍普金斯大学的研究人员指出，如今一个19岁的年轻人，其日常活动量约等于20年前的60岁老人。过去20年，青少年2型糖尿病发病率翻倍。四分之三的美国成年人患有至少一种可预防的慢性疾病。世界卫生组织（WHO）也警告，这已成为全球性问题，并预测在本十年末，这种生活方式可能导致5亿新增可预防疾病病例（如心脏病、肥胖和糖尿病），每年耗费各国政府270亿美元。打字、滑动、滚动、坐着——这就是我们现代生活的节奏。但我们无法彻底抛弃手机，也无法“离网”。那么，如何在保持连接的同时，避免健康被缓慢侵蚀？
Original English
Do you ever close your laptop at the end of a long day and feel like you have just enough energy to crawl over to the couch to scroll on your phone or watch a show? Or maybe both at the same time? Yeah. During the pandemic, that was all I wanted to do and I couldn't understand why. I was safe, I was healthy, why didn't I want to close my laptop and go dance around the living room? Where did all my energy go? I'm a journalist. My specialty for the last 10 years has been trying to understand how our tech habits change us as people, and so I decided I was going to find out why sitting in front of a screen makes us feel so exhausted. Because we have all heard about the mental effects, right? But what about our physical health? Well, as I quickly learned, looking at screens has not only reshaped our days, it is reshaping our bodies. According to researchers at Johns Hopkins, every day, the average 19-year-old moves about as much as the average 60-year-old. Over the last 20 years, rates of type 2 diabetes in young people have doubled. Three in four American adults has a chronic illness. Many of those are preventable. At least one chronic illness. And the WHO says that this is a global problem. They predict that by the end of the decade, which is not that far away, this lifestyle will likely lead to 500 million new cases of preventable conditions like heart disease, obesity and diabetes, costing governments 27 billion dollars a year. Typing, swiping, scrolling, sitting. This is the rhythm of our modern life. But I don't know about you, I can't throw away my phone, right? Like, I can't go off the grid. So how can we stay connected without slowly destroying our health?运动科学的曙光
带着这个问题，我遇到了基思·迪亚兹（Keith Diaz）。他是一位生理学家，任职于哥伦比亚大学医学中心。他将整个职业生涯都投入到研究“我们最少需要活动多少，才能避免久坐带来的致命风险”。在2022年，他发表了一项小型研究，为我们提供了宝贵的启示。研究发现，仅仅每30分钟进行5分钟的温和活动，就能产生显著的生理改善效果，大幅降低了血糖和血压。在另一项研究中，他发现，将每天30分钟的静坐时间替换为30分钟的活动，可以使过早死亡的风险降低18%。你可能会想：“我早上已经锻炼过了，所以没事。”或者：“太好了，我终于有了站立式办公桌！”很抱歉，这还不够。如果你大部分清醒时间都在坐着或站着，健康同样处于危险之中。迪亚兹告诉我：“不要停止锻炼，但你必须打破长时间久坐不动、面对屏幕的状态。”听到这里，我感到难以置信：这些短暂的运动休息，对于一个相对健康的人来说，究竟能带来多大的改变？我决定亲身参与这项研究。
Original English
That was the question running through my mind when I came across this guy. Keith Diaz is a physiologist at Columbia University Medical Center, and he has spent his entire career trying to figure out how little can we get away with moving so that sitting doesn't kill us, basically. And in 2022, he published a small study that gives us a great idea. He found that just five minutes of gentle movement every 30 minutes had dramatic effects. It slashed blood sugar and blood pressure. In another study, he found that inactive people who traded 30 minutes of sitting for 30 minutes of movement every day could lower their risk of a premature death by 18 percent. And so maybe you're like, "Yeah, I worked out this morning, so I'm