How to Hack Physical Activity for Your Next Conference

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I just attended a 3-day conference (ABAI – Association for Behavior Analysis International) over Memorial Day weekend in Chicago, IL. These conferences (or some other professional development retreats), may even last 5-7 days. Tack on travel time, and you may spend even longer on the road. No matter what industry you are in, you may routinely attend an annual conference to earn continuing educations credits, give a talk yourself, or catch up with old friends. Conferences are great, but are often disastrous for our health, especially when it comes to the amount of inactivity that comes along with attending one!

As BehaviorFit leads the charge to increase physical activity by reducing sitting, I could not help but notice how prevalent sitting is during a conference. Sitting is part of conference culture (unless of course you attend a conference about sitting and you engage in active applause; see lesson #1 here).

The culture is this: one person speaks (often the only one standing in the room) while the audience sits. You go to another presentation and sit some more. This cycle repeats for each presentation, every day. The conference environment promotes sitting and rarely offers standing options.

Because we spend half our week at a conference, not to mention cramped travel in cars and airplanes, we have to be vigilant on how much we are sitting and intentional about the opportunities engage in more physical activity. When presentations last 50-110 minutes, total sitting time adds up to 8 or more hours before you know it! We know the risks of too much sitting (previously discussed here), so attending conferences cannot be an exception to the rule.

The term “obesogenic” is used to described environments that promote obesity. This may include environments that lack quality food choices, opportunities to be physically active, or a combination of both. When extending this idea to environments or activities (like conferences) that promote sedentary behavior, we may call these environments “sede-genic”.

Thus, conferences are sedegenic in the following ways:

• Conferences are all-day events
  • Formal events start as early as 7am and end as late as 9pm; informal social events often take you later into the night.
• Rooms are filled with chairs

  

  • Chairs are often jam-packed in rooms, and placed close together with minimal leg room; tough for people 6-foot or taller
• Transition time is minimal
  • Depending on the size of a conference, you may only have to walk a couple steps to the next presentation. Although at bigger conferences, you may need to walk more than 10 minutes to the next presentation.
• Keynotes, symposiums, and workshop sessions are often 2-3 hours in length

Until conference culture changes, it will take an individual effort (behavior change) on your part to be more active. While it takes effort to be more physical active, reducing total sedentary time has recently been recommended, the following is a list of hacks to tackle your next encounter with a sedegenic environment:

Here are your Conference Hacks:

1. Take the aisle seat (so you can stand more often) – this will allow you to stand up and stretch every 30 minutes, without blocking the view of other attendees behind you. Some large speaking rooms even have pathways between rows, with more leg room; choose these for even more leg room. This is extremely important for longer presentations.

   

2. Stand in the back – Often there is plenty of room to stand in the back. I am thankful to see when workshops pack the house and there is “standing room only.” This forces individuals to stand when there are no chairs to sit in. Behaviorally speaking, the opportunity to sit is removed and that behavior cannot be reinforced.
3. Reengineer your environment – We all like to take notes during any talk. However, if you are standing in the back of the room (tip 2 above), then you may not be able to write anything down. This makes sitting down all the more motivating; you can either rest your laptop on your legs and type, or balance your writing hand on your knee to write in a notebook. Sometimes you can find bar height tables that pushed to the back or side of the room (to make room for chairs!). Simply ask conference organizers if tables can be moved. Just ask nicely, and Voila, you can stand and work in the back of the room.

   

4. Do not show up early– showing up early may make it more likely to sit in a chair. By showing up on time, all of the chairs may be taken! Of course, there is a fine line to balance when attending a keynote talk…sometimes the doors close after there is not even enough room to stand!
5. Alternate sessions that you stand and sit – Let’s face it. Conferences are both physically and mentally draining. Resting your legs is just as important because you often find yourself scurrying about for 5-10 minutes, often briskly walking or sometimes jogging to the next session. Sure, your legs get tired by 3pm and sitting is ok! Because the recommendation of reducing sitting by 2-4 hours each day, by just standing during 2 presentations, you are on the right track! Then, just progressively work up from there.
6. Schedule talks in different rooms/buildings – This was a neat strategy offered up by a colleague. At the last ABAI Conference, he attended a presentation in a different building each hour. This takes an extra bit of planning and sacrifice! This person clearly values their health above all else.

   

7. (For conference organizers) Change the length of talks to 30 minutes. This forces conference attendees, panelists, speakers, and support staff to move about regularly. This benefits everybody involved at a conference!
8. (For conferences organizers) Incorporate standing ovations to all speakers – Mentioned above, prompting people to stand in this novel way is clever and builds in more activity into the day…although I can not guarantee that each speaker “deserves” a standing ovation.

The above characteristics and strategies are just a few ways to combat the sitting epidemic. Sure, conferences may be somewhat of a vacation for us, but unfortunately our health is never on vacation. Next time you are at an all-day training, try one of the tips above and let me know how it goes! Keep moving my friends!

-Nick, BehaviorFit CEO

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