Up Your NEAT w/ Allan Brown

Do you sit all, or most of the day?  Are you more tired, and sore after getting out of your office chair than you are after a workout?  MEMIC’s Director of Ergonomics, Allan Brown, introduces listeners to the concept of how non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) can increase your overall health and improve safety on the job.  Brown asks, “When you get to that elevator, do you really have to push that button, or can you walk up?”  In this episode, host Pete Koch and Allan Brown explore how basic activities like walking, standing, stretching and even chewing gum can improve workplace ergonomics and employee well-being. Pete Koch: Hello listeners, and welcome to The Safety Experts podcast. Do you sit all day? Are you more tired and sore after getting out of your office chair than you are after a workout? On today's episode, we're going to discover the secrets of NEAT and how to make friends with your seat again. The Safety Experts podcast is presented by MEMIC, a leading worker's compensation provider based here on the East Coast. A new episode of the podcast drops every two weeks featuring interviews with leaders in the field, top executives, MEMIC staff and other industry experts. We discuss how safety applies to all aspects of our lives. I'm your host, Peter Koch, and for the past 17 years, I've been working for MEMIC as a safety expert within the hospitality and construction industries. What I realize is that safety impacts every part of each position that you have or even the tasks that you do. And from one perspective, safety can be seen as not doing something that can be dangerous. Simple cause and effect. If it hurts or it can hurt, then don't do it. This can be pretty easy, if the choice of the for the effect.  This can be pretty easy, if the choice for the effect is immediate and the cause is obvious. The burner on the gas stove is on the fire's hot, don't touch the stove. However, we don't often recognize the effect a behavior can have on us, or that we are too susceptible to the effect of that behavior. So, another perspective on safety could be as an active choice to do something walk at lunch, use protective gear, learn more about the hazards you're exposed to, or stand instead of sitting for part of your day. These simple choices can positively impact you at work and at home. So, for today's episode, make friends with your chair again up your NEAT. How non-exercise activity thermogenesis can help you make friends with your chair again. I'm speaking here with Al Brown, Chief Ergonomist at MEMIC to better understand NEAT how to turn it on and the negative effect sitting has on us. Al's been with MEMIC for 15 years and has helped hundreds of businesses get a handle on ergonomics and the benefits of activity in the workplace.  Al, welcome to the podcast. Al Brown: Thank you, Peter. Appreciate being here. Pete Koch: Very good. Al Brown: Correction there. I'm actually the Director of Ergonomics. I got a promotion. Pete Koch: Very good. The Director of Ergonomics.  Moving from Chief Ergonomist to Director of Ergonomics, that's even better. Even better. But before we dig into that and figure out how our NEAT, how not NEAT our chairs are. So, tell me a little bit more about you at MEMIC and how you got to where you are, and how ergonomics fits in with your place here. Al Brown: Sure. Actually, I'm a physical therapist and that's an unusual person to find, probably in the insurance industry. Pete Koch: It is. Al Brown: In early on in my life as a physical therapist worked on site at industry, Bath Ironworks, L.L. Bean. And one of the one of the things we would do is if someone were injured, we'd walk back to the workspace and take a look at it and look to see if we could change, modify the job, reengineer it. Then we'd start treatment. It was a natural transition to a place like MEMIC, where they focus on workplace safety, specifically ergonomics. So, I became part of the team here and that's what I do now as I actually partner with industry. Go out, take a look at if they've got risks and exposures. Help them see those. Help them understand what might create or cause injury and things they might do to change those things. Pete Koch: Very cool. So that's it's an interesting path to get here, being a physical therapist. But I do see that's a great tie in to be able to take what you would find when you saw your clients as a physical therapist and see the connection back actually in the workplace now that you're here, at MEMIC some of the cause and effect; what you see as the presentation of the patient versus how where it came from, possibly in the workplace and how work and the non-work life contribute to some of the aches and pains that might be there. Al Brown: Oh, sure, it's a continuum. Rarely is it just something that occurs just at work and then it shuts off and punches out at that point and the person goes home. It's a different life. It's a continuum from work right through. So repeated behaviors unconscious behavior are things that are repeated 24 hours a day. Pete Koch: Yeah. And they can kind of catch up with us. Which kind of moves right into our topic today with that concept of NEAT. And so that the where I heard about it first is actually from a book that you turned me on to by Dr. James Levine titled "Get Up and Why Your Chair Is Killing You and What You Can Do About It". And you told me prior to the podcast that you had had the opportunity to see Dr. Levine speak at a conference on this topic. So maybe you could tell us a little bit more about what NEAT is and why should we care? Al Brown: Sure. Yeah, no it was one of those moments. I'm at a conference that was in Las Vegas at the National Ergonomics Conference, and James Levine was one of the presenters. He's an endocrinologist with the Mayo Clinic, had great credentials, has done a lot of research in this area, pretty extensive. You should when you look at the book and you go and you read through, what exactly did they really controlled for a lot of variables. But his premise was that he looked at non-exercise activity, thermogenesis.  