good." Or maybe you're like, "Phew, I'm so glad I got that standing desk." I am so sorry, but no. (Laughter) If you sit or stand for the majority of your waking hours, your health is in jeopardy too. "Don't stop working out," Keith told me, but he said, what you have to do is break up these long stretches of sedentary screen time. When he told me this, I was like, really? Like, how big a difference can these movement breaks make for someone who is, you know, relatively healthy? I decided I would join the study.打破久坐循环
于是，有一天我去了他的实验室，连续坐着使用笔记本电脑工作了八小时。第二天，我开始每半小时进行一次运动休息。他们监测了我的所有生命体征，结果令人惊叹：我的血糖水平几乎减半，血压下降了5个点，情绪也明显好转。科学证据确凿，但问题是：如果普通人无法真正实践这些运动休息，这一切还有意义吗？在实验室里很容易做到，有人会拍拍你的肩膀，带你去跑步机。因此，我们决定将研究推向真实世界，看看人们是否能够坚持。NPR和哥伦比亚大学的团队联手，创建了一个播客和一项名为“身体电力”（Body Electric）的全球临床试验。超过2万人报名参加。我们将人数限制在2万，参与者可以选择不同的运动剂量：每半小时、每小时或每两小时进行5分钟的活动。他们可以随心所欲地活动——在家跳舞、通话时踱步、遛狗、倒垃圾，形式不限，关键在于打破长时间的静坐。我当时非常兴奋，觉得我们要发起一场“为运动而运动”的革命！虽然我承认，最初的几天非常艰难。要颠覆一个完全围绕屏幕和椅子构建的世界，需要极大的决心和一点点反叛精神。但当人们找到方法，将这些休息融入生活后，他们开始体验到突破。他们反馈说，身体疼痛减轻了，精力更充沛了，对生活也感到更加积极。最终，开始进行运动休息的参与者中，有80%的人坚持了两周。诚然，这是一项参与者高度自愿的自我报告研究。但数据表明，休息越频繁，感觉越好。外出活动的人获得了额外的能量提升。一些人减轻了顽固的体重，大多数人实际上很享受这些休息时光。对我而言，最大的惊喜是这些休息并没有损害工作效率。人们表示，回到办公桌后，他们能更好地集中注意力，并且认为工作的质量反而有所提高。
Original English
So one day I went to his lab and I sat and worked on my laptop for eight hours straight. The next day I took those movement breaks every half hour or so. They checked all my vital signs and the results were actually quite extraordinary. My glucose was cut nearly in half. My blood pressure was down by five points, and my mood was so much better. The science was clear, but like, what did it matter if no one could actually do these movement breaks? Like it was easy in the lab. Somebody tapped me on the shoulder and led me over to the treadmill. So we decided to ask people, out in the world, out in real life, to see if they could do it. We, our teams at NPR and Columbia, combined forces to create a podcast and a global clinical trial called the Body Electric study. And over 20,000 people signed up. We had to cap it at 20,000 people, and they could choose a movement dose, so they could move five minutes every half hour, five minutes every hour, or every two hours. They could dance around the house, they could pace on calls, they could walk the dog, they could take out the trash, it didn't matter. They just had to break it up, break up those long periods of sitting. And you guys, I was so excited. I was like, we are going to launch a movement for movement. Yeah, I've got a way with words. (Laughter) But I am not going to lie, those first few days were so tough. It takes a lot of intention and a little rebellion to upend a world that is quite literally built around screens and chairs. But when people figured it out, when they started getting those breaks into their lives, they started having breakthroughs. They told us that they felt less pain. They told us that they had more energy. They said that they felt more positive about life in general. In the end, of the people who started taking movement breaks, 80 percent managed to stick with them for two