g(sc) TALK Summer 2019 English

Health by the numbers:

SUMMER 2019

THIS IS GSC TALK

Green Shield Canada (GSC) isn’t your average insurance company. So, naturally, g(sc) TALK isn’t your average newsletter! As a not-for-profit organization with a mission to increase access to better health care for all Canadians, we created g(sc) TALK to spark conversation and provoke thought on today’s most relevant topics in health and wellness. You can rely on this quarterly publication to discuss big ideas and issues, but we hope it leaves you with a smile provoked by GSC’s particular (not insurance companyish) world view.

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What did it ever do to deserve its bad reputation?

SLEEP.

21 days to form a habit

For our last health number, we’d like to get a bit more cerebral. The 21-day rule will likely sound familiar if you’ve ever dedicated yourself to creating a new habit. (Say, for example, drinking eight glasses of water a day? You can now scratch that one off your list. You’re welcome.)

Until recently, this number was preached from the rooftops as the gospel of habit formation. However, new research has shed light on how long it actually takes to form a new habit. The answer, as you might expect, paints a much more complicated picture. A recent study followed 96 people who wanted to form a new habit – things like, eating fruit at lunch, running for fifteen minutes, doing sit-ups in the morning… you get the idea. They then looked at how many days of practicing the habit were required for the habit to become automatic. The result? They found was that it took an average of 66 days for the habit to become as automatic as it would ever be. What does that mean exactly? Well, this is where it gets complicated. It doesn’t mean that we’ve just gone from 21 days to 66 days to form a habit. In fact, the results showed a lot of variation in how long it took for the habits to become automatic – everything from 18 days, to 254 days. The wide variation has to do with: Some habits are harder to form than others. Drinking a glass of water in the morning doesn’t require much to achieve automation. Doing 50 sit-ups before breakfast is going to need a little more dedication. Not all habits will become equally automatic. Taking the stairs instead of the escalator on your way to work may become part of your auto-pilot routine, but it’s unlikely that you’ll ever auto-pilot yourself into completing those 50 sit-ups. Some people are more habit-resistant than others. Enough said. The study also showed that if you miss a day here or there when you’re trying to form a new habit, that won’t necessarily hurt your chances of success (so don’t let it get you down). However, it did show that the first days of habit formation make the biggest difference, so maybe try to be consistent at the beginning.

SOURCES

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259988117_Effects_of_hydration_status_on_cognitive_performance_and_mood https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/water/art-20044256 https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/upshot/no-you-do-not-have-to-drink-8-glasses-of-water-a-day.html https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/doug-cook/8-glasses-of-water-is-the-mother-of-all-hydration-myths_a_23077037/ http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190403-how-much-water-should-you-drink-a-day http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120903-is-drinking-water-good-for-skin https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/sep/03/watch-your-step-why-the-10000-daily-goal-is-built-on-bad-science https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/health/10000-steps-myth-or-fact https://www.bbc.com/news/health-42864061 https://nationalpost.com/health/diet-fitness/is-taking-10000-steps-every-day-really-the-magical-path-to-achieving-your-fitness-goals https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/leigh-vanderloo/10000-steps-a-day_b_16077702.html https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/10000-steps/art-20317391 https://health.usnews.com/health-news/health-wellness/articles/2017-04-14/how-much-do-steps-per-day-really-matter https://www.spring.org.uk/2009/09/how-long-to-form-a-habit.php https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/oct/10/change-your-life-habit-28-day-rule https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/bsh/2012/06/29/busting-the-21-days-habit-formation-myth/ https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/you-illuminated/201010/why-your-brain-needs-water https://www.apa.org/helpcenter/lifestyle-changes

TK TK TK TK TK

BLAME IT ON EDISON

Separating fact from fiction

Trying to understand how to stay healthy can feel overwhelming, at best. We are bombarded with (often conflicting) information about how to eat, how to exercise, or even how many glasses of wine a day are good/bad/definitely-maybe-somewhat-okay for you.

