Good afternoon this is OLLI
at UC Berkeley, we're delighted that you
can spend the time with us.
We are hoping that you are safe and well
in your homes your
windows closed and your air filters on
and for the next
hour on, you will have one of the world's
foremost experts on healthy living
who will give you a talk
about how the role of technology in our
lives and how to sort of put it into
perspective and make
sure it doesn't hijack
everything we're doing. I'm Susan Hoffman,
the director of UC Berkeley's
OLLI and today you are joining us
with Dr. Erik Peper who is a holistic
health professor
at San Francisco State University, he has
multiple books all of which are
available
both at local bookstores,
they're North Atlantic Random House
publications,
all of which you can follow up today's
talk and investigate further, I understand
they're also available on Amazon.
Erik Peper is somebody who has
served as a colleague we were at San
Francisco State together,
he has been there for decades he has
advised me
at OLLI at Berkeley in what I call my
dynamic aging curriculum
I have sought his advice throughout
my 14 years at Berkeley knowing that we
need to pay attention to
all those things that are important
in our environments and in the choices
that we make
with a healthy lifestyle, I think the
world of him
and I'm really glad that we've got this
next hour.
Today's talk is called Tech Stress, how
technology is
hijacking our lives, strategies for
coping
and pragmatic ergonomics,
so Erik I turn it over to you.
Susan thank you so much for this very
generous and kind introduction,
I always feel so awkward to speak
after such an introduction because it
reminds me of being at a funeral oration
where all the people give these nice
comments except you know what the person
is really like,
anyway I'm so honored to be present and
share
some of our concepts on tech stress you
know
even today as you're sitting here and
looking at the screen,
you're just sitting, and we're just
looking at the screen and so
many of us if you do this hour after
hour
and for many or for us or for our
children or grandchildren
that's how they're now behaving,
that's how they go to work, that's how
they do socialization
and even dating and it's really
challenging to do this
and often at the end of the day many
people report
achiness, neck and shoulder pain,
tiredness,
especially the eyes tend to get really
tired they get irritated etc. And I'm just
intrigued how many of you
experience some symptoms
when you're
at the end of watching this and it can
also be watching
you know different videos on Netflix or
on any other media that by the end of
the day you sort of feel blah,
low energy, it may
even be hard to go to sleep
whatever the symptoms for a moment if
you're familiar with
Zoom, there's a little chat bot at the
bottom screen has
chat if you click on that you can just
type in
for a moment what sort of things you
experience and that will help me
potentially focus and
give some suggestions as well
especially near the end so if you type
them in there
for example, I have dry eyes, I get neck
and shoulders,
I feel more depressed, I keep waking up, I
don't care what it is
headaches, great,
typing them in for a moment
and all you do is remember you click the
chat box
you type it in and then hit return.
Eye pain,
neck pain radiating to shoulders, mental
fatigue,
yes it's really often called now, Zoom
fatigue
it's unfair to Zoom because it's really
screen fatigue
great neck pain, stiff all over, very
familiar to all of us I think
and so if I shift my screen for a moment
which I will do
and please if in case I make
technological errors and they're making
mistakes you know we're all just
learning how to do this technology
including me so
it does give us permission for that.
I'm gonna share my screen for a moment
and here I am and here what you now see
is the new book we have just published
so happy
I'm so happy Susan gave me the
opportunity to talk today
because this morning the book actually
got published
thank you Susan to be to be able to
present on the publishing date of this
book which is now available all around
the United States
but if I think of that ideally I want
to move
more I took that picture a couple of
weeks, maybe two months ago I didn't take
it a friend of mine took it
while we were hiking in the hills and so
that is just for fun and many of us when
we look at the screen
our eyes are just totally exhausted as
you could see
we have to prop them open or we have neck
and shoulder pain
and when you think of all that then you
realize by the end of the day if I
summarize it
but many of you wrote down on your list
already, you have
exhaustion, neck and shoulder discomfort,
eye irritation,
back pain tiredness in kind of an
insomnia
or if you watch too much of the screen
and watch news
which can be so disturbing it interferes
with our sleep as well
and then we some of us become so
addicted to the cell phone
especially our children and
grandchildren the moment
occurs they're looking at it in the
middle when we're talking to them
and our attention keeps moving back and
forth, we have anxiety
and depression at times
and maybe our technology something
really went wrong
we started over here in our evolutionary
background
slowly moved over and now we end up at
the computer with our head being almost
bigger than our body
and look at this great posture crunched
over looking intensely at the screen
and being fixed for hours it symbolizes
in a way
what went wrong and the other part it
really symbolizes
is that we are so captured by the screen
maybe not all of us we can get bored
but especially our children and our
grandchildren,
they just captivate they're sitting like
this they're looking
and looking and looking and their whole
world especially now
when most of the children are getting
educated online,
their visual world is from
their eyes to the screen
and we now know from the work in
Singapore that children who mainly watch
screens
by the time they're in high school 80
percent
are myopic and need glasses it's a
simple one to solve
all you need to do is keep going outside
and look at the far
distance so when you're watching the
