A health guru has issued a stark warning about the dangers of ‘screen apnea’, a term coined by former Microsoft executive Linda Stone, who is on a mission to raise awareness about this modern affliction.
In 2007, after experiencing her own health issues, Stone discovered a widespread and insidious habit that affects the majority without their knowledge – improper breathing while engrossed in screen time.
In an eye-opening chat with Manoush Zomorodi on NPR’s Body Electric podcast, Stone recounted her personal revelation.
She said: “Once I got to my computer I was either holding my breath for long periods of time or breathing shallowly. As the emails would stream in I would inhale, because we inhale in anticipation, but I wouldn’t exhale because so many emails would be streaming in.”
Stone didn’t just rely on her observations; she conducted an experiment with volunteers who agreed to have their pulse and breathing monitored via an ear clip while they used a computer.
Participants engaged in various activities such as checking emails, aimless internet surfing, or purposeful online research.
The results were telling: almost everyone’s breathing was disrupted by their digital interactions, except for a select few, including a former military test pilot, a triathlete, and professional performers like dancers, singers, and musicians, who maintained regular breathing patterns.
Linda explained that these were “people who had learned to breathe and do something at the same time as part of their training” and coined the term screen apnea as she “wanted to communicate is that there was disturbed breathing when we are in front of our screens”.
She found that this is largely due to posture, noting how we “melt” into our technology when using it for a prolonged period, and highlighted the “steady stream of interruptions” on screens that pull our focus and break our breathing patterns.
Not breathing correctly can spark a variety of issues within the body, as Linda explained: “The body becomes acidic, the kidneys begin to reabsorb sodium and our whole biochemistry is thrown off.”
The solution is “not that easy” as Linda discovered when she tried to pick up an instrument and learn to dance in hopes it would teach her to connect “to an object while I was maintaining posture and breathing”.
James Nestor, author of Breath, advised how to solve screen apnea with a simple move: “Take your hand and place it around where your belly button is, just lightly, and as you inhale you want to feel that slight expansion of that abdominal region and as you continue breathing lift that breath to your chest area. Start low and work it up a little higher.
“Then if you slow that down, breathing in and out of your nose at a rate of five to six seconds in, five to six seconds out, you’ll start to notice your shoulders relaxing. You’ll start to notice the muscles in your face relaxing, you’ll feel your heart rate lower, if you’re looking at your blood pressure most people see a drop because this is your body re-entering its natural state.”
He conceded that mastering this technique would require some solid effort and concentration initially, but encouraged individuals to dedicate just two minutes daily to practice proper breathing like this. He assured that within a few weeks, they would “be doing this unconsciously”.
