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Sitting All Day Is Killing You — Here’s What to Do About It | Manoush Zomorodi | TED

TED10:30Added Aug 30, 2026

You've heard that too much time online is bad for your mental health, but what is it doing to your body? In this energizing talk, journalist and author Manoush Zomorodi explains how tech habits (including sitting all day) affect your physical health, from making you feel exhausted to raising rates of chronic illness. With early results from a 20,000-person experiment, she shares a practical solution to go from "wired and tired" to feeling healthier and more producti

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Contributed by 刘嘉琪

Transcript

Transcript format
  1. 00:03Do you ever close your laptop at the end of a long day
  2. 00:07and feel like you have just enough energy to crawl over to the couch
  3. 00:12to scroll on your phone or watch a show?
  4. 00:17Or maybe both at the same time?
  5. 00:21Yeah.
  6. 00:22During the pandemic, that was all I wanted to do
  7. 00:24and I couldn't understand why.
  8. 00:26I was safe, I was healthy,
  9. 00:27why didn't I want to close my laptop
  10. 00:29and go dance around the living room?
  11. 00:31Where did all my energy go?
  12. 00:34I'm a journalist.
  13. 00:36My specialty for the last 10 years has been trying to understand
  14. 00:39how our tech habits change us as people,
  15. 00:43and so I decided I was going to find out
  16. 00:45why sitting in front of a screen makes us feel so exhausted.
  17. 00:50Because we have all heard about the mental effects, right?
  18. 00:54But what about our physical health?
  19. 00:57Well, as I quickly learned,
  20. 01:00looking at screens has not only reshaped our days,
  21. 01:03it is reshaping our bodies.
  22. 01:05According to researchers at Johns Hopkins,
  23. 01:08every day, the average 19-year-old moves about
  24. 01:10as much as the average 60-year-old.
  25. 01:13Over the last 20 years,
  26. 01:14rates of type 2 diabetes in young people have doubled.
  27. 01:18Three in four American adults has a chronic illness.
  28. 01:22Many of those are preventable.
  29. 01:25At least one chronic illness.
  30. 01:27And the WHO says that this is a global problem.
  31. 01:30They predict that by the end of the decade, which is not that far away,
  32. 01:33this lifestyle will likely lead to 500 million new cases
  33. 01:37of preventable conditions
  34. 01:39like heart disease, obesity and diabetes,
  35. 01:42costing governments 27 billion dollars a year.
  36. 01:46Typing, swiping, scrolling, sitting.
  37. 01:51This is the rhythm of our modern life.
  38. 01:54But I don't know about you,
  39. 01:55I can't throw away my phone, right?
  40. 01:57Like, I can't go off the grid.
  41. 02:00So how can we stay connected without slowly destroying our health?
  42. 02:06That was the question running through my mind
  43. 02:08when I came across this guy.
  44. 02:10Keith Diaz is a physiologist at Columbia University Medical Center,
  45. 02:14and he has spent his entire career
  46. 02:16trying to figure out how little can we get away with moving
  47. 02:20so that sitting doesn't kill us, basically.
  48. 02:23And in 2022, he published a small study that gives us a great idea.
  49. 02:27He found that just five minutes of gentle movement every 30 minutes
  50. 02:31had dramatic effects.
  51. 02:33It slashed blood sugar and blood pressure.
  52. 02:37In another study, he found that inactive people
  53. 02:39who traded 30 minutes of sitting for 30 minutes of movement every day
  54. 02:43could lower their risk of a premature death by 18 percent.
  55. 02:48And so maybe you're like,
  56. 02:50"Yeah, I worked out this morning, so I'm good."
  57. 02:53Or maybe you're like,
  58. 02:54"Phew, I'm so glad I got that standing desk."
  59. 02:58I am so sorry, but no.
  60. 03:02(Laughter)
  61. 03:03If you sit or stand for the majority of your waking hours,
  62. 03:08your health is in jeopardy too.
  63. 03:11"Don't stop working out," Keith told me,