screen
for a moment close your eyes even now
just close them for a moment
and then look for a moment outside the
window if that's possible
slowly let the lids go up and look out
let me do it in a different way
when you're looking at the screen close
your eyes,
now open your eyes like you're scared
you want to be sure
I wonder what's going on when we do that
we take a big breath while we open our
eyes at the same time wide,
so it's almost
like this
and I'm looking, I'm looking I don't want
to miss anything because it's dangerous
out there
and when I do that my eyes are becoming
more dry, I can feel it
on the other hand if I close my eyes
and I feel safe, I let my eyes be closed
for a moment
now I breathe, I let the air come in and
then very slowly start exhaling
and open my eyes halfway through the
exhalation
softly then what I can often experience
is a kind of
moisture wetting of the eyes which
reduces the eye irritation
anyway if all you do
is keep looking away from the screen for
a moment at the far distance
ideally at something green
it will improve the vision right off and
it's so interesting when I think of our
technology
look at this shift in indigenous
cultures
we used to sit around and talk we were
socially connected
and now we have family gatherings like
this, this is at Newark airport I took
the picture
and here the whole family are sitting
all looking at their own screen and
missing that social connection
and social connections is the foundation
of health
or yeah look at the Hadzabe tribe men
how we used to go hunting and gathering
we used to walk
and move and now we sit at the chair
and we look and we collapse look at
their lovely posture
how nice and straight they are and
reaching upwards
and look at these collapsed postures as
people work
those make major impacts in our health
and I make comments on that,
or we just sit at the desk like this
working
and then we frown we have glare and we
just feel exhausted
or we look around wherever you go
the the new human
look is the iPhone neck and we all look
down and look down
and look down when the
head is this far forward as you can see
it is equivalent for the back for the
muscles
to carry a weight which is 60 pounds
except you
don't know that we are reacting that way
and then
we have this massive shift right now for
some our children have moved back in
because first for Covid 19
but we used to work
together
in person human contact we all know we
miss that so much,
at least I do and the two working more
at home alone and then our children
used to be hanging around but look how
they hang around
and now we are just only looking at
screens
and remember think of childhood when you
were a little child
you used to play outside that meant that
your eyes and how you looked at the world
continually change you looked close
you looked far away you moved, you
activated and when you
did that we we get much
better integration
for our brain to develop we do need
movement
so you've been sitting for a moment
already just check how you feel
and I know it's difficult but for a
moment
just get up from your chair or couch
and really reach up a moment
get up it's hard
just reach up bring your
arm way up, way up,
way up reach up as much as possible
and then you can even put your hands
together like this
and just make some circles
just move and move and move
and note what happened do you feel much
do you
when you have done that, did you feel more
relaxation? Do you feel a little bit more
energy?
Do you feel slightly better in mood? If
there's a second piece
advice I would give for working at the
digital screen to avoid Zoom fatigue,
put an alarm clock up, put an alarm up
and let it remind you to interrupt
and move it's the most difficult part to
do I can promise at least for me, even
I sit on the couch starting to watch
some form of video
on the screen, I start collapsing like a
letter c
and then I just sit and I almost don't
want to get up
you know I just want to stay and yet
when I do get up
and move for a moment I have an increase
in energy and my mood goes up
so if there's one advice I would
recommend for
each of us is to really
set up a schedule to get up and wiggle
whether you do
your own ways of dancing just wiggle
roll your shoulders
reach up and look up especially look up
it improves our health right away it's
most remarkable
and if you're intrigued in that and you
want to have a
computer and I'll put this in the chat
box in a moment
I can do this right now I'll do that,
I'll do that in a moment in the
chat box, there's a computer
app called stretch break
stretchbreak.com
and that app is free you can install it
in the computer
and it will pop up every time to remind
you to stretch and wiggle
I highly recommend that and now you can
see the difference
between us at times
and our grandchildren and children you
know
when we meet together we still talk to
each other
and look at the difference when younger
people meet
and they only look down there's a loss
at times
okay and now finally so many of us sit
like this I wish it wasn't that way
and then we get all the symptoms we
report, it's always shocking to me.
That noise you just heard was my
reminder, so for a moment once again
just roll your shoulders for a moment
look away from the screen
look up ah, look up to the left, look up
to the right,
blink a few times and take a very big breath
and I'll just stop sharing the screen
for a moment
and now you can see me again in a
different way
I want to just point out how your eyes
and neck are connected put
in your neck just like this right
underneath the skull
against the neck really
feel that, let him float there and that's
just sitting
up the neck is sort of relaxed now I'd
like you to look
with your eyes to the extreme right
and then to the extreme left right
left right left
and what many of you would feel that you
do that
you could feel these muscles tightening
when you looked at to the right
the right neck tightened we look to the
left the left muscles tightened.
Our eyes are connected to our neck, when
I move my head forward like this to look
at the screen
my neck tightens. I don't know
it that is the most important part.