That’s why we love it when “good health” gets wrapped up into tidy numbers we can easily understand and remember. To state the completely obvious, humans prefer things that are easy over things that are difficult – it’s called cognitive fluency, and it explains why we get so attached to these often mythical health numbers. What we’d like to know is... are those famous numbers fact? Or, are they just feel-good-fiction? Well, they say there is always a speck of truth behind most myths, and we’ve dedicated this edition of g(sc) TALK to looking at a few of them with the hopes of uncovering a bit of truth. Ready? Let’s dig in…

This might be the mother of all mythical health numbers. How often have we run into a co-worker who brings their water bottle to every meeting, saying “just trying to get in my eight glasses today!” (Author insight: I am/was that person). The origin of this number is somewhat unknown, although a few theories do exist. The earliest possible source is a 1945 Food and Nutrition Board recommendation that said people need about 2.5 litres of water a day (eight glasses is around 2 litres). The other is a 1974 book titled Nutrition for Good Health which recommended that the average adult consume between six to eight glasses of water a day.

Eight glasses of water a day

What’s not up for debate is that,

water is important

First, let’s talk fluid balance. Your body aims to ensure that enough fluid enters the body to compensate for any fluid leaving the body. If you have too little water – that’s bad. If you have too much water – that is also bad. The key is… balance. Rule #1 of fluid balance is that everyone needs a different amount of fluids depending on the size of the person, their age, sex, amount of physical activity, and the environment in which they live. In other words, a one-size-fits-all number for hydration just doesn’t make sense. Rule #2 of fluid balance is that under normal circumstances, people meet their fluid requirements simply by eating when we’re hungry, and drinking when we’re thirsty (pretty sure our cave-dwelling ancestors didn’t worry about getting in their eight glasses a day). That means that – while water is the healthiest option – all of the water, coffee, tea, soda, juice, even alcohol that you drink counts as fluids. Even the food you eat is anywhere from 40-90% water. (Pizza is 40-49% water, for instance. Woo!) That doesn’t mean there aren’t some instances when you should monitor your fluid intake. For example, if you’re sweating a lot in hot weather or during exercise, you should be bumping up your fluid intake. Our thirst mechanism also loses sensitivity once we’re over 60, so a little extra attention to your hydration is a good idea. But otherwise, experts largely agree that we don’t need more fluid than what our body signals for, when it signals for it. You have your kidneys to thank for keeping your body’s electrolyte levels in your blood within a very tight range to prevent bad things from happening (think seizures, coma, death). If your fluid levels start getting low, your kidneys will send a message to the brain to tell you you’re thirsty. If your fluid levels get a bit too high, the kidneys will just filter out all that extra water and send you to the bathroom all day.

Click to LEARN JUST HOW IMPORTANT

Click to Close AND SEE HOW MUCH WATER WE NEED

But how do we know HOW much water is enough water?

Tap the droplets to see why water is so IMPORTANT for your body

It makes up TWO-THIRDS of our body weight

It flushes out WASTE products

It regulates our TEMPERATURE

It absorbs shocks in our JOINTS

It plays a major role in our BODY CHEMISTRY

It carries NUTRIENTS around our bodies

But wait, there’s more…

Our culture’s obsession with our water intake has made for some pretty bold claims – many of which have turned into myths in their own right:

Thirsty? That is the first sign of dehydration; if you wait until you’re thirsty, it’s too late.

It’s true that if you start to feel thirsty, then you should grab a drink of water, but it certainly doesn’t mean it’s “too late.” Thirst is your body’s way of communicating to you that your fluid balance is getting low, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re dehydrated.

HOVER over the bubble To learn the truth

Your brain is made of water and drinking more water will help you to think better.

There is some evidence to show that dehydration does impact your ability to focus, as well as your memory. However, if you’re paying attention to your body’s thirst cues throughout the day, you should never get dehydrated enough for this to have an impact. The longest stretch we go without water is overnight, so be sure to hydrate with a big glass of water when you wake up.

Coffee and Tea dehydrate you.

Caffeine is dehydrating, but the water in coffee (and tea, for that matter) more than compensate for those effects. But… be careful not to overdo it. Consuming 500 or more milligrams of caffeine a day – that’s around three to five cups of coffee – could put you at risk for dehydration.

Drinking water will give you glowing, dewy and supple skin.

