With the continuous development of society, people began to tend to "shut themselves down": enjoy the state of no one disturbed, do not have to look at people's faces, feel that as long as they stay at home, there will be no worries...
Everyone seems to be more and more like to "stay at home" at home, to be an otaku or otaku.
Coinciding with the outbreak of the new crown epidemic last year, when everyone is forced to "stay at home" to work from home and go to class, they may unconsciously think: Huh? It seems good to be an otaku/woman at home.
But in fact, in Japan, where otaku culture has emerged, related diseases have begun to appear, and more and more reports point out that sitting for a long time and watching TV for a long time may lead to a series of hazards. So today we will talk to you about the health risks related to "home".
Hikikomori, a mental illness at home
Zhang San (pseudonym) has always been an ordinary student from childhood to adulthood, occasionally suffering from the exclusion of others. After two years in college, he dropped out of school because of excessive stress and has been working at a convenience store ever since.
Thirty years later, he began to get tired of the days of part-time workers, but he could not apply for formal jobs, so he gradually lost confidence in the future and went to a life of autism: playing games day and night, unwilling to talk to people, irregular life and rest, and began to close himself off.
This is Hikikomori, Chinese translated as the Higaku clan. According to incomplete statistics, millions of people in Japan are plagued by this, unable to live a normal life, staying at home every day, escaping social interactions, and having no confidence in their future.
"I don't want to talk to anyone. I don't want to do anything. I didn't even have the idea of picking up the phone. What am I going to do? "Hikikomori in the anime
| Source: Manga "Welcome to NHK"
In the 1970s and 1980s, Japanese psychiatrists began to propose the concept of Hikikomori, which is mainly used to describe children who do not want to go to school, so it can also be called "refusal to go to school syndrome".
With the increase of social pressure, this phenomenon has gradually expanded from children who love school to adults who hate going to work, and even middle-aged people over 40 years old. Japan's health department has also begun to define Hikikomori clearly, and many psychiatrists and experts have begun to advocate that Hikikomori should be treated squarely as a mental illness.
The related article proposes a model of Hikikomori's disease, which believes that it coexists with various mental illnesses, but lacks related diagnostic methods for mental illness
| 图源:Kato T A, et al.
As a result, many studies began to focus on Hikikomori and tried to optimize its diagnostic criteria, and it is currently believed that people who meet all of the following conditions can be diagnosed with Hikikomori:
A person who stays at home all the time and does not go out, and actively isolates himself from society;
Isolate yourself and society continuously for at least 6 months;
Have a significant functional disorder or distress related to social impairment.
Image source: BBC
Seeing this, you may say, is this symptom only available to Japanese people?
The answer is no. Relevant research studies have pointed out that the same is true in China. As early as 2015-2016, researchers tried to investigate from social platforms (such as Weibo, WeChat), and according to the above-mentioned diagnostic criteria, the existence of Hikikomori was also found in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Although the survey sample is relatively small (9 Hikikomori were found in 137 surveys), it is enough to make us realize that Hikikomori is not only a phenomenon in Japan.
If you are reading the article, you may wish to also briefly test whether you are Hikikomori according to this standard.
Sitting for a long time may not be just lumbar spine pain
In addition to the mental distress caused by Hikikomori itself, the most typical phenomenon of "home" also includes long-term at home, either sitting or lying down, brushing dramas, watching fans, and playing games every day. Obviously, such a lifestyle is not healthy.
There is a lot of research on sedentary behavior. As early as around 2000, it was found that long-term sitting still, the body's cardiovascular disease-related metabolites will be significantly improved, in other words, sitting still every day will increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. The reason for this is also very simple, sitting every day, the energy ingested by the body is difficult to consume, accumulating fat, over time will gain weight, and then cause a variety of physical problems.
Relationship between energy expenditure and sedentary behavior
| Image source: HealthTepi
The researchers also found another interesting phenomenon: Not all sedentary postures raise the risk of cardiovascular disease. Using questionnaires and genetic data from 420,000 people, some studies have analyzed the genetic associations between watching TV, watching computers and driving for a long time, and want to see the association between related gene loci, cardiovascular disease and these three behaviors.
The results found that the time spent watching TV was highly correlated with the risk of developing cardiovascular disease later on; compared with using a computer or driving a car, the correlation was much lower or even none. Even if the results are corrected based on information such as education level and history of hypertension, watching TV is still closely related to cardiovascular disease.
In other words, relaxing and sitting paralyzed and watching TV has a higher risk of cardiovascular disease than sitting "intently" for long periods of time like driving a car or working in front of a computer — the conclusion being that different sitting positions may have different effects on physical health.