So let me show
is a different slide and the real
question is why do we get the
achiness sitting in front of the
computer
or watching screens or when we are using
our mouse
so let me show one of our research study
slides
which will illustrate this nicely here's
a young woman, the age really
makes no difference, we see this among
young people
all different ages here we have someone
sitting at the computer as you can see
the person is typing sending an email or
whatever
then we can monitor how much muscle
tension
is in the neck and shoulders that will
be the red line over in the center
and or on the forearm the green line and
we can even look how
their breathing pattern goes so when the
line which goes up they
would breathe when they goes down they
exhale inhale
exhale and the number of times it goes
up and down here
tells you how quickly they're breathing
now we do just a simple task you could
all do this almost
you drop your hands on your lap you feel
the shoulder sinking
the weight pulled on the elbows and
notice that's how you
would start that's in this first part
the muscle
tension is zero
it's very low and the person is
breathing lower that makes sense there's
no demands on them
now you ask them just to bring their
hands to the keyboard
just sit there no work to be done and
look
the muscle tension shoulders goes up, the
forearm goes up,
and the person says there's no difference,
they feel just as relaxed, oops where
that there's an increase in tension, now
they have to work, well when you work
the muscles have to contract. 
See this on the forearm
these are the fingers pressing down on
the keys or the mouse
it goes up and down and note how the
shoulders are up too
the person isn't just sitting there
they're like this lift their shoulder up
and they are totally unaware of doing
this that's the most critical part
and I want to underline that when you
ask them they may say, I feel
tightness in my form they will
definitely not say I feel
tightness in my shoulders except by the
end of the day
then they're exhausted, and so and then
you can even look and say
huh when the muscles tighten if I drew a
line across here
the muscles never relax
never when they're working
and muscles cannot be held for a long
time that leads to a problem
let me give you that experience so what
I'll, as you're sitting on the
on your chair or couch,
wherever you may be,
I'd like you to just lift your right
knee slightly up,
obviously if the right knee hurts or the
hip hurts
lift the left knee, lift it slightly up,
maybe just about an inch so the foot
leaves the floor, just hold it up
and if you notice you may have held your
breath as you're doing this
keep breathing while you're holding it up
and you may already start feeling some
achiness developing in the hip, that's
enough let it go, let the foot and knee
go down.
Notice we didn't do that
much work we lifted
the knee only a tiny bit yet almost
instantaneously
you could start feeling some discomfort
this same process happens in the
shoulders we are less aware of it
and now at the same time about our hip
going back to the hip
you know we use these same muscles when
we walk
and for many of us, unless we have hip or
knee problems, or ankle problems,
we can walk for miles and there is no
problem
how come there's no problem when I walk
but I get achiness when I hold it up a
little bit?
The reason is muscles work best when
they tighten and relax,
when they tighten and when they relax,
the waist bodies can be taken away
and almost fresh nutrients and blood
goes through the tissue
that is how our muscles work, and if you
look again
at this picture here you realize
uh-uh she does not or the person does
not relax their muscles
and unknowingly they are more excited
or activated they're breathing more
quickly
I'm exaggerating but they do, and
they forget to blink and this again is
a very
normal process it's really an
evolutionary process because when I look
at the screen,
you could think this activates our
survival mechanisms
from earlier times, when we are walking
through the savannah
and we need to be aware of friend or foe,
we need to be aware of an animal a
dangerous animal,
so we'll be looking to the side and
looking back at nearby, looking to the
side and whenever there was something
dangerous
we would react, our brain reacts the same
way to the signals on the screen
so here you can see this kind of
activation,
it doesn't have to be that way, we can
learn to breathe
lower and slower we can learn to take
breaks
but this is such a common process that
occurs.
I can show it another way defined on
this same slide
and then you can see it easily here's a
person working at the computer
our classical head forwards because we
want to look at the screen
I can't quite see it as well this is a
real challenge always
when people you know
when our eyesight becomes slightly more
compromised
or we are wearing bifocals or
progressive glasses
we tend to want to go to the screen we
scrunch
our neck and maybe crunch our neck
we increase the probability of headaches
reduce blood flow
etc and you can just see the difference
how posture makes a difference
in this slide when the person is head
forward, look at the muscles
of their neck and
shoulders we measure this with little
sensors
it's massively high, except the person is
totally unaware of it until it's too
late
when they just shift their posture by
sitting up
by changing their chair their muscle
tension really is reduced
I'll come back to that later.
Let me just go go back to me for a
moment,
you know really we forget how
that immobility really affects us
it really increases our sitting disease
and Covid 19 especially has increased
the sitting disease
you know because we forget
that our calf muscles are often called a
second
heart namely as you're sitting
or if you only stand straight we often
can feel how our legs start swelling a
bit we get almost like an edema
blood pools in our legs that means that
puts stress on the heart to get the
blood back
when you walk remember you push off you
tighten your calf muscles
that squeezes the, well let me explain,
inside the muscles are veins which let
the blood go back to the heart
and the muscles which squeeze these
veins like a pump
to bring the blood back to the heart or
the fluids that build up in the
in the legs back to the heart but when
we sit
it doesn't occur so we really are
compromising ourselves
while we still get activated by what we
see at the screen
we really forget that what we
see on the screen is for our physiology
and our brain reality.
