Have you ever heard the phrase “it’s more important to be a human being than a human doing”? But what happens when we go in the opposite direction and become a “human watching?” Yes, we are human beings first and foremost, but secondly, we need to be human doings.
The recent advancements in technology have been one of our greatest achievements, but also one of our greatest drawbacks. A 2015 study showed that teenagers spend 9 hours per day watching media videos. Tweens, those between the ages of 8 and 12, spend 6 hours per day glued to some type of screen. You would be surprised to know that these numbers don’t even include screen time from school or homework.
Who is to blame for this? To be honest, I think we are all at fault. If anything, children, especially the very young, are only mimicking what they see at home from their parents.
It is a biological and psychological fact that children imitate first; they act out ideas before they even understand why they are acting them out. During dinner time, are you as a parent checking your Instagram or emails instead of conversing with your family? Are you on the couch with your phone playing Candy Crush while your child is next to you staring into their own tablet?
The natural progression for children is to first watch, then do. But if our children are watching us do nothing, then that is exactly what they will do. Nothing. Quoting Michael Hall, DC: “Kids don’t really want to play video games, they just think there is nothing else to do and/or parents don’t care about them.”
What kind of effect does all this screen time have on our health? I say this in no uncertain terms: our brains and bodies are not developing to their full potential because of our screen fixation and habitual stagnation. Do you think we were designed to stare at a screen for 9 hours a day? I would like to think we were not. So, what were we designed for? First, let’s answer the question: What are we made of?
Depending on the classification, there are 11 organ systems that are found within the human body. These systems are only categorized for studying purposes. The human organism doesn’t actually function in systems, but as an integrated holistic unit.
The systems work in concert with each other similar to how separate instruments play together to create a symphony. I will just focus on three, the muscular, skeletal and nervous systems and the effect of inactivity on them. The two main organ systems that are designed specifically for locomotion are the muscular and skeletal systems. Because of their symbiotic relationship, they are often labeled as the musculoskeletal system.
30 to 40 percent of our body mass is made up of skeletal muscle and 15 percent is made up of skeletal bone. Over half of our body is built for locomotion, which means we are designed for movement. Need more proof? Our leg muscles alone are designed to run 12-13 miles a day and the femur bone is as strong as concrete.
Even our spine, which most people think is just a frame to support our body, is actually first designed to move. “The muscles of the vertebral column are primarily concerned with action, not weight support.” - Douglas Gates, DC.
While the nervous system does not represent a large portion of our body mass, it is the job of the nervous system to give life to all the other systems of the body. Using the symphony analogy again, the nervous system is similar to how the conductor organizes and coordinates all the other musicians, or systems of the body. When we want to move our muscles and bones, connecting nerve fibers send electrical impulses to them.
Nerves wire to muscles, causing them to flex and/or extend depending on the functional input. The muscles then use the bones as anchors and levers to create structural motion. If the muscles and bones aren’t moving, the nerves aren’t firing. And if the nerves aren’t firing, the wiring starts to lose its integrity.
Unlike your table lamp that can sit there unused for hours, days, even years and still work when you flip the switch, our nervous system needs constant stimulation to remain lit and alive. Inactivity creates a lack of full nervous system expression and development.
Have you heard another phrase that goes along the lines of “use it or lose it?” When it comes to our bodily systems, specifically the muscular, skeletal and nervous system, our sedentary lifestyle has pushed us into the “lose it” category. The inactivity of the muscles creates atrophy.
Atrophy is the gradual wasting away of muscle cells and the decline of their effectiveness due to underuse. The lack of movement on our skeleton creates osteoporosis. Osteoporosis occurs when bones lose their density and literally become porous, or filled with holes. The combination of atrophy and osteoporosis increases the risk of fractures and hormonal imbalances.
Idle behavior can result in some very big changes to our nervous system. The brain functions as one unit but has many different parts that delegate specific functions. The cerebral cortex is the most evolved and largest aspect of the brain and has 4 main lobes.
The four lobes are the occipital, temporal, parietal and frontal. Each lobe has a dominating function that it is wired for. The occipital lobe is wired for vision. This means that visual information is processed here. The temporal lobe is wired for audio. This means sound is understood here. The parietal lobe is spatially wired. This means that our geographical position in space is analyzed here. This analysis is based on our physical movements through space and time. The frontal lobe, which is the most evolved section of the cerebral cortex, is wired for awareness, perception and judgment.
