Alzheimer’s, Too Much Television, and Too Much Sitting

It will come as no surprise to most readers that excessive TV-watching may be detrimental to one’s health. There are reports of links between television and: obesity (Psychology Today), depression (CBS), diabetes (Amer. Diabetes Assoc.), low sperm count (BBC, WebMD), violence (AACAP, Huffington Post, L.A. Times), poor nutrition (NCBI[1]), stunted language acquisition (NCBI[2]), sleep deprivation (NPR), and probably numerous other undesirable conditions or outcomes (see further on).

Now comes evidence that too much time in front of the “tube” (or flat screen, what have you) may be correlated with increased risk of Alzheimer’s Disease. In one particular study, conducted at San Francisco’s Northern-California based Institute for Research and Education, researchers associated 4+ hours of viewing time per day with lower cognition. The results manifest as early as middle age.[3]

But the problem of sitting in front of the television can be broken down into two things: sitting and being in front of the television. Each is bad news for cognitive function.

Two Problems: Sitting and Television

In fairness to TV, though, it seems that television per se is not the only culprit. Presumably, electronic screens of all sorts contribute to the potential problem. More to the point, however, it’s the time that we spend sitting in front of a video display of some kind that was emblematic (or indicative) of low levels of physical activity.

An underlying phrase seems to be “sedentary lifestyle.” As one author summarizes: “Excessive Sitting Cuts Life Expectancy by Two Years.”[4] Think about that for a second – preferably while you stand.

“Sedentary” generally refers to being inactive. The word comes down to us from the Latin verb sedere, meaning “to sit.” To be “sedentary,” then, is to be seated – especially in one place, without moving – for extended periods of time.

If you’re like a lot of people, you spend a great deal of time sitting. We sit in our cars on the way to work. We may sit at a desk once we arrive. And then, once we have sat through our lunches and our drives home, we go from sitting around the dinner table to sitting around the tv. Some days we may do little else besides sit. Then, after a few (hopefully, but often not, 8) hours of sleep, we wake up and do the same thing all over again.[5] It’s a vicious cycle of sitting.[6]

Here’s another disturbing factoid. As journalist Christopher Bergland put it: “In America, there are currently more televisions per home than human beings.”[7]

And it’s not just that we own these TV sets, we use them excessively, too. CNN relates that the ephemeral “average American” spends almost eleven hours every day in front of a video screen.[8] That’s a whopping 4,017 hours of sitting every year.

According to the University of California – San Francisco’s psychiatry professor Kristine Yaffe, habitual TV watchers underperform “on cognitive tests compared with those who watched less television.”[9]

Considering the panoply of common middle-aged recreational activities, watching TV is the only one “positively linked to developing Alzheimer’s disease.”[10] In the words of Dr. Robert Friedland, it turns out that Alzheimer’s patients were less active than non-Alzheimer’s sufferers in almost every category – “except for one, which is television.”[11]

What is not entirely clear is whether physical inactivity and TV watching cause Alzheimer’s, or whether Alzheimer’s-disposed brains simply tend towards inactivity and TV watching. In other words, the causal direction (if any[12]) is at present underdetermined by the evidence.

Still, if you’re like me, then you’re less interested in making true causal claims than you are in just avoiding (or minimizing your risk for) dementia. The takeaway, then, seems to be watch sit few hours in the day and watch less television. Easier said than done.

How Do You Sit Less?

There are not all that many postural categories. Intuitively, if you’re not sitting, then you’re either standing up or lying down. Since lying down isn’t exactly a deviation from an overall sedentary lifestyle, we’re basically left with the option of standing up more often. Here are ten ideas for how to do just that.

Ten tips for sitting a little bit less every day.