Our brain is evolved to be able
to separate out
the scenery on the screen as an
imaginary thing
it's real, until the
20th century
everything we ever saw was real
now we see the same thing hitting the
retina, except
it's made up and our bodies keep
reacting
you all know that in a certain way when
you watch a horror movie,
or have horrible news, or you see someone
being killed on the screen you get this
visceral reaction
it's a signal from the screen
that uh so that says I need to
always take control of what I allow my
screen to enter my brain, I want to show
one more slide
one or two more slides
and I think this is so relevant for so
many of us
as we are tending to to sit more on
chairs like this
or we sit on a couch like that this
position
it's it's really like on the couch when
i sit on the couch to watch television
or whatever
i tend to slouch my spine becomes like a
letter
c but look what happens to your body
your head goes
forward that means much more work on
your spine here
and especially we forget that our
abdomen
our stomach as illustrated here as well
is really compressed
that affects our digestion it may affect
our bowel movements
it really affects highly how we breathe
because we now breathe more
shallowly in our chest, that puts more
strain in our system,
it does not allow us to really relax
deeply,
we again forget that for health
and to boost our own immunity, if we
breathe
lower and slower that means if during
inhalation our stomach can expand
and then very slowly during exhalations
our stomach contracts and that cycle
repeats itself very slowly
which you can see in like little babies
when they're breathing their stomach
moves,
not their chest, that allows
a support of digestion, it allows support
of the blood flow going
back to our heart
it really makes a significant
improvement and in this same
picture you can see the knees may be
flexed and the blood just pools here
because to get the blood back out of the
legs the calves
need to be the pump it really
facilitates it,
let me do one more on this to show at
least and here's that slide when you're
looking forward
you can all see this when your head is
way forward
notice how much more the strain is on
your back,
I would recommend holding it much more
up like this it will reduce the strain.
And for the breathing I think I'll skip
these for a moment, at this moment I'll
go back to stop sharing
and I'll just look at you, I want to make
a comment about the posture
and the breathing but before doing that
let just you
I've been talking too long let's wiggle
and move and so for a moment once again
why you just interlace your fingers like
this turn the palms and then
bring the arms up and just go back and
forth like you're making a circle
it's as if you're like a flower a tulip
just
going around and I should then exhale at
the same time
and now you can make it even more
challenging by putting the palms
up and going around again,
and I would recommend for an instant
just get up,
I know it's challenging but just get up
get out of the chair
notice feel the impulse not to do this
feel it's too much work to get up
overpower that urge to say wait a minute
I'm going to make do an experiment, just
get up
and now for a moment just tap your feet
one foot on the floor
then the other, one foot on the floor or
you just lift your legs,
what you can do is stand on the ball of
the feet you can hold on to the table or
other places to feel balanced
and all you do is you lift your heels
let them come back
lift your heels let them come back lift
your heels
let them come back good, and now
just sit and just shake your whole body
for a moment
and let yourself sit again
and for a moment longer let's bring our
attention to our body
so I would like you just to tap your
body with your hands
always be gentle and do it but just
while you're breathing
just take your right hand and tap it on
your shoulder
and then down the arm
and then your left hand from the
shoulder,
down your right arm, then both hands
from your buttocks, you can pat your own
buttocks down your buttocks, down your
legs,
down your knees, down your calves, how far
you can do it and one more time we'll
start from the
left shoulder right arm left shoulder
top down, then
the left hand on the right shoulder,
and both hands on the hips
patting down the thighs so you can make
almost clapping yourself,
and then you can even with your fingers
just tap your head for a moment very
nice in your shoulders
your chest your stomach
you just put your hands on the stomach
and just like there's a drum there
and you can just pat it good enough.
Now let your hands just be on your lap
and for a moment
notice how the skin feels more tingly,
more alive, and if your hands are on your
stomach,
see for a moment if you can just inhale
slowly
into the stomach so the stomach is
larger when you inhale
and then very slowly let the air flow
out, I'm going gonna
make a sound flowing out
but it really should flow through your
nose
and one more breath just like that
and most likely you felt
slightly more alert,
slightly more alive in the body and
notice all we did
is just some movement but I want to make
a comment I want to shift one more time
to posture it's a piece we have so
forgotten about
I know when I was little my mother said
don't slouch, stand up straight,
and yet many of us slouch,
collapse we have no idea
that that slouch, collapse not only
if you know it affects both how people
see us
from the outside but also what
communicates to us.
So I want to share some findings
we did
about slouching versus standing erect
and we can change even our posture at
any age
and I think that's the critical part so
when we take students
and we ask them just, or anyone I've done
this with
probably you know thousands literally
thousands of people from all age groups,
and we just ask them to walk in this
slouched way you know how you can walk
outside
very much slouched waiters walk like you
don't
like almost no arm movement very slow,
you walk like that for a minute or two,
that's one
one type of walk. The second walk is
where you walk up like a little kid
with a bounce in your hand and you're,
you're reaching up with your arms
so you push off with the ball of your feet
and walk
and so you just walk that way for about
oh a minute,
like you're skipping in place so it's
like slouch walking
very slowly or skipping in place.
