Body Electric NPR

To kick off Season 2 of Body Electric, host Manoush Zomorodi takes a five minute walk with writer Kelly Corrigan. Kelly shares her tips for fitting movement into her busy work schedule—while also making time for rest.

Interested in taking a walk with Manoush and being featured on a future episode? Tell us about your strategies, struggles, and successes when breaking up your day with movement. Send us a voice memo at BodyElectric@npr.org.

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It's time for another 5 minute movement break! This time, Columbia researcher Keith Diaz joins Manoush to chat about how he uses his treadmill desk to stay active—without getting bogged down by timers, step counters and strict rules. Spoiler alert: Keith doesn't follow his own recommendation of taking a five minute movement break every half hour! Listen to find out what he does instead.

Interested in taking a walk with Manoush and being featured on a future episode? Tell us about your strategies, struggles, and successes when breaking up your day with movement. Send us a voice memo at BodyElectric@npr.org.

New episodes every Tuesday. Binge the entire series here.

Sign up for the Body Electric Challenge here.

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In this special series, host Manoush Zomorodi investigates the relationship between our technology and our bodies and asks: How are we physically adapting to meet the demands of the Information Age? Why do so many of us feel utterly drained after a day spent attached to our devices?

Part one kicks off with an exploration into how economic eras have shaped the human body in the past with author Vybarr Cregan-Reid. Then, Columbia University researcher and exercise physiologist Keith Diaz and Manoush discuss his findings and propose a challenge to listeners: Let's see if we can end this cycle of type, tap, collapse together.

Click here to find out more about the project: npr.org/bodyelectric

Talk to us on Instagram @ManoushZ, or record a voice memo and email it to us at BodyElectric@npr.org.

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In part two: host Manoush Zomorodi delves into how we met and fell hard for the personal computer—and why we continue to have this committed, yet tortuous relationship. We hear from historian Laine Nooney on how the computer revolution forever changed the way we use our bodies at work, at school and at home.

Manoush also visits the Exercise Testing Laboratory at Columbia University Medical Center where researchers collect data on how her body responds to a day of sitting compared to a day of constant movement breaks.

Click here to find out more about the project: npr.org/bodyelectric

We'd love to hear from you. Send us a voice memo at bodyelectric@npr.org. Talk to us on Instagram @ManoushZ.

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In part three: host Manoush Zomorodi explores how our tech habits are causing our eyes to change shape—to elongate—which causes nearsightedness. She investigates why rates of myopia among kids are soaring. She also speaks with Maria Liu, an optometrist with a quest to slow down the progression of myopia in children by opening the first ever myopia control clinic in the United States.

Later in the episode, we hear from a team of employees who tried incorporating "movement snacks" into their days for one week.

Click here to find out more about the project: npr.org/bodyelectric

We'd love to hear from you. Send us a voice memo at bodyelectric@npr.org. Talk to us on Instagram @ManoushZ.

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In part four: host Manoush Zomorodi explores the connection between our posture and our mood. A lot of us associate our neck and back pain with spending hours hunched over our phones and laptops. But what if that hunched posture is also making us feel tired, stressed, and anxious? Neuroscientist Peter Strick discusses his groundbreaking research on why exercising our core muscles lowers our stress.

Also in this episode: how a faulty, incorrect study went viral — claiming smartphones were causing people to grow horns on their backs. Science journalist Nsikan Akpan sets the record straight. Later, writer Paul Ingraham shares his daily strategy for doing movement snacks and strength building while balancing deadlines.

Click here to find out more about the project: npr.org/bodyelectric

We'd love to hear from you. Send us a voice memo at bodyelectric@npr.org. Talk to us on Instagram @ManoushZ.

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