When you look at life, about 60 percent of our day is basal activity. Sleeping, sitting in a chair, really not moving much and that accounts for not much NEAT non-exercise activity thermogenesis. You're not burning much fuel doing those things. For example, sitting in a chair, it's only about 300 calories per day to do something like that. Then you have about 10 percent, which is the thermal activity from just eating. So, when you eat, your body actually burns fuel because it's digesting. So that gives you the last 30 percent of the day, which is this non-exercise activity thermogenesis which it can vary between people. You and I might have a 2,000 calorie per day difference. Just because you might be very active walking around, you're a farmer, you’re or you are a housekeeper, you are a manual material handler, you are a brick layer, whatever the case may be. And I might be sitting in front of a computer. And they've discovered that, you know, when you look at trying to control diet and all that kind of stuff, it really doesn't work that well when you're looking at folks that have type 2 diabetes and all those kinds of things, that's what sort of stimulated this research. And they realize it was more related to this need, this non-exercise activity thermogenesis. So, I began thinking, here we are in a world of technology that has crept into our lives and you know, what do we do less now? Pete Koch: Stand, act, be active, walk around. Al Brown: We don't move as much as we used to. So, if you think about it, those little micro movements throughout the day are part of that NEAT. And now we've decreased our NEAT. So, we begin to impact our health. Pete Koch: Yeah, I totally can see that. So that concept of, and even us standing when we did, we made a conscious choice to stand here today. And while we're standing, there's a lot of movement back and forth, side to side, one foot to the other. Moving our hands, moving our arms. But if you swap that out and you sit down at the table for dinner or you sit on the couch to watch television or stream Netflix or something, play a game, whatever that is. There's a lot less of that micro movement that would happen. So, you're burning fewer calories throughout the day. What's the connection between better health and burning more calories? Al Brown: Well, you're processing the food. So, when you consume food, it's kind of like think of a credit card. I always use a credit card analogy where you can use a credit card. You can eat but you got to pay it back. Pete Koch: At some point in time. Al Brown: And if you don't pay it back.  You accumulate interest on that credit card, and it gets expensive and sometimes it can run away and get away from you.  Eating. You can eat. But as long as the intake and the outcome are, are negated, you're fine. You can eat whatever you want as long as the activity level matches that. If the activity level is less than the intake, then you're going to accumulate interest, which is body fat. Things of that nature. And then with that, we know that there are risk factors related to it. Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, all those things that come along with higher risk factors which come along with obesity. Pete Koch: You definitely see that. And then there is also a health benefit in there. As I get to burn more calories, I'm more active, there's more blood flowing, oxygen moving around in my body. I'm going to be healthier overall because like any machine, the human machine, the more we can move and work, the better off we'll be in the long run. Things will stay tuned, we'll be mentally sharper, we'll be physically sharper throughout the day. So that helps us not only at home, but at work and play, whatever we end up doing. Al Brown: Well, yeah. You'll actually find, for example, you know, an example for the listening audience if you take a walk. Pete Koch: Yeah. Al Brown: And when you come back from the walk, you will have a bit of a euphoric feel, you'll feel good. You've released a little bit of an endorphin, probably not the level you would maybe if you were running or lifting, but you still get that endorphin plus you get that filtering of the systems in your body. You know, your heart runs a lot of the pressure within our body, so it moves a lot of your, your blood flow throughout. And again, if you think about it, we live in a world of gravity. So, everything always wants to go down to the feet. So, you need that return. And the return occurs by the heart, creating this positive pressure. However your muscles also contract when you're walking and moving, so your venous system which returns the blood flow back up to your heart from your feet are a system of one way valves and those valves open as the pressure pushes back up and pushes the fluid back up towards your heart and close as the fluid tries to move back down. So, the heart continues the pressure and there's a strain if you're not walking, but if you're out walking, the muscle contraction actually assists the heart. So, you’re actually cleaning the body. And when you clean the body, you get rid of a lot of the impurities. All the nasty stuff that when you sit just sits in your body. Think of it again, you know, I like analogies. You know me. Pete Koch: They're all good. Al Brown: And think of a swimming pool. Your body is like a swimming pool. The water in the pool is kind of like the blood your blood system. And think about the filter not running but having a lot of people swimming in it. And there's a lot of bacteria, dirt, all kinds of things accumulating in the pool, but it's not being cleaned out. And that's because things are static in the pool. That's very much like being static, sitting at your desk, standing at a workstation where you're not moving. Just lying down to get up and move or to, to change position, walk around, whatever the case may be is like turning that filter on and cleaning the pool out. Pete Koch: Right. Al Brown: So you get rid of those impurities. So that's what your blood system does. That's what your lymphatic system does.  