Your Office Is Making You Sick, with Dr. John La Puma

About this episode

Dr. John La Puma discusses the health impacts of spending too much time indoors and the benefits of outdoor exposure.

#719: Most of us spend 93 percent of our time indoors, and it's making us sicker, more tired, and less productive than we realize. Dr. John La Puma is a physician and researcher who studies what happens to the human body when it's indoors too much. He joins us to explain the science behind what he calls the indoor epidemic: the chronic diseases, burnout, insomnia, and cognitive decline that stem from a life lived almost entirely inside. Dr. La Puma walks through the specific biological mechanisms at play. Indoor living disrupts your circadian rhythm and bombards your brain with more screen time than it can process — what he calls "digital obesity." Too many pixels, he says, burn out your brain the same way too much sugar burns out your metabolism. Burnout isn't a character flaw. It's a biology problem. The good news: the minimum effective dose of outdoor time is just two hours a week in a green or blue space. And it doesn't have to be a national park. The park down the street counts. We get into the specifics — morning light, circadian rhythm, deep sleep, and why 10 minutes outside before you check your phone can improve focus, sleep quality, and even how big the world feels. Dr…

People in this episode

Host: Paula Pant

Guest: Dr. John La Puma

Topics covered

• indoor health
• circadian rhythm
• burnout
• outdoor time
• digital obesity

Keywords

• indoor epidemic
• chronic diseases
• cognitive decline
• screen time
• outdoor time

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