  64. 03:13but he said, what you have to do
  65. 03:15is break up these long stretches of sedentary screen time.
  66. 03:19When he told me this, I was like, really?
  67. 03:21Like, how big a difference can these movement breaks make
  68. 03:24for someone who is, you know, relatively healthy?
  69. 03:26I decided I would join the study.
  70. 03:29So one day I went to his lab
  71. 03:31and I sat and worked on my laptop for eight hours straight.
  72. 03:35The next day I took those movement breaks
  73. 03:38every half hour or so.
  74. 03:40They checked all my vital signs
  75. 03:42and the results were actually quite extraordinary.
  76. 03:45My glucose was cut nearly in half.
  77. 03:48My blood pressure was down by five points,
  78. 03:51and my mood was so much better.
  79. 03:54The science was clear,
  80. 03:57but like, what did it matter if no one could actually do these movement breaks?
  81. 04:01Like it was easy in the lab.
  82. 04:03Somebody tapped me on the shoulder and led me over to the treadmill.
  83. 04:06So we decided to ask people, out in the world, out in real life,
  84. 04:11to see if they could do it.
  85. 04:13We, our teams at NPR and Columbia, combined forces to create a podcast
  86. 04:18and a global clinical trial called the Body Electric study.
  87. 04:21And over 20,000 people signed up.
  88. 04:24We had to cap it at 20,000 people,
  89. 04:27and they could choose a movement dose,
  90. 04:29so they could move five minutes every half hour,
  91. 04:31five minutes every hour, or every two hours.
  92. 04:35They could dance around the house,
  93. 04:36they could pace on calls,
  94. 04:38they could walk the dog, they could take out the trash,
  95. 04:40it didn't matter.
  96. 04:42They just had to break it up,
  97. 04:43break up those long periods of sitting.
  98. 04:46And you guys, I was so excited.
  99. 04:49I was like, we are going to launch a movement for movement.
  100. 04:54Yeah, I've got a way with words.
  101. 04:56(Laughter)
  102. 04:57But I am not going to lie, those first few days were so tough.
  103. 05:02It takes a lot of intention
  104. 05:04and a little rebellion
  105. 05:05to upend a world that is quite literally built around screens and chairs.
  106. 05:11But when people figured it out,
  107. 05:13when they started getting those breaks into their lives,
  108. 05:17they started having breakthroughs.
  109. 05:18They told us that they felt less pain.
  110. 05:21They told us that they had more energy.
  111. 05:24They said that they felt more positive about life in general.
  112. 05:28In the end, of the people who started taking movement breaks,
  113. 05:3280 percent managed to stick with them for two solid weeks.
  114. 05:35And yes, this was a self-reported study
  115. 05:38with a lot of very motivated participants.
  116. 05:41Hello public radio.
  117. 05:42But still,
  118. 05:44the data showed that the more often they took breaks,
  119. 05:48the better they felt.
  120. 05:49People who went outside got an extra boost.
  121. 05:52Some people lost a few of those stubborn pounds,
  122. 05:55and most people actually liked taking the breaks.
  123. 05:59But the biggest surprise to me
  124. 06:00was that the breaks did not hurt their productivity.
  125. 06:04People said they got back to their desks and they were able to focus,
  126. 06:08and they felt that the work they did was actually of better quality.
  127. 06:12So this research is going through the scientific process right now.
  128. 06:16But Keith explained to me some of the reasons
  129. 06:18why these gentle breaks can have such an outsized impact.
  130. 06:22So when we sit,
  131. 06:24our arteries get bent at our hips and our knees,
  132. 06:27kind of like a kinked vacuum hose.
  133. 06:29Blood starts pooling in our legs and our muscles stop contracting.
  134. 06:34But leg muscles need to move, be stimulated,
  135. 06:36in order to clear out fat and sugar and reduce blood pressure.
  136. 06:41If they don't, over months and over years,