What is so impressive when you ask
people in controlled studies here
balance these off
that when people walk in slouch walking
they feel their energy just
dropping it sags it goes down,
and if you do skipping walking
after a minute your energy is up and
your mood feels significantly better
hard to believe it's true, it doesn't
solve the problems,
but at least it gives you a tiny bit of
control so when you look up the world
is looking up you can create the signal
to your body
and for people who have a history what
was most
interesting in our studies our students
who had a history of depression
to over two years when they did slouch
walking they had the biggest drop in
energy yet when they did the skipping their
energy just went up
like everybody else you could ask how
come, well we forget that the position of
slouching defensively like this
is a biological defense reaction,
you can see this in dogs and if you have
dogs two dogs meet
you have the alpha male or female it
tails goes up
it takes over
and then that's a dominant one and the
other dog becomes submissive
its tail tucks under defensive
we are just like that but what we forget
is when we become in this defensive
position we all have
had histories like that when
we put our
into that not because we are defensive
but just because we're
sitting on the couch
slouching for our bodies this is the
conditioned cue
to evoke those hopeless helpless
powerless memories
and so you have much much more easy
access to those
to those well if you are putting
yourself in an upper position
it's easy access to optimistic memories
and positive memories
and we have also demonstrated that
easily. You know it's even more
interesting than that when we
have students do math problems so these
are students
who can do all kinds of you know some
are math majors and some
you know theater arts majors, makes no
difference we just ask
them to sit in one position
collapsed versus way upright
and look up, it's
nicely balanced
and they just have to do simple math and
when they
do that they report when they slouch
it is more difficult to do the math
as if it's more difficult to do the
abstract
thinking and from an evolutionary
perspective
that makes sense because if I have this
defensive position
it means the world is dangerous out
there, I don't need to think about the
future or the past
I just need to defend myself at this
moment, so it's more difficult to do the
abstract thinking.
Now how does it apply to us at
the computer
watching you know sitting what I have
now done is really pragmatic at home,
I mean I sit on the couch and I slouch,
I wish I didn't, I do but now what I do
is I take a little rolled up pillow
and I put it in my lower back so I put,
I stick my bottom all the way into the
the couch or the chair and I have a
little pillow
in the mid back so now I'm out
automatically
sitting more up and once I have done
that,
and I use that each time even on my
kitchen chair
it works easier. So this is the final
components at least there are many more
I can think of
and that is ergonomics especially as we
all work at home.
Many of us don't have ergonomists, these
are people who adjust
your chair, your computer, your
workstation to fit
you, most of us use our kitchen table,
we may use a dining room table or a desk
somehow
and ergonomics is really very
interesting so let me show one
slide of that for a moment.
The problem of it, of an ergonomics is
illustrated by this picture
if you're petite
the table is always too high your feet
cannot touch the floor
you're always ungrounded in a sense and
you have to slouch
and if you're too tall it also doesn't
work
what is so interesting about ergonomics
is that there is no perfect solution
ever it's
always a compromise but let me explain
when you get the right chair which is
fit for you,
just like the air, remember as a side
note,
all airplane seats have been designed to
optimize for people if you're five foot
six they're pretty good
if you're to six foot two they're too
small
and if you're five foot two they're also
too big. Ergonomics is always individualized
and now think of this when you get a
chair that's right for you
it gives the opportunity to you to sit
correctly,
it doesn't mean you will, because I can
still be stressed I can still lean
forward, I can still have my glasses
being incorrect
however if I have an incorrect chair
then I have no opportunity to sit
correctly
and I also realize in many years of
working with people in my practice
that it's challenging to change it you
know I'll never forget
visiting colleagues of mine I was so
lucky to be invited for dinner at their
house
I went over, it was my most miserable
experience
the food was delicious there was only
one problem
they were the man was five feet and his
wife was four foot
ten, and I am six foot two
what they did when I entered their house
they had adapted the house to them so
I sat on the couch and when I sat on the
couch my knees literally were almost
touching my
chin, how come?
They had taken the legs off the couch so
the couch would be lower
I was in awe of them having done that to
have bought furniture to take the legs of the
chair so it would fit for them,
they've done the same thing if they're
exquisitely wooden fancy
kitchen table they've they took off this
much of each of the legs,
instead of having the standard height, it
was much lower.
The same thing for the kitchen counters
it was much lower
and the opposite can be done for people
who are very tall you would raise them,
but we so often think we have no control
over that.
That is not in our, you know I buy it I
don't want to change it
I have slowly learned they're an option
what you want to do in ergonomics is
adapt the world
to yourself, to you, not the other way
around
and that is a real challenge and these
two that couple
for me just illustrated how
perfectly they did.
Yes in their kitchen I left with black
and blue spots on my head because
every time I walked around I would hit
something against my head,
but and for them it was the perfect
house
so i think to me that is the critical
issue you see him for myself i've
adopted my ergonomics as well,
it doesn't always mean it's the most
expensive, you have a fairly cheap seat
which goes up and down a little bit I'm
lucky my table can move up and down
I make it go up and down I often sit in
the stool
or sometimes I'll just stand now you
can't see me
and when I do that, ah and that tells me
I need to do a break again and we can do
any one of them, so this time stand up
for a moment
just stand up it's I know we
and now imagine we're outside
we're in a tropical forest with many
many
flowers all around us and I'd like you
to pick each of these flowers so there's
one
way high up on the left pick that one
put in the in the bush hold it up on the
right
there there's one on the ground pick
that one up oh there's another one
pick that one make a lovely bunch of
flowers there's one behind you
pick that one up pick that one up
and now just look at these flowers,
look at the lovely colors, and then for a
moment
think of someone you care for
and in your imagination just hand them
give them those flowers
and now I'll let you sit.
We can do many different things, we can
have some music playing that would have
been better we could've
played drums, whatever.