And your lymphatic system really does depend on you just moving. It doesn't really have a heart connected, a pump, so to speak. The pump is you. Pete Koch: Moving stuff around, cleaning it out. So, there is a connection in there, not only to overall health, but we can make a connection to even work productivity. Sharper thinking. Feeling better. Moving. Being able to move more freely throughout the day. Not being maybe as sore from repetitive activities. If I can clean the product of work out of the body through movement. Al Brown: Yeah, oh absolutely. Just getting up and moving is, think of that, here's another thing. If eating, if you eat, eat and have dinner, your blood glucose levels go up, you know. But if you go take a walk right after dinner, you can drop that glucose level. It's kind of like stirring it a little bit, like stirring the circuit a little bit. It's not all accumulated on the bottom. And you can drop your blood glucose levels by about 20 percent just by taking that walk. Yeah. Pete Koch: Yeah. Because you're using the fuel. You put fuel in, if I, if your body's in storage mode is just going to store it. If you're active and you go out to use the fuel that you put in as it's being processed, then you don't need to store it. You're actually burning through it. Al Brown: Correct. Pete Koch: Awesome. So, let's talk about the issue that Dr. Levine is targeting here. Is sitting, being the biggest, or one of the biggest challenges to health overall in the United States and a big challenge to our workers. So, I'm going to ask you the question here, is sitting really as big a deal as Dr. Levine makes it out to be? Al Brown: The short answer is yes. The longer answer, which I always will have, is the when we use the number 11 hours, 11 hours of sitting. And the question is, do you sit for 11 hours a day cumulatively? So collectively over the day. If you think of your day, do you spend eleven hours sitting? If you do, your risk factors, your health risk factors go up exponentially. You begin to have the same risks and exposures as someone who smokes fairly heavily. Pete Koch: Wow. Al Brown: And we're talking not only type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and those types of things, we're even talking about breast cancer. So, the risks go up if you sit, if you start to close in on 11 hours a day. So, what can you do to make differences? So, you know, in this technology creep that we're looking and I call it technology creep, because what happens is more and more things we do are related to the computer from, you know, shopping, getting your media content, setting up meetings. I don't have to go down and talk to someone at MEMIC, I can send them an e-mail, or I can text them. So, we, you know, we move less. So, with that technology, we sit more, and we creep towards that 11 hours of inactivity. Pete Koch: Sure. So a lot of the times, you know, you go back 20, 30 years and sitting wasn't as, it was common, it was something that we looked to for more relief to get kind of take a break, get off our feet. But we sit more than we think. So, within the book, there was an interesting set of questions, a quiz that Dr. Levine posed the sitting that the chair quiz to see how comfortable you are with your chair. Al Brown: Did you pull it out of the book? Pete Koch: I did, I pulled it right out of the book. So, we're going to take that quiz, right, So I'm going to ask the question.  And then we're both going to keep track in our head of yes and no questions. Al Brown: OK. Pete Koch: So if you answer yes, you get a point. If you answer no, you get no points. Al Brown: Okay. Low score wins, right? Pete Koch: Low score wins. Al Brown: This is a game of golf. Pete Koch Kind of and I'm really bad at golf. Al Brown: But that ups your NEAT, if you don't take the cart, walk around. Pete Koch Yeah. All right. Al Brown: Opportunities. Pete Koch: It does. OK. So, the first question. Pete Koch: Number one, do you work seated at a chair? Al Brown: Oh. Pete Koch: Got it. Al Brown: I do. Pete Koch: All right. So, I think I'm going to have to give me a one there. Al Brown: Aha, me too. Pete Koch: Most of what I do, although a lot of what I do is standing whether I'm doing a training or I'm going to do, I try to have sometimes meetings with people when I get to get up and walk around. But a lot of the work that I do is going to be in a chair. Al Brown: So you find opportunities to up your NEAT? Pete Koch: I do. I try. Al Brown: Because you're cognizant of that sitting. Yeah and driving. We drive a lot. Pete Koch: Oh, my gosh. We drive all the time. And that's another place where, you know, if I go back before I worked for MEMIC, the job I had wasn't travel based. So, I spent a lot more time on my feet in the transition between that and a more sedentary job was very challenging for me. I mean, it's taken me quite a while to sort of overcome that and figure it out. So, number one is the, have you worked seated in a chair? I'm going to give myself a one for that. So, number two is, have you ever shopped on the Internet? Pete & Al: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I have. Yeah. Guilty. I have to give us a one on that one there. Pete Koch: So do you watch, number three: Do you watch TV or a streaming service while seated for an hour or more a day? Al Brown: Oh, geez. Yes. I watched Netflix last night. Pete & Al: Netflix, Amazon Prime. Also, YouTube. Holy cow. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes you get there on and only watch it for a little bit. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You got to turn the auto play off. That's right. Yeah. And then you're the you know, the cliffhanger. You got to go to the next episode and all a sudden, it's three hours later. Right. Yeah. But I pull the plug at two hours sometimes. Yes. Pete Koch: OK. Number four. Do you ever eat while watching TV or in the car. Pete & Al: Oh yes. Yes. Yeah. So, I'm going to have to I'll say no to the television, but I'm going to have to say yes to the car just because the car for me. Television we don't snack or, you know, maybe a cup of tea, coffee. Sure. That's it. Have, have you ever Internet dated. Al Brown: Interstate dated? Pete & Al: Internet dated. Internet, no. I'm going to have to give us both a 0, A big 0. Sure. Computer didn't exist when I met my wife. Pete Koch: Yeah. Number six, I think. Do you own a recliner? Pete & Al: No, I do not. I don't either own recliner. Very good. Pete Koch: If you go to a party, do you seek out a chair or a stool? No. Is that because you don't go to parties or because you don't seek out chairs or stools? Al Brown: I'm typically not invited to parties. No, I don't. I tend to stand just because you end up, you get engaged in the conversation. It will be like this where I am probably more comfortable standing and talking. Pete Koch: Yeah. So, me to. I'm the same, same there as well. So that's going to be a zero. And then at if you look at your sofa, does it have an imprint of your butt in it. Al Brown: No. Pete Koch: Is that because it's new? Al Brown: No it's old, and it doesn't have an imprint. Doesn't, I don't spend a lot of time there. And change position all the time. Swap the cushions. Right, go back and forth. Depends on whoever wants the light to do an activity while watching TV, they get that side. Pete Koch: So this, this question might apply more to millennials than you and me, but I still think it's an important question to ask, especially in this day and age. So, do you spend more time with friends electronically than in real life? Pete & Al: No, I do not facetime, text, and all that. I talk directly to them.  