Move More

How to encourage physical activity in an inactive world throughout the day.

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Milgram's experiment on participants' level of willingness to obey authority figures in relation to how the Holocaust could've occurred by the millions.  "Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority." (Milgram) 

2 theories were interpreted from the experiment:

Theory of Conformism: A subject who has neither ability nor expertise to make decisions, especially in a crisis, will leave decision making to the group and its hierarchy. The group is the person's behavioral model.

Agentic State Theory: "the essence of obedience consists in the fact that a person comes to view themselves as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes, and they therefore no longer see themselves as responsible for their actions. Once this critical shift of viewpoint has occurred in the person, all of the essential features of obedience follow"

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Every leader needs the first follower to start a movement. "A movement must be public - because new followers emulate the follower, not the leader.  Nurture the first few followers as equals so that it's clearly about the movement, not you. The biggest lesson is that leadership is overglofied - it's really the first follower that transformed the lone nut into a leader " -Derek Sivers 

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This Nike Fuelband video is an interesting advertisement displaying the different methods of achieving fitness goals and how it fits in various people's lifestyles. However, these guys do not have most people's typical work schedules. Moderation of movement, irrelevant of physical exercise is a goal I'm attempting to resolve.  These quantified self devices have helped many  people become motivated overall because they act as a reminder to pick the stairs compared to the elevator, etc. and I have a lot of respect for what they are doing out there. However, I do see some limitations. For example, contact sports do not allow for wearing of anything during play because of potential injuries. Largely, they do not work for everyone, some people do not want to have a bracelet or a device constantly on them - for me it poses the big question of - have we become robots where we have lost our ability to have that sense of control over our activities and memory - to do what and when? In addition, it doesn't monitor how long a person has been inactive and motionless- for let's say 2-3 hour period - but only the grand total goal achieved for that day. It would be great to see the steps encouraged during hours of sitting and working. 

The biggest challenge in this project is that everyone has different levels and methods of motivation.

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A summary of the 9 tenets required for flow to work  - Mihaly C. 

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This video was an example of disruptive comedy.  For the past week, I've been thinking about possibilities to create some positive disruptions at the school to enable movement.   Today happened upon some of Luke William's (consultant of innovation and strategy) blog pieces about Disrupting Thinking. 

"Cliche is at the root of audience dissatisfaction, and like a plague spread through ignorance, it now infects all story media." -Robert Mckee

"To break away from cliché-thinking, you need to develop a habit of looking for alternative ideas instead of immediately accepting the most obvious approaches."  - Luke Williams

In one of his speeches, Luke emphasizes the need to understand the value of the disruption: "Because just doing something disruptive is annoying, it needs to be disruptive in ways that create value for consumers - so you  have to work it through a process, like prototyping and experimenting, to work out exactly who is going to find value in that disruption. "

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Standup desks of the past. 

http://artofmanliness.com/2011/07/05/become-a-stand-up-guy-the-history-benefits-and-use-of-standing-desks/

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The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, he said:

“Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

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Young adults between ages 18-29 are more likely to use social media platforms. Women tend to use social media much more then men.  

http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Social-media-users/The-State-of-Social-Media-Users.aspx

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As primatologist Robert Sapolsky mentioned, the only thing that makes humans unique on this planet is our ability to sustain contradiction.  "... we are the ‘unique-ier-est,’ simply because of this. … And this one does not come easily … this contradiction, to take the impossibility of something to be the very proof that it must be possible and must become a moral imperative. The harder it is to do that, the more important it is.” The harder it is to do something, the more important it must be done.  By fair the most brilliant video I've ever seen. 

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Cold blooded vs. warm-blooded

This thermal-infrared image is a beautiful reminder of the difference between warm-blooded mammals and cold-blooded creatures. The lizard takes the temperature of the environment -their muscle activity depends on their chemical reaction, this means that reptiles and amphibians are more sluggish during colder temperatures. However, they require less food to survive than warm-blooded creatures. Our neo-cortex helps regulate our body heat and our metabolism is much faster. 

http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/image_galleries/ir_zoo/coldwarm.html

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We are more related to gorillas than we originally thought! That's amazing. 

It's been recently discovered that chimps, humans and gorillas shared a common ancestor over 10 million years ago.  http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/03/120306-gorilla-genome-apes-humans-evolution-science/

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I'm diving a bit further back into the history of mankind. 

Thanks to paleoanthropologist, Donald Johanson 's discovery of Lucy's fossil in 1974, we know that we were not the direct derivative of the Neanderthals and that we have been bi-pedal for as early as over 4.2 and possibly 6 million years ago! crazyiness!  Humans are unique because of our ability to walk on two legs for a long period of time. 

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Accidental Self-Experiment: Standing all day

Today was the first official day where I completely stood while I was working for over 8 hours. I entered the studio and my chair happened to be missing. At first I was thinking it might've been a delightful joke from one of my classmates as a challenge to see if I could stand all day - but then I saw that one of the external tutors have been borrowing it. But I'm glad he did - because I wouldn't have pushed myself to this extreme so immediately.

Thus far, I've only sat down for eating, fika with the class, and bathroom breaks! I remembered this morning that initially my legs were a bit tired, partly because because I was recovering from two hours of climbing last night. 

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Atherosclerosis 

Our liver produces about 1,000 mg of cholesterol a day, we also receive cholesterol from highly saturated fat from certain foods. However the consequences can be dire if we have too much cholesterol than we need.

This video is a good visual explanation of what happens when fatty deposits from high levels of Low-Density Lipoproteins (LDL), Bad Cholesterol, attack the arteries, and if not used, eventually can lead to reduction in blood flow leading to severe consequences, such as angina, strokes, and hemorrhages. Atherosclerosis is one of the major causes of cardiovascular diseases  //http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001224/

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The Internet of Things. "The planet has now grown a central nervous system." The ideal scenario outlined the future possibilities of how things will be connected based on the "systems of systems" that are currently isolated in themselves. We have the possibilities to become more efficient, less destructive, and have more intelligent connections to develop new forms of social relations. Information is everywhere.