The frontal lobe when firing at high capacity regulates overall behavior. When we sit and watch a movie, we are engaging more of our occipital and temporal lobes. When we go for a walk with our spouse and discuss relationship goals, we are engaging more of our parietal and frontal lobes. In actuality, whether we are walking or watching a movie, we are engaging all aspects of the cerebral cortex. The difference is in the amount of brain activity that occurs in each lobe.
Because of our screen fixation and habitual stagnation lifestyle, the temporal and occipital lobes, which are the seats for audio-visual input, are becoming more dominant.
As the frontal and parietal lobes sit there unactivated, nerve connection quality and development becomes jeopardized. For example, the brains of ADHD children have been shown to mature 3 years later than those of their peers. Half of their cortex has reached their maximum thickness at age 10 ½, while those of children without ADHD did so at age 7 ½. The least amount of maturity and nerve activity of children with ADHD is found in the lateral prefrontal cortex.
Treating ADHD with drugs such as Ritalin has only worsened this delay in brain development. The drug methamphetamine, better known as Ritalin, has been shown to decrease frontal cortex brain development and disrupt social play behavior mechanisms of the brain.
With the frontal lobe unactivated and lagging behind, flexor muscles and sympathetic functions go into overdrive. An increase in flexor muscles, without engaging the extensor muscles, puts our body more into the fetal position. The fetal position is the position of protection and is unresisting to gravity.
This causes our more developed spinal extensor muscles to become stretched, weak and atrophied. What position do you usually find yourself in when on your smartphone? I guarantee it is some form of the fetal position.
Prolonged overexcitation of sympathetic function puts our body in a chronic survival mode, the proverbial “fight or flight” stress response. The sympathetic response is designed to deal with an incoming threat on a short-term basis.
If you are hiking the Appalachian mountains and a bear crosses your path, the sympathetic response kicks on to gear your body up to fight the bear or run like heck out of there. Once the bear threat is neutralized and the sympathetic response runs through its course, you can continue on your hike with an exciting story to tell.
But the majority of threats we face today in our modern world either don’t require or are not conducive to the “fight or flight” response.
When you are late for work and get stuck in gridlock on the highway, stressful can be the only word to describe the situation. But “fighting or flighting” your way through the situation is not the best idea. Even after you make it to work and the threat is over, the stress response is still geared up because it never fully ran through its course.
Please don’t think children are immune to stress. Stressors for children can include: worrying about schoolwork or grades, juggling school and sports responsibilities, bullying and peer pressure, negative self-esteem thoughts, body changes during puberty, parents going through a divorce, living in an unsafe home or neighborhood and family money problems.
Persistent sympathetic overload has been linked with many different health problems such as anxiety, depression, digestive problems, headaches, heart disease, sleep problems, weight gain and memory/concentration impairment.
What is the solution to our idleness? Plain and simple, movement!
We are designed for upright gravity resistance mobility. What does upright gravity resistance mobility look like? Two words: active play. “Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.” - Fred Rogers.
But what if your child isn’t athletic and doesn’t do any sports? Active play is not an athletic sport. Activities such as running, jumping, throwing and catching can be independent of sports. If anything, just focusing on one athletic sport for a child can have more negative effects than positive. We all can’t be the next Lebron James, but every one of us can aim to improve our mind and body.
Children need variety when it comes to movement. “From an early age, it is important to teach your child a range of physical activities so that they can learn to balance and coordinate their bodies. Activities like standing on one leg, hopping, skipping and walking along a beam or ledge (under supervision) are all helpful for balance, while spinning, swinging, ball games, clapping hands and cross crawling all provide wonderful brain feedback and can be introduced early.” - Michael Hall, DC. Important to note that the quantity of movement is more important than the quality of movement. Children need at least 4 hours of gravity resistance movement a day.
Healthy body coordination coupled with a productive mind is beneficial for a well-adjusted child. For too long, our inaction has caused us to backslide down a path of stagnation and regression. Let us now strive for actions that create an environment that celebrates growth and abundance. Your children’s children’s children will thank you.
Dr. Jarek Esarco is a pediatric and family wellness Chiropractor. He is an active member of the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association (ICPA). The ICPA is an organization of chiropractic family practitioners dedicated to advancing public awareness and the family wellness lifestyle. Dr. Jarek also has post-graduate certification in the HIO Specific Brain Stem Procedure technique through The TIC Institute. Dr. Jarek is happily married to his wife Regina. They live in Youngstown, Ohio with their daughter Ruby.