I'll go back here, in terms of ergonomics
I want to do one
recommendation because so many people
now use laptops.
Stop the sharing, for instance we use laptops
and laptops are the most difficult
device to
do correctly because if you have the
laptop
that the keyboard is at the right level
it means you have to look down.
If you put the screen at the right level,
so it's at the top of your eyebrows
you have to bring your arms up there's
no easy compromise
what I have done and resolved it is
by two ways,
one I use an external keyboard
which one can buy, keyboards it can split
but it's such as I don't know if I can
show it,
um there we are it it sort of divides
itself
maybe there we are you can just amply
see it
it's a split keyboard that allows my
hands to just be straight instead of
arching this way curling over like this,
I can just be natural, I use the external
keyboard
and then I raise my screen so I can look
at it
and the alternative solution which I
highly recommend for most of us,
is to buy a bigger screen
and plug that in the laptop so we can
equally see it,
there are many more solutions, we use
devices to remind us to
to sit up, because when I work I collapse
I now use a device called upright which
I put on my spine,
works on my cell phone, and every time I
collapse
it vibrates it's a great reminder,
but anyway there are many many hundred
solutions one can do
and I think I want to summarize
possibly some of the solutions,
in the following slides.
So one we have to remember
that our bodies are the result of
evolution
and now we react to the screen because
it's really a signal that take captures our
attention for survival
and the programmers have really designed
all the notifications to capture it,
we need to learn to turn those off and
take breaks,
it's critical and let me give an example
for me I remember as a little kid,
when I used a younger person when I
visited my parents
their tv was often on
and for me when the tv is on, my eyes I
have almost no control
it's I was shocked, I would automatically
look at the screen
I would have no control, I still have no
control, but now
when I used to fly, well not for this
year, when I
sit on the airplane seat and the person
opens their laptop
I automatically peek
and even on BART, I would do their cell
phones
it wasn't that I'm curious but it's like
an innate survival mechanism I need to
know what the stimulis are
for survival we're all wired like that a bit.
Two, so once you know that you want to
say I need to get rid of those
displays, turn off the notifications have
time when they don't occur.
Two, do look at your ergonomics
really think of being able to sit
comfortably, and
with the arms somewhat hanging low the
shoulders relax that the fingers can be
on the keyboard.
Learn more breathing, check your
breathing really
observe can I breathe am I mainly
breathing in my chest,
I highly recommend breathing lower in
your stomach
as if the balloon your lungs are
balloon in your stomach
and focus strongly upon inhaling
and exhaling through your nose.
When you inhale through your nose it
filters and mod
filters warms and moistens
the air, it really reduces the
possibility of
infectious disease because in the
nose, the nasal tissue produces a substance
called nitric oxide
which acts as an anti-microbial and
anti-viral,
it has anti-microbial,
antiviral
activity so when you're inhaling through
your nose,
you are bringing the nitric oxide into
the lungs
which protects it slightly more from any
viral infections,
so for anyone fearful of Covid 19,
by definition learn to only breathe in
and out through the nose we often
breathe slower that way
it will be helpful okay.
We need to do movement breaks, I think
the point I made many times
do at least every 20, every 15 minutes
do movement breaks. You cannot do
enough of them, often we need to learn
stress management
and then at least for if you work
schedule time without interruptions,
I would focus on
vision care because so many of us use
bifocals
or have progressive glasses and then we
have progressive glasses and we look at
the screen
we are really looking through a very
small window which the screen is in
focus
so we we have to fix our neck, I
highly recommend to have special glasses
for those people which are just for the
computer
distance that allows you to head them
freely to see the screen okay.
Fitness is by definition, so the more
fitness exercise I can do the better,
let me go back this way, my error in
jumping, pressing the wrong button,
and then avoid the screen,
any screen television, computers
cell phones at least 45 minutes before
going to bed
because the light from the screen has a
high
blue light component that will suppress
the natural melatonin that is produced
by your body
almost a sleep hormone so do not
watch screens before going to bed, one to
reduce the melatonin,
and two, to in to slow down our
emotional activation to the news or to
the excitement of the video
or movie we want to slowly be mellow and
let the light, the lights in the room
be more in the
orange red color than this very
sparkly white and then
keep your cell phones away from your
body
I do think there's good evidence that
the radiation may not be beneficial.
Finally I would recommend these
suggestions and many more
now I do an unabashed plug for our book
which is really written for general
public I would highly recommend it for
everybody and especially
you, your children, your
children as a way to live to mobilize
your health in this digital age which
we're not going to escape,
there are many benefits of it
and so any of you have any questions I
would highly recommend here's my contact
information
you can much of the information
some of the concept I also have shared
can be found on my blog I have called
www.peperperspective.com
I highly recommend that
and then the free
program which I discussed
called stretch break
it is stretchbreak.com,
well obviously if there are questions
please.
Erik I have a, I'll take the first
question
while others are either writing into the
chat room
or raising the blue hand
is to, oh dear my question just
flew out of my head,
oh yes the question is the following,
I get an email from you maybe once a
week with tips, a lot of times it's
ergonomic tips or
you know tips related to just healthy
living
is that something that people can still
sign up for
is that an email list serve that is
ongoing, I know you've been doing it for 20 years?
