Protecting Spinal Health When Working From Home - Dr Stu McGill | Modern Wisdom Podcast 270

... you cannot sit hour upon hour and expect to be pain-free. I, I shock people sometimes by saying, "You behave and you deserve your pain." And that really is, it's a psychological technique to really shock them. "How dare you say I deserve my pain? No one deserves this." And I say, "Well, actually, through your behavior, you're not feeding the signaling process that your body requires to be pain-free."

Dr. Stu McGill, welcome to the show.

(laughs) Thanks so much, Chris. A little bit of, what's the word now? Familiarity. And, uh, I know I'm going to enjoy this, so I'll just let you work your magic.

Thank you. Yeah, for everyone who's listening, uh, you've been on the show before, Stu, and in between then and now, I decided to take a pilgrimage up to see you two hours north of Toronto. So at the end of a road trip last year, I had been driving around a fair bit, so I'd got used to driving on the, the wrong side of the road. Uh, flew on my own to Toronto, the first time I'd ever set foot in Canada. Didn't realize I needed a different visa to that of the US. So got stopped at the border, had to sort a thing out. Got into Toronto on a different flight, got a car, went up and stayed near Gravenhurst, and then came to see you and went out on your boat and you did a huge, big, long assessment and, yeah, we've been, uh, we've been in contact ever since. So it, it definitely feels like, um, long overdue fondness, I think, today. Uh, and one of the first things that I wanted to discuss is just how different everybody's routines have become at the moment, that everyone's life has changed an awful lot since we last spoke, which is about 18 months ago, and people are, are working from home, they've got different desks, they've got different routines, uh, perhaps with no gym, restricted exercise regime. What do you see as the biggest risks to spinal health for everyone in this new world?

Yeah, well, there's no question that, uh, it's too much sitting primarily. When you look at not only spinal health, but cardiovascular health, mental health, every single one of those systems requires appropriate movement for optimal health. Force movement really is one of the major languages of cells, and when they are starved of signaling, they will decline and, uh, lose optimal health. So that's a, a short and sweet answer.

People are being sat down a lot at work as well though, right? Is it just the little movements in between? Is that making that much of a difference? The walk to the car, the little set of steps to go up to the office?

Well, I don't think that's nowhere near enough. Uh, that's a, uh, a very soft pedestrian life if we're down to the short strokes of the basic physical challenge of their life is walking to their car. So, uh, we didn't evolve, uh, to have optimal health with that level or lack of stimulation. So...