solid weeks. And yes, this was a self-reported study with a lot of very motivated participants. Hello public radio. But still, the data showed that the more often they took breaks, the better they felt. People who went outside got an extra boost. Some people lost a few of those stubborn pounds, and most people actually liked taking the breaks. But the biggest surprise to me was that the breaks did not hurt their productivity. People said they got back to their desks and they were able to focus, and they felt that the work they did was actually of better quality.生理机制解析
那么，这些温和的运动休息为何能产生如此巨大的影响？基思解释了其中的一些原因。当我们坐着时，我们的动脉在髋部和膝盖处会发生弯曲，就像被扭结的真空吸管一样。血液开始在腿部淤积，肌肉停止收缩。然而，腿部肌肉需要活动和刺激，才能清除脂肪和糖分，降低血压。如果长期缺乏这种刺激，数月乃至数年，慢性疾病便会悄然滋生。其次是我们的姿势问题。久坐会压迫膈肌，导致呼吸变得浅促。浅呼吸意味着进入血液和大脑的氧气减少，大脑缺氧则会导致疲劳和注意力不集中。如果你愿意，现在就可以深呼吸一下。而屏幕恰恰在这个环节中扮演了重要角色。屏幕会干扰一种叫做“内感受”（Interoception）的感知能力。内感受是我们身体感知自身需求的方式——需要零食、需要上厕所、需要活动。我们越是专注于屏幕，就越少倾听身体发出的信号。你的身体可能在恳求休息，但你却做了什么？你继续滑动，忽略了焦虑和疲惫。这最终可能导致职业倦怠，以及前面提到的各种慢性疾病。
Original English
So this research is going through the scientific process right now. But Keith explained to me some of the reasons why these gentle breaks can have such an outsized impact. So when we sit, our arteries get bent at our hips and our knees, kind of like a kinked vacuum hose. Blood starts pooling in our legs and our muscles stop contracting. But leg muscles need to move, be stimulated, in order to clear out fat and sugar and reduce blood pressure. If they don't, over months and over years, that's when those chronic conditions can start to creep in. And then there is our posture. Sitting compresses the diaphragm. We start taking shallow breaths. Shallow breaths lead to less oxygen going into our blood and up to our brain. Less oxygen in our brain means we get tired and lose focus. Feel free to take a deep breath right now if you want to. And that is where screens come into the picture. So screens can mess with something called interoception. Interoception is the body's way of telling you what it needs. It needs a snack, it needs to go to the bathroom, it needs to move. The more we focus on screens, the less we listen to the signals that our body is sending us. Your body could be begging for a break, but what do you do? You keep scrolling past the anxiety, scrolling past the exhaustion. That eventually can lead to burnout, yes. And again, those chronic conditions.行动策略与鼓舞人心的故事
那么，如何开始改变并感觉更好呢？首先，审视你一天中最久坐的时段，并为自己设定一个口号（mantra）。例如，如果你是学生，可以对自己说：“课前我绕着广场多走一圈，而不是刷TikTok，这样我带着更多氧气进入课堂，能更好地集中注意力。”如果你在家工作，可以在长时间的Zoom会议中决定：“我会原地踏步，以管理我的血糖，避免会后精力崩溃。”如果你是家长，可以这样说：“我会在足球场边走一圈，这样才有足够的精力应对晚餐的混乱局面。”你可以在加热剩菜时跳一支舞，或者在候机时走动，而不是坐着等待。结合运用这些习惯，能让你的肌肉保持活跃，情绪更加稳定。我最喜欢的一个故事来自一位名叫**达娜（Dana）**的43岁女士，她在人力资源部门工作。达娜患有2型糖尿病，并伴有各种健康问题。医生建议她每天早晨进行一次长时间、快步的散步，但她的各项指标并未改善。在征得医生同意后，她加入了这项研究。她开始在会议间隙安排运动休息。几周内，她告诉我，她的血压下降了40个点，胆固醇也降低了，医生甚至允许她开始减少胰岛素用量。如今，她已经完全停用了所有药物。太棒了，达娜！我们爱你！我们知道，过度上网对心理健康不利，但影响远不止于心理，它也体现在身体上。我们需要让运动像屏幕一样，成为我们生活的重要组成部分。我们需要学校、社区和工作场所为我们提供时间和空间去活动。你可以成为推动这一转变的助力。开始进行运动休息吧。当别人用异样的眼光看你时，告诉他们你为什么这样做——因为你只想感觉好一点。鼓励他们放下手机，加入你。立即开始，从小处着手。现在就开始如何？音乐，来点音乐！你可以原地踏步，可以摇摆身体。如果起不来，就举举手。感受它。你还活着。你还活着。爱你们！