No that the it,
thank you the email tips list we don't
do anymore but I know
I mean that was a great service when
email first came about,
people loved it and then there became a
point when people get too many emails
you don't want any,
so we have stopped producing them but
people can,
if you want I'll gladly send the tips to
anybody who wants them
their whole list, I would highly
recommend that people would sign up for
the Peper Perspective,
that has now a blog that's a blog that
also has some of this video inserts
it deals on many different topics so
there have been topics like on acid
reflux it's a great blog with all
references
which I highly recommend for tech stress
and one of the more recent ones I did
which I think
is a must for everybody to read is the
one we did
on Covid basically reduce viral load
and increase your immune system,
increase immune competence because we
are not just victims
if we think about ourselves we help you
know we're not in control of our health
I know that, but we can contribute to it,
we can optimize it,
and the data is quite overwhelming that
there are a number of factors that can
support the immune system
because we also know that people who
have comorbidities
whether it's diabetes, obesity, heart
disease,
hypertension, inflammatory disease are
much more at risk they're the category
that's at risk
those are diseases of lifestyle
they're diseases because 
not always in our control
but luckily there are many things we can
do, if I pull up this maybe I should just
give you the slide of what people can do
if that's useful, okay.
Yeah yeah if you want to do that we
also
there is one question in the chat, around
how often should you or is it every
30 minutes to set the
alarm or I think we were doing it every
20 minutes?
Ideally the more the better,
the other there's a paradox which people
experience initially
oh my god if I do this I'm going to be
interrupting my thoughts I won't
remember,
this takes training, I'm very impressed
that after a while
most people can in fact do it quite well
and their energy goes up so the moment
you feel a little bit
low energy that is the time
to do them to take a walk to look up and
if you want to feel better even looking up,
put your pictures in your room higher up
on the wall don't put them on the shelf
on the on you know it used to be on the
counter above the fireplace which is
sort of low
put them a bit higher so you have to
look up and then put pictures
that evoking to you positively,
it's critical to do that.
And so Erik when you teach
at San Francisco State do you take those
10 20 minute breaks? I absolutely
get reminded, I always interrupt my
students just like I did a little bit
like this and we do different exercises,
in the small seminar class I'll do
tomorrow
I'll assign students and they can do
different ones so I learn a new one
each time,
which I think is much better than me
doing it
if that makes sense, yes I absolutely
do that all the time
I'm always impressed, and it really does
work
that's the most impressive part people's
energies really go up.
Well and I just I had a headache at the
beginning of this session and
I don't have one now so thank you.
Well then I'll have to send you my invoice.
Okay I have a few, I'll show you two
slides. Yes please.
If I can remember I'll probably knowing
Erik Peper
that that never trust him when he says
two slides,
but I think this should accomplish it,
I'll do it in terms of share.
Okay this comes from our blog,
Peper Perspective
it has links to about 40 or 30 different
references, scientific articles so the
data is quite good
and highly legitimate I think, factors
that decrease our immune system I think is
useful to know because
we can modulate that,
chronic stress, means stress management,
smoking
young people who do vaping have five to
seven times the
instance of serious Covid,
because vaping affects the lungs
recycled air
the best thing you have for anyone
is do not be in a house that has
recycled air if you meet other
people, open your windows and doors,
if you have an air conditioner be sure
or a heating system,
let the air outside fresh air is healing
if you look at the the clusters of Covid,
they have almost
all occurred in conditions where the air
is recycled that means I
exhale air in breathing or singing,
the other end and the other people
inhale it and it goes through the
air circulation it comes back to me
that's the single best answer I can
do that means from
many business buildings they need to be
redesigned,
many business buildings have closed
windows and they recycle
the air which makes good sense for
economic reasons,
because the heating is cheaper, cooling
is cheaper, it's a disaster for health
all the research data shows if you go
outside into the woods
we have, this goes right back in fact in
1918-1919
when you looked at the people suffering
the Spanish influenza or the Spanish flu
that those who were outside had much
better recovery than those who were
indoors and we know
that there's an 80% reduction
when people have
Tb for example when they're outdoors
between patients than indoors.
Hopelessness and loneliness,
if you feel lonely which is very common
especially in Covid, I know it's the
hardest thing is to go out and reach out
call your neighbor
whatever family member really and that's,
Zoom can be helpful for that
processed foods, we're so lucky in the
Bay Area
we you know we have the history of
Chez Panisse and all this
we don't have to have processed food,
processed foods is our
cultural, from my perspective,
harm to induce more Covid 19 because
processed foods
tend to increase inflammation,
diabetes, and obesity and they are the
risk factors
they're not so notice processed food is
not just our fault
that we buy it it's all it's the only
thing that's often available
and so it's a cultural change that must
occur. Then we have obviously
the ones people already have is obesity
and excessive alcohol and sugars.