Try to go see him. Yeah. Pete Koch: And the last question. Have you ever fantasized about just sitting? Al Brown: I was on top of Katahdin once and I was been walking for 8 hours. I guess you could say I was fantasizing about just sitting sown just sitting down to give my hips and legs a break. But no, not typically. Pete Koch: Yeah. Not typically either. All right. So, let's total them up. So, we've got one, two, three, four. So, we have four totals. And then the possible last one could be five. So if we total this up in one point for each answer and for those of you who are, who are doing this quiz with us on online here, for if you have zero, then you don't need to read Dr. Levine's book. You're good. You don't have a great relationship with your chair. And you can just keep on going. If you got two, one to two, you are considered a chair pre-addict. Hmm. Three to five. He gives us a Chair Addict. So we are, we are smack dab in Chair Addiction Al, because we're at 4.  Al Brown: Time for rehab. Pete Koch: Yeah, and six to eight, then you're in the Chair Imprisoned. And if you have hit 9 or 10, you are a Chair-a-holic. Yeah. Al Brown: Ouch. Pete Koch: Yeah, ouch. Wow okay. So relationship with your chair, we've talked some about like the body's response to not sitting at a biological level, so the cellular level, how the heart works in cleaning it out, and our endocrine system. But what do you see when you start talking to other workers or go into different businesses about the physical effects of sitting in those people? So, what do you see? Al Brown: Well, you know, I see musculoskeletal changes, you know, changes in their, in their body. Muscle length, muscle tightness. For example, when you sit down your hip flexor, the muscle on the front side of your thigh.  And it starts at the front side of your thigh, kind of right at the bottom where your pocket is, and it passes through your pelvis and attaches to your lumbar spine. So, it kind of goes right through your pelvis.  In a sitting position that muscle is in a shortened position. So, if you sit for an extended period time and what happens to muscles if they are in a position for a long period of time is they begin to adapt or if they're short, they shorten to that position. If you ever stretch something, it'll overstretch in the other direction. But in this particular case, your hip flexors, your hamstrings, which are the muscles on the back side of your thigh because your knees are bent will also shorten. You will oftentimes when you're sitting, you will tend to, the head will come forward a bit. Or you may recline. But in any case, you'll shut off your core muscles, particularly the front core muscles, your abdominal area, your back muscles will actually, your upper shoulder area, will get overstretched and lengthened.  If they're chronically lengthened and overstretched, that can lead to a condition called fibromyalgia or myofascial discomfort, which is connective tissue that is constantly under strain. Very difficult to recover from that simply because you have to either you have to shorten it, but that means contracting this irritated tissue. So, it's a very difficult thing to kind of change back. So those, those muscles in your body and to your chest area tends to close down because everything's in front of us. So, you, and those impact us. So, when we go to stand back up and those muscles are short, they change the mechanics of standing. So, if you think of us as a game of Jenga, we begin to start knocking some of those blocks out of position. And instead of a nice stout stack of blocks that are well-organized, the tight muscles begin to pull us forward or begin to flatten our back. We begin to lose our lumbar curve. We begin to have shortened hamstrings with knee pain. And that's all because of that prolonged static sitting posture. Pete Koch: So there's a musculoskeletal change that happens from sitting all the time. And when that occurs. So, what does that what does that look like, like when you talked about it, it changes the mechanics of how we stand back up. But if you've been sitting for a long time, that's your habit. Let's say that you took the quiz and you're in that chair imprisoned or chair-a-holic. Like most of the stuff that you do, I sit at work.  I spend a long time in the car commuting back and forth or on the bus or in a plane. And then I'm at home and I am doing work at a computer at home, or I'm exhausted when I get home. So, I just like to sit on the couch and play a video game or stream movies. So, I'm seated for eleven hours or more a day. What is it? What does it look like in a person? Like, what do you physically look like? Al Brown: Well, you, you know, one of the things I didn't mention in that that little list on the front side is the, you will tend to lose some of your muscle mass around your buttock area, your gluteus medius, gluteus maximus. Those are sort of your hip area. So, things you'll see, you'll see sort of a forward posture flattened back. But when during a gait, if someone's walking, you will see what we call in the medical world a Trendelenburg gait and the Trendelenburg gait, you have to realize that when you stand on your right hip, you weight bear on your right leg, your muscles on the right side of your hip contract tighten and they lift your pelvis to keep your belt, let's use the belt as a reference point, level with, with the earth or slightly elevate it.  The left side so that the left leg can move through. And then when you weight bear on the left side, the left side contracts, lifts and brings your right leg through.  