Unless you are severely dehydrated, drinking large quantities of water will not affect what your skin looks like. The moisture level of skin is determined by external factors such as skin cleansing, the environment, and the quantity/functioning of oil glands. The water that is consumed internally will not reach the top layer of the skin.

Drinking lots of water will help you lose weight.

Drinking water won’t cause you to lose weight, but it can help the process in a few ways: 1. Water replaces other calorie-laden beverages, meaning your overall number of calories decreases. 2. Water can make you feel full, so you may eat less at each meal. 3. Water, particularly cold water, may even play a role in increasing your metabolism.

Drinking lots of water removes excess toxins from your body.

Well, it’s a fact that the kidneys use water to get rid of certain waste products. However, drinking more water won’t mean that you remove more toxins. Again, the key is to drink as much as your body tells you to. If you don’t drink enough water, however, your kidneys don’t have the amount of fluid they need to do their job properly.

This mythical health number is exactly that: a myth. While it’s important to make sure you eat and stay hydrated throughout the day, there is no need to consume an additional eight glasses of water. As a general rule of thumb, our bodies are pretty good at regulating what they need (that’s how we’ve survived as a species until now), but it is worth mentioning again that water is the healthiest option when it comes to hydration. If your days are full of caffeinated or sugary drinks, maybe swap some (or all) of them out for a nice cold glass of H2O.

The final verdict: False

The final verdict: False (but maybe true, depending on the habit)

Ultimately, our culture hangs on to the 21-day rule because it makes habit formation easy to wrap our heads around. 21 days sounds difficult, but not too difficult. The truth is, our brains are built to love habits. Habits are short cuts that free up cognitive bandwidth so we can concentrate on more important things. That’s why changing a habit can be (and should be) so difficult. So what is our key takeaway here? Well, it is better we accept that creating new habits is hard to do. It’s not reasonable to think that doing 50 sit-ups in the morning will ever feel as automatic as brushing your teeth. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. Here’s a few tips that can help set you on a path to success: Make a plan: Want to exercise more? Get specific – how often will you exercise and for how long, what time of day is best, and what type of activity will you do? Start small: Break your plan down into small, realistic goals. If your overall goal is to exercise five days a week for 30 minutes, maybe start with two days a week, for 20 minutes. Then, bump it up gradually. GSC’s Change4Life health portal has great tools to help you create and track your goals. Change only one thing at a time: Trying to change too much, too fast can actually reduce your chances of success. Find your support: Maybe it means you exercise with a friend or join a group. Or, maybe it’s just finding someone to talk to about your struggles and successes. Sometimes bad habits need additional support. Some bad habits have emotional ties that can get in the way of success. If you think this is the case, consider speaking to a mental health professional who are often trained to help resolve these barriers to behavior change.

• • •

We’ve focused this article on just three popular health numbers, most of which have proven to be less-than-helpful. However, we don’t mean to suggest that all health numbers are bad. We just think that they should be looked at with a healthy dose of suspicion (Author insight: I have a bad habit of bad puns). If you’re looking for a place to find reliable health information from reputable health experts, may we suggest GSC’s Change4Life health portal?

The final word

The best part is that you’ll earn points for everything you do on Change4Life that you can use to bid on great rewards!

NO. 1

Step counts don’t measure intensity, and yet, intensity matters.

When the intensity is higher, your heart beats faster, your blood gets moving, and you breathe in more oxygen. Taking 10,000 steps puttering around a mall can’t replace the benefits of getting your heart-pumping. And strength training helps build and maintain your muscle and bone, but won’t do much to help you hit 10,000 steps.

NO. 2

Counting steps is an inaccurate way to measure other activities

such as yoga, swimming or riding your bike. There are also studies that suggest that pedometers may not accurately reflect your total number of steps since they can easily pick up on random body movements and interpret them as walking.

NO. 3

Perhaps the most significant reason is that when it comes to activity, more is more.

The problem with nice, round numbers, is that people will inevitably treat it as a ceiling – a reason to stop when in fact that number is a completely arbitrary line.

Where did we get 21 days FROM anyway?

Hover over the book to get the whole story

The number

originates from a book

published in 1960

By Dr. Maxwell Maltz

Dr. Maltz was a plastic surgeon who noticed that amputees took an average of 21 days to adjust to the loss of a limb. Therefore, he argued, it takes 21 days for a person to adjust to any major life change.