I can give all the references for that
and remember
this is what happens how the virus gets
transmitted this was in Latvia this fall
although they were not transmitting the
virus hopefully but they are vaping
you can imagine a cloud of vaping is
when you don't wear a mask
and we have to assume that everybody
could be infectious so when we wear a
mask we're not protecting ourselves
we're doing public service to others
here's the concept of the mask
as you can see when we cough without
a mask we spread it, if we wear a mask the
spread is much less
and if you get only a few viral
particles most likely our bodies can
cope with that we may get slightly sick
the other part is that people who get a
high dosage at once
are much more at risk if you get a low
dosage
you may get Covid, but it tends to be
less serious
okay and then what can you do,
stress management,
whether it's meditation, biofeedback
relaxation,
family therapy, I don't care what you do
go dance but stress therapy,
adequate sleep, critical so keep in mind
turn off all your lights in your house
when you go to sleep there should be no
light at all and if you need light at
night to
walk around to avoid tripping or
falling, put a red light on because that
does not suppress
melatonin. Optimism and hope think of a
positive thought that changes the
immune system. I already said social support,
physical activity,
and connection to nature, we are so lucky
at least I think that I live in the
Bay Area
or Berkeley area, Berkeley, Oakland I can
always sort of go
up to Tilden and enjoy that outdoor
nature
really improves our immune system in
Japan it's called forest bathing
increased air circulation I've said, our
diet
it really means lots of fruits and
veggies
and surprisingly what is almost all
many religious traditions spiritual
traditions is a fast,
it works out that if you do a weekly
16-hour fast
which isn't too bad it significantly
improves immune competence
that means the snacking makes it more
harder
and then there are some things you can
add to your diet
which are well documented to act to
reduce inflammation
that includes obviously all the lots of
colorful fruits and veggies,
turmeric seems to be helpful as an
anti-inflammatory, maybe 2000 milligrams a day
I now drink that in fact in the morning
every morning
I take a half tablespoon of turmeric put
it in warm water and drink it
every, when I came across this research
because resveratrol is really the
from the red wine maybe a glass of wine
would work. Vitamin D
critical and as we get older we get
often much too little vitamin D
that's sunshine but about one to two
thousand units will really help
the innate arm of the immune system.
Vitamin E,
you know only 200 units not many
and you have to be careful for those who
are taking any kind of blood thinners
because vitamin E
also acts as a blood thinner so talk to
your doctor about that
but that enhances the other arm of the
immune system really helpful reduces
respiratory infections. A bit of zinc
seems to be helpful and then vitamin C
from my perspective especially in high
dosages seems to be
quite good I think that's the very quick
one I did
I hope that is useful or helpful for
people
it's all found in the blog which we
wrote
it's not listed here, on reducing
viral loads and increasing the
immune competence. Erik there is a
question about
acid reflux. Yes,
acid reflux think the simplest way to
think about the
factors obviously I'm intrigued what can
you possibly do yourself
so let me start simplistically to say
for many people when they eat
and you go to dinner at friends and
there's too much food
you realize that when you're sitting
your belt feels too tight
and then when you loosen your belt you
feel better because you let your stomach
expand,
think of acid reflux in a way the same
way. Traditionally
an early treatment of acid reflux
especially at night, tilt the bed
so the head of the bed is higher
now during the day we often
have tighter clothing so if I can learn
to relax and widen my abdomen I
inhale then it means that
I reduce the pressure on the stomach so
think about the stomach
is in your abdomen when you tighten the
abdomen
it squeezes the stomach and if the valve
on top the stomach isn't
too strong content of the of the
stomach can start going upward if on the
other hand I can
learn to let this area relax more and
widen when I breathe then that tends to
occur much less and we have remarkably
especially with our students
that they have had acid reflux for 10
15 years that they literally have
totally
learned to master it and disappear,
so very slow blower so
it's really if I probably cannot show
it
but if I stood here, most of us tend to
breathe
lifting in our chest I'm exaggerating
you can almost see
if you look at me if I did that when I
inhaled that way this part would drop in
and you can especially see it when
people talk I do it again
on the, and when I do that I
tighten my stomach but when I
tighten my stomach
it squeezes my abdomen it can't be
squeezed
it squeezes my stomach pushing the juice
almost upwards it's a kind of mechanical
body
on the other hand if I feel totally safe
and relaxed
I can breathe a bit lower,
and now my stomach gets much bigger not
just
my front waist also sideways and my
pelvic floor drops
and when I exhale slowly goes out
and then next cycle I do this again and
I would want to breathe like that
probably about
six breaths a minute so I inhale for the
count of three or four
I exhale to the count of five or six and
when I
do that I also bring balance to my
autonomic
system sympathetic and parasympathetic
system which also supports the healing.
Don't know if that's useful or not.
Other questions? Sounds useful,
I don't see any hands up
I would imagine that you're going to get
a lot of visitors
to your site and
since we're at 4:32 I think, 4:34,
anything else that you'd like to say
in closing?
No I think I'm very optimistic that we
have the possibility of healing
not healing but at least giving
system support to optimize its own
health in the situation
and I think we have more control than we
sometimes
think but do it with a smile and when
you're sitting in front of the computer
remember, take breaks, get up,
wiggle and move
and smile and reach out to others at the
same time
I hope you'll enjoy the book Tech Stress,
it's available
anywhere probably for many people Amazon
is the quickest but any independent
bookstore
or way you buy it and I would recommend
giving it to
you see it tells me I had to get up
and move
and I will do that because I have been
conditioned, on that note
Susan thank you so much for the
opportunity to share.
Absolutely Erik thank you for joining us.
My pleasure.
We're all healthier as a result
of the hour with you