So, your upper core, your upper body stays pretty vertical. When you've been sitting for a long time and you've lost that muscle mass on those hips, you will see people wobble. So, you'll see their head when they weight bear on the right, their head will shift over on the right hip to assist that muscle that's weak and bring their leg through. So it's sort of a wobbling gait when they're walking and you realize that person probably has got a lot of weakness in their hip areas, which will eventually lead to hip pain, which will probably eventually lead to total hip replacement, which really doesn't solve the problem. Pete Koch: It doesn't. Al Brown: Because we're just taking care of the joint. We haven't taken care of the strength of the core and the pelvic floor and that hip musculature. Pete Koch: So it's really a long-term effect. Like we could have some short-term acute effects. Like well for example, when I get out of a car, if I've been sitting in a car for two, sometimes three hours, though I try not to do that anymore. I'm sore like my hip flexors are tight, my low back is tight, my shoulders are tight, and it's because within the car I am like you said, my hamstrings are shortened, and my hip fractures are shortened and head forward in my posture.  And I'm in that single position for a lot of that time. Even if I do try to move, I can't move as much as I want to or should, and I'm sore. So that acute change for us or the acute effect is some short-term pain which can be alleviated with movement. But the long-term effects is what you're describing is that there could be the long term effects of that constant sitting is loss of muscle mass and eventually some degradation into the joints that will support because we're not ergonomically functioning the way we're supposed to anymore. Al Brown: Correct. And you know, again, it's that if you go back to the premise of art or talk today, which is NEAT, we suddenly begin to change or reduce that NEAT. And it does have those cardiovascular impacts that we talked about earlier button. But the physical effects are also right there. So, and then those two tend to feed off each other. And if you think about it, we really depend on independent movement of our body around the earth, so to speak. So, we're slowly painting ourselves back in a corner of inactivity. If you've ever seen the word the movie, Wall-E. Pete Koch: Yes. Al Brown: You know, where humans basically were chair bound and they really had no course. They couldn't stand up. And the little robots had to do everything for them. Think about that. And where we're heading. Pete & Al: We're getting there. We're developing robots. Yeah. Help us do those things right now. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Pete Koch: Okay, so lots of effects there for long-term sitting. And we've, we went through the quiz. We've talked some about what we already do. What are some, you know, when you go to a workplace, what are some areas where you find people seated for, for long periods of time? Al Brown: Well, we try to one first introduce this concept of because again, not everybody understands NEAT and understands the basis for, I might come in and say, you know, let's do job rotation or, or let's take a stretch break. And people think of that as "stretch breaks don't work" and, or let's collaborate, let's in an office setting might encourage folks to go and receive somebody that's come to the front office that they're going to meet with back as opposed to just, you know, "send 'em in" type thing. So, you're encouraging that movement, but you have to get them to understand that foundation on the front side of why we're doing this. If you look at the transition of our office over the last five to six years, you've seen an office that was static, cubicle driven. Stay inside that cubicle. You had a six or a 10 by 10 space and that was your space. And typically, you didn't leave it to more open space, more collaborative space. Rooms that you can go to, desks that go up and down. So, we try to encourage industry to look at those kinds of solutions where you're encouraging movement throughout the day. It's funny because one of the when James Levine was down in Vegas doing this presentation, there were about 400 vendors and probably 350 of those were dynamic desks. Or as we may know, most people know them as standing desks. So, the perception was that, oh, let's just stand up at work. And in fact, that's, that's an OK thing. And it's great because it takes those sore muscles like you dealt with in the car, and it allows you in the office to change frequently and again, if you look at Harvard, the T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Jack Dennerlein, Nicolaas Pronk, a lot of those folks that have done some of the work down there, they you know every 30 minutes stand up, 30 minutes sit down. And about half the day up, half the day down. It doesn't solve the physiological issues that Levine is talking about. And he's not saying stand up and that'll fix the problem. That is, I call it a three-legged stool. And we look at wellness. One is you sitting. We're going to have to sit. That's here. Computers are here. We're not going to change that.  Two, given the opportunity to change position by, and allowing, like you in the car. Let you get up, stand, move, different position, put the muscles, reset the body. And then three of that stools, that third leg is “Go Move”. Don't work through the stretch break. Don't eat at your desk and continue the work. You take a walk. Same thing even in a manufacturing facility. Some folks will get up, but they'll go and sit down in the cafeteria and eat and then go back and sit right back down and do what they're doing. This, an example this morning, just myself personally, I realized this conversation is coming up today and I said, Gee I get my cup of coffee. I go out. I sit in the chair and I look out at the lawn. And today I said, no, I'm going to walk around the lawn drinking my coffee. So that's what I did. So, I just took that opportunity to up my NEAT. So, we try to find those wind, but you really have to educate folks on the front side why we're doing this. Pete Koch: I would agree with that totally, that the why around movement is important. And I think also identifying all of the, all of the times when we're not active like, well, we're almost either required by a particular task or by a job or we are requiring ourselves through habit to stay in one position and helping people identify those, those times throughout the day when you might be approaching 11 hours in the chair or even eight hours in the chair is quite a bit of time to think about that throughout our day and then the more we can be active. I like that connection, that three-legged stool, stool, sit, stand, move. So basically, you can have two different positions that you need to swap between the two all day. But even if you're just sitting and standing and changing your position at your desk for eight hours, it's not going to be as beneficial to you if you get up and move through a break to do something else.And the standing piece too, just as a sidebar.  