If jumping from anecdotal evidence from plastic surgery patients to a broad generalization about human psychology feels like a bit of stretch to you, that’s because it is. It confuses the act of habituation (a.k.a. “getting used” to something) with habit formation (creating an association that triggers an automatic response – kinda like auto-pilot).

Has the

21-day rule

ever helped you form a new habit? (Successfully?)

1. 2. 3. 4.

The trendiest health number of the moment is the “10,000 steps a day” mantra that has become a global obsession. It’s been popularized mostly by the new age of health trackers – notably the Fitbit – most of which set 10,000 steps as their default goal. But why 10,000 steps? The number emerged out of a successful Japanese marketing campaign in the 60s by the company Yamasa Toki, who had created the world’s first wearable step-counter device called manpo-kei (literally, this translates as 10,000-step meter.) Japanese walking clubs were popular at the time, and since people like nice round numbers, they just picked 10,000 steps as the marker of an active lifestyle. In other words, 10,000 steps is an entirely arbitrary number. Today, Fitbit says that they have set this 10,000 step goal as a rough equivalent to the U.S. Surgeon General’s (and Canadian physical activity) recommendations of 30 minutes of moderate physical activity, five days a week. This 10,000 step goal should be sufficient “to reduce your risk for disease and help you lead a longer, healthier life,” the company has said. And that is not necessarily untrue. Certainly, the math does make sense. The average person takes around 6000-7000 steps per day just going about their life. A 30-minute walk will generally involve about 3000-4000 steps, depending on a person’s stride. Now, just add that recommended 30-minute walk to our average person’s daily routine, and voila! There’s your 10,000 steps. And yet, most national and international health authorities don’t have a daily step recommendation. The reason why is because daily step counts themselves are problematic for a number of reasons.

It has been shown that a person’s step count is inversely related to one’s risk of death. (In other words, more steps = better health.) So why stop at 10,000? Ultimately, the less time we spend sitting, and the more time we spend moving, the better. Whatever your level of activity today, increasing it will almost always be beneficial.

If there is any lesson we can take away from this trendy health number, it’s this: counting steps, however many, will never be a good measure of physical activity on its own. In fact, it is entirely likely that we will never be able to put a number on what an ideal active lifestyle looks like. So instead, look at your step count as just one piece of your health picture (particularly, as a reflection of how much time you spend sitting, rather than moving.) Use it as a way to set goals for yourself. If you’re currently only getting 7,000 steps, think of ways you can get moving more often. In this case, aiming for 10,000 steps is a good goal. Most important, however, is that you don’t neglect those higher-intensity activities that get your blood moving: the guidelines say either 150 minutes of moderate activity, or 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week. Maybe that activity helps your step count, or maybe it doesn’t – either way is a-ok.

The final verdict: It’s complicated

The problem with STEP COUNTS

10,000 steps a day

https://www.apa.org/helpcenter/lifestyle-changes

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259988117_Effects_of_hydration_status_on_cognitive_performance_and_mood

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/water/art-20044256

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/upshot/no-you-do-not-have-to-drink-8-glasses-of-water-a-day.html

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/doug-cook/8-glasses-of-water-is-the-mother-of-all-hydration-myths_a_23077037/

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190403-how-much-water-should-you-drink-a-day

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120903-is-drinking-water-good-for-skin

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/sep/03/watch-your-step-why-the-10000-daily-goal-is-built-on-bad-science

https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/health/10000-steps-myth-or-fact

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-42864061

https://nationalpost.com/health/diet-fitness/is-taking-10000-steps-every-day-really-the-magical-path-to-achieving-your-fitness-goals

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/leigh-vanderloo/10000-steps-a-day_b_16077702.html

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/10000-steps/art-20317391

https://health.usnews.com/health-news/health-wellness/articles/2017-04-14/how-much-do-steps-per-day-really-matter

https://www.spring.org.uk/2009/09/how-long-to-form-a-habit.php

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/oct/10/change-your-life-habit-28-day-rule

https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/bsh/2012/06/29/busting-the-21-days-habit-formation-myth/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/you-illuminated/201010/why-your-brain-needs-water

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