  137. 06:44that's when those chronic conditions can start to creep in.
  138. 06:47And then there is our posture.
  139. 06:49Sitting compresses the diaphragm.
  140. 06:52We start taking shallow breaths.
  141. 06:54Shallow breaths lead to less oxygen going into our blood and up to our brain.
  142. 06:59Less oxygen in our brain means we get tired and lose focus.
  143. 07:03Feel free to take a deep breath right now if you want to.
  144. 07:07And that is where screens come into the picture.
  145. 07:10So screens can mess with something called interoception.
  146. 07:14Interoception is the body's way of telling you what it needs.
  147. 07:18It needs a snack,
  148. 07:19it needs to go to the bathroom, it needs to move.
  149. 07:22The more we focus on screens,
  150. 07:24the less we listen to the signals that our body is sending us.
  151. 07:28Your body could be begging for a break,
  152. 07:31but what do you do?
  153. 07:32You keep scrolling past the anxiety,
  154. 07:35scrolling past the exhaustion.
  155. 07:38That eventually can lead to burnout, yes.
  156. 07:41And again, those chronic conditions.
  157. 07:44So how can you start making a change in feeling better?
  158. 07:49Well, first, think about your most sedentary stretches of time
  159. 07:53and then make yourself a mantra.
  160. 07:55So like if you are a student, you could say,
  161. 07:57"I'll take an extra lap around the quad before class instead of checking TikTok,
  162. 08:02so I get to class with more oxygen in my brain and I can actually focus."
  163. 08:07Or if you work from home, you could decide that on long Zoom calls,
  164. 08:10"I will march in place in order to manage my glucose
  165. 08:14and avoid the post-meeting crash."
  166. 08:16If you're a parent, you could say
  167. 08:18"I will take a lap around the soccer field once
  168. 08:20so that I have enough energy to get through the dinnertime chaos."
  169. 08:25You can have a dance party while you microwave your leftovers.
  170. 08:28You can walk the concourse instead of sitting and waiting for your flight.
  171. 08:33A mix of all these habits will keep your muscles firing
  172. 08:37and your mood steadier.
  173. 08:39My favorite story came from a 43-year-old woman
  174. 08:42named Dana, who works in HR.
  175. 08:44So Dana was a type-2 diabetic with all kinds of health issues.
  176. 08:48Her doctor told her she needed to take a long, brisk walk every morning,
  177. 08:51and she was doing this, but her numbers just were not changing.
  178. 08:55So with her doctor's permission, she decided to join the study.
  179. 08:58She started fitting in movement breaks between all of her meetings,
  180. 09:02and within a couple of weeks,
  181. 09:03she told me her blood pressure dropped by 40 points,
  182. 09:07her cholesterol went down
  183. 09:09and her doctor told her she could start tapering her insulin.
  184. 09:13She's actually off all of her meds today.
  185. 09:16Yay, Dana, we love you, Dana.
  186. 09:18(Applause)
  187. 09:20So we know that too much time online is not great for our mental health.
  188. 09:25But it's not just in our heads, it's in our bodies.
  189. 09:30We need movement to be as much a part of our lives as screens are.
  190. 09:35We need our schools, our neighborhoods, our workplaces
  191. 09:38to give us time and space just to move.
  192. 09:40You can help push this reset forward.
  193. 09:44Take movement breaks.
  194. 09:46And when people look at you like you're weird,
  195. 09:48just tell them why you're doing it.
  196. 09:50Because you just want to feel a little better.
  197. 09:52Get them to put down their phone and join you.
  198. 09:55Start soon, start small.
  199. 09:58Should we start now?
  200. 10:00Yeah, can we have some music?
  201. 10:03You could do --
  202. 10:05you could do the march.
  203. 10:07You could do the shuffle.
  204. 10:10Little hands in the air, if you can't get up.
  205. 10:13Feel it.
  206. 10:14You're alive.
  207. 10:16You're alive.
  208. 10:27Love you guys.
  209. 10:28(Cheers and applause)