The fidgeter is going to have a higher NEAT level than the non-fidgeter.  And you yourself know, are you a fidget or not a fidgeter? You know, I mean, you wiggle back, and I mean, we're here having a conversation. Pete Koch: I'm totally a fidgeter.  Al Brown: And I'm on the right hip, then I'm over on the left hip. So we're fidgeting. And when folks stand, we really try to encourage them that when you're standing, don't just stand, you know, move back and forth, bend your leg.  Do toe raises, you know, do anything that kind of creates actual contraction muscle movement in the lower stretches.  Because, again, remember, it assists that feedback loop of bringing fluids back up to the heart and filtering the system. So, anything you can do along those lines are going to be beneficial. Pete Koch: Yeah, that's great. So, we're going to take a quick break and we'll come back with Al to talk a little bit more about NEAT and then discuss some potential solutions that we have and our ideas for the workplace. But we'll take a break and we'll be right back. Pete Koch: Welcome back to the Safety Experts podcast. Today, we're talking with Al Brown, director of ergonomics at MEMIC. So, let's jump back in with more questions right away. So, let's get back to I have a sedentary job. I'm going to drive a lot. I'm going to sit at my job, and I enjoy at home just being still.  So fine, I’m going to sit there, but I'm going to try to work out. So, I'm going to after work, I might go to the gym and work out for an hour. High intensity workout. Going to sweat a lot to get a lot of steps in and get my heart rate up. I feel really good afterwards. But how much is that really combating the long term sitting for that day? Al Brown: Unfortunately, it's not combating it much. They actually coined the term, I think it was in Australia or New Zealand, the active couch potato. And I'm just as guilty as you because necessity sometimes dictates my life in terms of drive a certain distance to do my job. And then, you know, generate reports or whatever the case may be. So, I'm sedentary. So same, I feel like I need something. So that pill I take is the walk, the run, the lift. And unfortunately, we do that in a short window of time. And in that short window of time, we you know sweat like you said. But then when we're done, what do you do? We sit down for dinner or then Netflix or whatever TV. Pete & Al: Fantasize about that chair. I just want to sit down. I'm tired. Al Brown: So it doesn't, it negates. Now, granted, you are creating a good muscular musculoskeletal system. You're strengthening your muscle tone and you're getting some muscle memory back. All those things are good. So, don't stop your workout. That's important. What you want to do is find strategies to add activity throughout the day. If you go back to James Levine's research and I encourage you all to kind of go back and look at that, because, you know, it's interesting. When he did his presentation out at the National Ergonomics Conference, he never stood still. He moved constantly and he did it purposely. And we're talking, you know, a room with 200 people and that he just raced around the whole time making his point. But what you want to do is in his research, he looked at folks that were lean, that had low risk factors actually moved, and again this was a very comprehensive study, two and a half hour, two and a half hours more a day.  And that's not I'm going to go out and run for an hour. And then I'm going to go work out for another hour and then do something for a half hour. These were little tiny increments. These were 10-minute increments throughout the day where I'm going to walk down and go get a cup of coffee at the corner. I'm going to walk over and get some lunch. I'm going to walk here and collaborate. So collectively, and those things to a certain extent are unconscious for a lot of folks.  You have a lot of folks that will not leave their chair, and that's unconscious, too. They don't rule our subconscious. They just don't realize they don't move. So, you have to try to find strategies that get you, and again, there's apps and all that kind of good stuff, but it's a behavior change. So, if you are locked in and you don't really think about, it's easy to push that button for the elevator and skip the stairs. Going "I don't want to do the stairs", nobody's watching and no one really cares. It's your body, it's you. It's your physiology. You would think you should care. Pete Koch: Yeah. Al Brown: Because it's the quality of life down the road. So, you begin to try to find those strategies that get you to move more.  Park across the parking lot. Don't park close. But park far away. When you go to the store in the weekend, park further away, protect the car doors. Don't get into the whole mess. I got to get close to the door. I have to laugh, we have a large outdoor retail store up in the Freeport area and I see a lot of people circling, trying to get as close to the door,  and meanwhile, it says "Outdoor hiking, camping, store" I'm thinking. Pete Koch: Yeah, exactly. Al Brown: Park further away! Pete Koch: You can do it! You can do it! Al Brown: So it's one of those things that you have to find those opportunities, be it at work. And again, management has to support that, too. Pete Koch: Sure. Al Brown: You know, if you have a management style that says if you're not at your desk, you're not working everything else is going to fail. You need that support at the upper management level that says, "I want folks to move and change." And what they have to realize is by allowing that you re-oxygenate the body, you rejuvenate the body.  Instead of getting that 2:00 o'clock in the afternoon "logy-ness", you come back, and you know, you produce a letter or you know manufacturing, you don't stick your finger someplace where it shouldn't be.  