Hotel maids doing physically demanding work were told their daily tasks counted as 10,000 steps of exercise. A month later, the ones who accepted this framing showed improved health outcomes, even though their actual activity hadn't changed.
Questions this video answers
10,000 steps per day.
One month later.
Chapters
Crazy study fit hotel mates. So in this study, the researchers were wondering, why is it that so many hotel maids in the United States are clinically obese, even though if you actually look at their job, they are running up and down stairs, they are flipping over mattresses, they are vacuuming, they're actually taking 10,000 steps a day. So they created this fake research project. But at the end of asking these maids questions, the researcher said this. Wow, Matilda, did you know that based on what you're telling me, you are walking 10,000 steps a day? You must feel so healthy. Now, one month later, they go back. All the maids who were given that statement were suddenly healthier. You see, these maids in their mind never saw vacuuming or walking upstairs or hurling or making a bid as exercise. But when the researcher told them to see it as exercise, all of a sudden their bodies responded. So it turns out it's not even the exercise you do. It's do you perceive what you do as exercise?