1. Take a daily walk. Walking can be good for your cardiovascular health. It can also rev up your metabolism and promote fat loss. To maximize this, walk in the morning, before you eat your first meal of the day. But if a morning walk is infeasible, then carve out some time later in the day.
2. Moreover, take every opportunity to walk. Whenever possible, walk for communication purposes. To put it differently, don’t text your coworker, stroll over to his or her cubicle (or wherever). Don’t telephone your neighbor, knock on his or her door. Of course, this is not always doable. In our modern world, we routinely find ourselves having to talk to people who are miles away from us. But this isn’t always the case. Take the stairs instead of the elevator.
3. While you’re at it, though, stand up while you’re on the telephone. Walk around. Go outside, weather permitting! You’ll feel better. Any little bit of movement – as little as five minutes – is better than nothing.[13]
4. Stand up at your desk or workstation. A typical work day lasts 7 or 8 hours. Purchasing a standing desk, or a sit-to-stand “adapter” is a great way to invest in your health. On a personal note, I have struggled the past four years with shoulder problems (rotator cuff). On the advice of my chiropractor, I acquired a stand-up computer assembly (HERE) from VariDesk. I credit this change, more than my physical therapy and chiropractic adjustments, with the vast improvement that I have experienced in the last ten months.
5. Set a timer when you’re seated. Force yourself to take short breaks. “[M]ini-breaks, just one minute long throughout the day, can actually make a difference.”[14] Another tip: move your printer away from your work station so that you are forced to get up to retrieve your documents.
6. Relatedly, don’t eat lunch in place. Get up. Move to a different location.
7. If you must drive somewhere, park a short distance away from the entrance. Give yourself an excuse to walk a little farther. As we have mentioned, every little bit counts.
8. Spend your break time on your feet. Run if you can. Take a short walk. But make sure that at least spend some time on your feet.
9. Relatedly, try standing up for your favorite movies or Netflix shows.
10. If you have to sit, make it count. Try swapping out the chair for an exercise ball or bar stool. Put a stationary bike in front of the television and peddle while you watch. But…, for goodness’ sake, limit your TV time!

How Can you Watch Less Television

I could – and do – say read a book once in while. But, frankly, I think we need to get down into the weeds a little bit more.

10 Tips for Watching Less TV

1. A head-on approach for counteracting excessive TV-watching (or gaming, etc.) is to invest in a “screen-time manager.” Whether to police your own video habits, or to reign in the display time of a loved one, you can make our electronic culture work for you, rather than against you. The company Hopscotch has an interesting device – called a “BOB” – that fits that bill. Basically, the thing is a timer that interrupts the power to the television. Users have personal identification numbers (or “PINs”) that they can use to access what amount to allotted pools of viewing time.[15] (Click HERE to check the price on Amazon.)
   The BOB is marketed towards parents trying to limit their kids’ screen time. Video games and the like are obvious distractions that take valuable time away from homework and other, more worthwhile, endeavors. But it doesn’t take much imagination to see that the product could easily be applied to Alzheimer-sufferers’ situations. The guardian or adult-daycare supervisor would be in the role of the parent. But otherwise the principle is the same. Limit (or eliminate) the time that a person spends in front of brain-sapping video screens, by effectively locking the offending devices for certain periods of time or restricting the user to smaller intervals.
2. Keep your brain busy. Here’s where reading comes in. You can read books, magazines, newspapers, and so on. Specifically, we’re talking about print matter. Don’t read your articles online. Print a hard copy or go to the library – and get some walking in as well.
3. Pick up the telephone and have a voice conversation with a friend or relative. Or, better yet, walk to the neighbor’s house and have a face-to-face conversation.
4. Avail yourself of the various continuing-education classes offered by your local community college. Course don’t have to be taken for credit. And not all classes cost money.
5. Do some puzzles. These could be brain teasers, crosswords, jigsaws, or anything in between (heck, give Mad Libs a whirl, if you like). Mix it up. The idea is to get your neurons firing, making new connections, and revisiting old ones.
6. Speaking of revisiting old connections, get out your photo albums. Start a scrap-booking project. Besides getting your creative juices flowing, this is going to stir memories and, hopefully, bring a smile to your face. This fits into the larger category of “arts and crafts,” which also includes drawing, knitting, painting, sculpting, or whatever catches your interest.
7. Play some music. Put on a CD (or LP!) or play an .mp3[16] – but, avert your eyes from the screen! Sing along if there are lyrics – or hum along if there aren’t. Sit back down at that piano you haven’t touched in years. Pick up your old guitar or violin.
8. Clean up your living or working space. Pick a corner to begin with and then broaden the scope of your efforts as you make progress. Or just pick up a broom and tackle the back porch or patio. You can get as involved with the organization side of things as your concentration and energy will allow.
9. Keep a little garden, whether outside (thus getting your daily dose of natural vitamin D; see HERE) or inside (in the form of a planter or terrarium or whatever you have handy).
10. If safety and supervision aren’t pressing issues, then venture into the kitchen. Pick a recipe or two and do some baking or cooking.