This kind of sedentary we don't recommend oh pro here
| Source: "I Love My Home"
In fact, it is not difficult to understand: we just said that sedentary is mainly because the body's metabolism is reduced, and it is easy to get sick. But when working or driving, because of the need to concentrate, the metabolic level is enough to consume energy, and to some extent, the risk of cardiovascular disease can be reduced.
And when you are paralyzed at home, brushing the drama to watch and play games, the body is completely relaxed, metabolism is not enough to consume excess energy, and cardiovascular disease is quietly approaching unconsciously (ps: in this way, it seems that touching fish in the office is harmful to health (manual dog head)).
Other researchers used a similar approach to study the link between different lifestyle habits and depression and found that the negative effects of watching TV were significant — regular tv watching may also increase the risk of depression.
In addition, if you can actively exercise or interact with others, you can effectively reduce the possibility of depression.
Ranking of factors associated with depression risk after some correction
| 图源:Choi K W, et al.
"Home culture" and health
In fact, in addition to these, the behavior related to "home" may also bring some other health problems to people: such as long-term wearing headphones, and high volume playback, which may cause damage to the eardrum; constantly staring at the electronic screen, the strain on the eyes will also be very large; the indoor air circulation is poor, which may affect the respiratory system and so on.
Many people may wonder, is it not that "home" is incompatible with health?
In fact, the so-called "home", or "home culture", at the beginning refers to the phenomenon of different popular cultures, such as anime, science fiction, games, models, etc., the phenomenon of loving deeply and not going out at home, and the behavior of "home" is not exactly the same.
So in essence, "home" and health are not contradictory. We can experience the process of staying at home and have the opportunity to maintain a healthy body.
For example, in response to the sedentary phenomenon mentioned earlier, researchers have summarized a relatively healthy behavioral model: how sedentary and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) are combined with each other (as shown below).
A plus sign means healthier, and a minus sign means more harmful to the body
| 图源：Dempsey P C, et al.
For us who often stay at home, and do not love to exercise, we are now in the lower left corner of the "sedentary & not exercising" type, the risk of cardiovascular disease will be very high, but it is not realistic to adjust to regular exercise at once, the researchers provide a step-by-step program: you can first adapt to more stops in daily life, move around more (upper left corner), specifically can refer to supermarket owners or convenience store clerks, although there is no exercise, but also to maintain a certain energy metabolism. After that, slowly increase your daily exercise to achieve a healthy life that reduces sedentary habits.
This is probably why it's now popular to use lift tables in offices, or to create environments where you can stand up.
Source: unsplash
For Hikikomori patients, active family care, giving the patient the psychological attention they need, and timely professional psychological treatment can also be cured. There are even reports that online games such as Pokémon Go, which can be played outdoors, can also help these patients get out of the house and return to society.
However, it is said that patients who are tired of playing will still shrink back home, which can only be said to be a treatment plan that still needs to be improved
| Graph source network
"Home" and health are not in conflict, the key is how to look at "home" reasonably, and how to put it into action to change their life schedule.
If you think about it, maybe "home" is just an excuse, and it is not "home" that binds you, but the "home culture" that you misunderstand - laziness and self-indulgence, because the "pleasure" they bring is too charming; on the contrary, healthy life, you will feel that it is too difficult to persist.
But most of the time, you just lack that little bit of determination. Give it a try, maybe you will taste a different "pleasure" and harvest.
Resources
Kato T A, Kanba S, Teo A R. Hikikomori: Multidimensional understanding, assessment, and future international perspectives[J]. Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences, 2019, 73(8): 427-440.
Teo A R, Gaw A C. Hikikomori, a Japanese culture-bound syndrome of social withdrawal? A proposal for DSM-V[J]. The Journal of nervous and mental disease, 2010, 198(6): 444.
Liu L L, Li T M H, Teo A R, et al. Harnessing social media to explore youth social withdrawal in three major cities in China: cross-sectional web survey[J]. JMIR mental health, 2018, 5(2): e34.
Owen N, Healy G N, Dempsey P C, et al. Sedentary behavior and public health: integrating the evidence and identifying potential solutions[J]. Annual review of public health, 2020, 41: 265-287.
van de Vegte Y J, Said M A, Rienstra M, et al. Genome-wide association studies and Mendelian randomization analyses for leisure sedentary behaviours[J]. Nature communications, 2020, 11(1): 1-10.
Choi K W, Stein M B, Nishimi K M, et al. An exposure-wide and Mendelian randomization approach to identifying modifiable factors for the prevention of depression[J]. American Journal of Psychiatry, 2020, 177(10): 944-954.
Dempsey P C, Owen N, Biddle S J H, et al. Managing sedentary behavior to reduce the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease[J]. Current diabetes reports, 2014, 14(9): 522.
Source: biokiwi
Edit: Aloysius
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