You're fresher. So again, I go back to the analogy of, you know, if I had, if I drove a truck for work and I said I don't have time to rotate the tires and change the oil and I make more money if I just keep going. Eventually I'm going to see the engine sort of burst into smoke and the tires fall off and major repairs. Oh, my gosh. Where if I take that time to actually do preventative maintenance and service it, I just keep chugging along and keep producing. So same thing with a human being. We're no different. We're a mechanical system within the world of gravity that we need to take time and sort of refresh ourselves, reset ourselves, and the benefits outweigh themselves from, you know, from staying at the desk. I mean, get out. You move around. You've come back actually are much better at what you do. Pete Koch: Those are really good points. And in some cases, I think it could be easier for someone that has a job at a desk or has a job in a place where they are allowed to get up. What about some of those positions, like a truck driver, like someone in manufacturing who literally is measured on production. I've got to get X amount of pieces out per day or I'm order picking or I'm doing something else. What are some strategies for someone who has a job that's based on the amount of time that they can actually do the job? What are some things that they can do to up their NEAT? Pete & Al: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Now in order pickers got probably a lot of NEAT. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Al Brown: It's like a mail person that, you know, walks and delivers mail. I think, I always thought the fantasy job would be to do that because you are, you're shooting the breeze, you're talking to people and you're walking and you're delivering mail. Of course, you're hanging it off one shoulder, so you have to change it every so often. But for those folks like the truck driver, again senior management has to support, let me pull off and take a stretch break occasionally. But, even then, truck driving is one of those tough things that you just, it's time, money and get down the road and you can't get up out of the seat to, to move around. So, when you do get out of the truck, first of all, I have to be very careful, because when you're getting out, you don't want to jump down. A lot has changed physiologically like you and I talked about earlier in the cast. So, you have to get yourself down safely. But when you're on the ground, then you reset and then you take time and opportunity to kind of move around 10, 15, 20 minutes. Don't just go and sit down somewhere else. Actually, take a walk around the rest stop, take a walk around the truck, give yourself some time to kind of recover.  Then back into the truck and then next stop, same thing. Find those 10 to 15-minute opportunities to just walk around and lengthen your body and kind of get things going. And you certainly should be someone that when you get home, you go for the walk.  And go, don't rush it.  Just take your time. Pete Koch: Nice and easy. Al Brown: A nice, slow walk through the woods is better than a quick run. Pete Koch: Yup. Al Brown: Because again, it's going to be that slow burn that's kind of important.  You know, in, in Maine, you know, we have long summer days, you know. So instead of our mindset sometimes is, oh, it's, it's four o'clock end of the day, or four-thirty or five o'clock end of the day and we tend to get home, you know, where we still have sunlight. Pete & Al: Habits. Yeah. Its habits. Al Brown: So extend that time, extend that time. Go out and do something, mow the lawn, go out and garden, go out and find those opportunities where if, you know, you're restricted like a truck driver, you have to find those on the other side. Now, if it's manufacturing or something like that, again, getting folks out to take a walk at lunch, take a, you know, get them to understand the value of resetting.  Job rotation.  You know, have them go move to a different job. Pods, if they have a pod and they have three machines, I worked with an auto manufacturing, that you know they're at this pod and then they move over to this pod. So, it's allowing them to move and use different muscle groups. But they're moving. It's again, it's that sort of getting the body to move. Pete Koch: And that can fit into the lean manufacturing concept.  And also, really, when we're thinking about the workplace, regardless whether it's truck driving or whether it's manufacturing or if it's the office space or it doesn't matter what it is, we're looking at that concept of as a, as an employer, I need to look at my workplace from a productivity standpoint.  But also, to maximize the productivity, I also have to keep in mind how well my employees can move within the workplace to up their NEAT in order to maintain their productivity.  Because a worker that is able to move more freely throughout the day, to, to bring more blood and oxygen to those muscles and those muscle groups will be more productive throughout the day, not just in the morning when they get there or in the evening when they first get to work depending on their shift. Al Brown: Correct, yes.  Pete Koch: So it's a more, not so much a holistic concept of it, but it's really looking at how we, we take the workplace and we can help the worker be healthier within the workplace. Yeah, those are all interesting concepts. Al Brown: Plus lower injury rates, too. I mean, because, again, that static, not moving posture, you know, and doing repeated tasks, you know, those are where we see high injury rates.  So, the movement within this does improve the wellness of the worker, but it also reduces the risk and exposure to those types of injuries we see in a work environment. Pete Koch: Sure. Now, how about the fidgeting part? Like so I you know I was thinking about that truck driver. When you were talking about the truck driver and I've you know, I've got a long road to go, heavy traffic sometimes.  There’re not many places, depending on where you're traveling, that you can pull off a big rig someplace safely and get out and wander around so I can fidget help within? Al Brown: I think, I think it was Levine's book. He said chewing gum is, you burn more calories chewing gum than you do actually sitting at a computer. So, if you're driving, chew some gum. Pete Koch: Chew some gum. Al Brown: Yeah, those types of things.  