Notes:

[1] Jennifer L. Harris and John A. Bargh, “The Relationship Between Television Viewing and Unhealthy Eating: Implications for Children and Media Interventions,” Health Communication, vol. 24, no. 7, Oct. 2009, pp. 660-673; online at the National Center for Biotechnology Information, <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2829711/>.

[2] Haewon Byeon and Saemi Hong, “Relationship between Television Viewing and Language Delay in Toddlers: Evidence from a Korea National Cross-Sectional Survey,” Haotian Lin, ed., PLOS One (Public Library of Science), vol. 10, no. 3, Mar. 2015, <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4365020/>.

[3] See Fredrick Kunkle, “Too Much TV Could Raise the Risk of Alzheimer’s, Study Suggests,” Washington Post, Jul. 20, 2015, <https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/too-much-tv-can-raise-the-risk-of-alzheimers-new-study-suggests/2015/07/20/7dcdc4cc-2eea-11e5-97ae-30a30cca95d7_story.html>.

[4] Jason Koebler, U.S. News and World Report, Jul. 9, 2012, <https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/07/09/study-excessive-sitting-cuts-life-expectancy-by-two-years>.

[5] For a rundown, see “New Survey: To Sit or Stand? Almost 70% of Full Time American Workers Hate Sitting, but They Do It All Day Every Day,” PRNewsWire, Jul. 17, 2013, <https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-survey-to-sit-or-stand-almost-70-of-full-time-american-workers-hate-sitting-but-they-do-it-all-day-every-day-215804771.html>.

[6] See Patti Neighmond’s “Get off the Couch, Baby Boomers, Or You May Not Be Able to Later,” National Public Radio, Sept. 4, 2017, <https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/09/04/547580952/get-off-the-couch-baby-boomers-or-you-may-not-be-able-to-later>.

[7] “One More Reason to Unplug Your Television,” Psychology Today, Nov. 23, 2013, <https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201311/one-more-reason-unplug-your-television>.

[8] Ten hours and thirty-nine minutes, to be precise. See Jacqueline Howard, “Americans Devote More Than 10 Hours a Day to Screen Time, and Growing,” Jul. 29, 2016, <https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/30/health/americans-screen-time-nielsen/index.html>.

[9] Quoted by Kunkle, op. cit.

[10] Roger Highfield, “Scientists Hint at Link Between TV and Alzheimer’s,” Telegraph (Britain), Mar. 6, 2001, <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/1325216/Scientists-hint-at-link-between-TV-and-Alzheimers.html>.

[11] Quoted by Highfield, op. cit.

[12] As philosophers and scientists will attest, correlation does not imply causation.

[13] See Neighmond, “Get off the Couch…,” op. cit.

[14] See Patti Neighmond, “Sitting All Day: Worse For You Than You Might Think,” NPR, Apr. 25, 2011, <https://www.npr.org/2011/04/25/135575490/sitting-all-day-worse-for-you-than-you-might-think>.

[15] The device allows for the creation of up to six restricted PINs plus one “master” PIN. Each restricted PIN allows a user to access a “pool” of screen time. The master user can therefore manage TV-watching times and monitor activity on a daily basis.

[16] Here you might consider throwing in some classical, on the off-chance that there is something to the so-called “Mozart effect.” For an introduction to that thorny topic, see Claudia Hammond, “Does Listening to Mozart Really Boost Your Brainpower?” BBC, Jan. 8, 2013 <http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130107-can-mozart-boost-brainpower>. Readers will recall my own point of view. I’m trying to stack the odds in my favor, rather than resolve a question scientifically. In light of this, I think I’ll let Mozart (or Bach or Beethoven or Handel) play in the background while the jury is still.