You know, I have a gripper that I keep in my vehicle that I'm actually sitting.  And I'm constantly working on gripping because my hands, you know, I used to do a lot of manual work and I lost a lot of my hand strength. So, I said, I've got to improve my hand strength. So, I just picked up a little gripper that I keep. And when I get to a stoplight, you know, instead of looking at my text or phone, I don't do that. I pick up my gripper and I, I do a couple repetitions. So, exercise bands, they sell those nowadays. You know, great, you can throw them in your suitcase if you travel or you're in the truck. It doesn't take a lot of space. You can take them out, do a little exercise. We're working with a company now that does every time, they get to their third stop, they come out and do three movements and three stretches, three sets or one set. So, it's sort of integrated into one, their job performance they're expected to do it.  And two, you know, they that it just becomes almost routine or habit for them. So those are the kinds of things you want to do is sort of change. Really have to take a critical look at your, it's like anything else, a critical look at your behaviors. You know, it's like money. Again, if you go back to if you don't know where you're spending your money, then you'll be struggling with money for a long time. You really have to look and be critical of where I spend every dime. And OK, now I'm going to start doing these things to save money. Same thing with your NEAT, which is even more important because I am going to tell you, your health is more important than your money. And you know, so you really need to take a critical look and be honest with yourself. And then also when your kind of trying to up that NEAT, be honest with yourself. When you get to that elevator, what do you really have to push that button, or can you walk up? And it's going to be harder. But in the long run by up in your NEAT and lowering your risk factors, you're going to feel a lot better later on and compressing your comorbidities and life, those aches and pains and cardiovascular type things. Pete Koch: Those are all really great points Al for that.  And I think the bottom line for us as we close out the podcast today is that kind of understanding first, looking at our habits, understanding where our NEAT level is right now, and then what are we going to actively do to increase that throughout the day? So, the overall, like you said, the slow burn movements that we have. So, don't stop those high intensity activities that you might have outside of work or outside of your relaxation or other activities.  But look towards what can I do to increase my activity in between or during some of those more sedentary tasks or jobs that we have. Al Brown: Exactly. Pete Koch: Awesome. So, thanks again today. And to all the listeners out there, really appreciate that. If you have any questions for our guests or we'd like to hear more about a particular topic or from a certain person on our podcast, you should email podcast at MEMIC.com. Get out there. So, we really appreciate that. So, we're wrapping up today's podcast here with Al Brown, Director of Ergonomics at MEMIC. I really appreciate you sharing your expertise with us today. Any final comments for our listeners out there today? Al Brown: Pete? No, thank you for the invitation. It's one of those things, you know, find those opportunities to improve, improve your NEAT. I'm an exerciser.  I'm an active couch potato.  And I still need to find those areas, places where I can improve my NEAT. You were very good today by, I was walking towards the elevator and you said, "Aren't you going to take the stairs?"  And so, the fact that we did this whole podcast standing up, which is a great thing. The time flew by and we feel better. We're probably looking forward to sitting down now. Pete & Al: At some point reacquaint ourselves with our chair. There we go. Al Brown: But not spend too much time there. Pete Koch: I'm not fantasizing about it, for sure. Al Brown: No neither am I. Pete Koch: Excellent.  So, this podcast is presented by MEMIC, a leader in the competitive worker's comp market and committed to health and safety of all workers. To learn more about how MEMIC can help your business, visit MEMIC.com. And don't forget about our upcoming workshops and webinars. And you can also visit MEMIC.com for dates and topics.  When you want to hear more from the Safety Experts. You can find us on iTunes or right here at MEMIC.com. And if you have a smart speaker, tell it to play the safety experts podcast and you can pick up today's episode or a previous episode. You can also enable the Safety Experts podcast skill on Alexa to receive safety tips and advice from any of our episodes. So, we really appreciate your listening and encourage you to share this podcast with your friends and co-workers. Let them know that you can find it on their favorite podcast player by searching for the Safety Experts. Thanks again for tuning into the Safety Experts podcast. And remember, you can always learn more by subscribing to the podcast at MEMIC.com/podcast.  Thanks for listening. Resources/Articles/People Mentioned in Podcast   MEMIC - https://www.memic.com/ Peter Koch - https://www.memic.com/workplace-safety/safety-consultants/peter-koch Allan Brown - https://www.memic.com/workplace-safety/safety-consultants/allan-brown Bath Iron Works - https://www.gd.com/en/our-businesses/marine-systems/bath-iron-works L.Bean - https://www.llbean.com/?&qs=3147769&Matchtype=e&msclkid=2d14580265a515a69b3d05b3fa8a9a0c&gclid=CPHZjtv4tOUCFRDcswod0iMO2A&gclsrc=ds Mayo Clinic - https://www.mayoclinic.org/ “Get Up: Why Your Chair is Killing You and What You Can Do About It” by Dr. James Levine - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/get-up-james-a-levine/1118661250 James Levine - https://doctor.webmd.com/doctor/james-levine-9fee2b4b-e59b-427b-a3c2-5e6d2ead739b-overview National Ergonomics Conference - https://www.ergoexpo.com/ Wall-E - https://movies.disney.com/wall-e Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health - https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/ Jack Dennerlein - https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/jack-dennerlein/ Nicolaas Pronk, PhD - https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/ecpe/faculty/nicolaas-pronk/