UBC Okanagan’s Governor General gold medal winner Mike Tymko stands at a landmark called Kala Patthar with Mount Everest in the background.

Accomplished researcher wins Governor General’s top academic honour

Although he climbed numerous mountains to conduct high-altitude research, UBC Okanagan’s Mike Tymko admits the peak of his academic career might have arrived in his inbox a few weeks ago.

Tymko is UBC Okanagan’s winner of this year's Governor General Gold Medal. The award is presented to the university’s most accomplished doctoral graduate each spring. Tymko, who has published more than 60 research papers, is beyond talented says his supervisor Professor Phil Ainslie. The pair have worked together since 2012, when Tymko, an undergraduate at Mount Royal University, was invited to join one of Ainslie’s research expeditions to Nepal.

“At the time UBC Okanagan was much smaller and Professor Ainslie was relatively new into his appointment, but you could tell the research team he was building was extremely unique even at that time,” says Tymko. “That was such an amazing trip to me from both a life and scientific perspective.”

Within months, he was a student in UBCO’s School of Health and Exercise Sciences, working on his master’s degree with another colleague from the Nepal project, Associate Professor Glen Foster, also fairly new to the Okanagan. The pair got along during the 2012 Nepal expedition and created a dynamic and busy research team when reunited at the Kelowna campus.

“I knew that as Professor Foster's first student I would be privy to more one-on-one training. I appreciate everything that he has taught me over the years and I wouldn't be the scientist I am today without his mentorship.”

Foster’s laboratory studies how the respiratory, cardiovascular and autonomic nervous systems interact to control blood flow and ventilation in health and disease. And Ainslie, a Canada Research Chair in Cerebrovascular Physiology in Health and Disease, studies cerebral blood flow regulation, how that can be influenced by environmental stress—heat, altitude, pressure—and how exercise can also affect cerebrovascular function. The research teams would work together for a number of years studying basic aspects of helping people under extreme conditions—whether that be where they live, or an illness they have—be able to breathe better.

Tymko explains there are many people—such as those living in Nepal, the Andean mountains and Ethiopia—who live in high-altitude regions. And more than 200 million tourists travel to high-altitude destinations each year. However, his research also impacts millions of people who never get the chance to travel.

“From a more clinical standpoint there are many pathologies that are characterized by low oxygen, such as people living with heart failure, obstructive sleep apnea and lung disease,” he says. “Studying healthy human adaptation to low oxygen in both the laboratory and in the field has implications to better understand the physiological consequences that occur in these clinical states. The findings from these studies are applicable not only to Canadians, but people worldwide.”

There were several highlights for Tymko while working on his doctorate, but Ainslie notes he is a natural leader. During his studies, he has trekked to Nepal in 2012 and 2016, as well as White Mountain, California in 2015 and Peru in 2018—where Tymko co-led more than 40 scientists at a research station at Cerro de Pasco.

“This was undoubtedly Michael’s most impressive feat during his doctorate,” says Ainslie. “So far more than 10 research manuscripts have been published based on data collected during this expedition and many others will come in due course.”

Tymko is humbled by the gold medal win, and says, like the expeditions, this is not something you accomplish alone.

“These research projects are never led by one person, they are a product of dozens of people working together towards one goal,” says Tymko, crediting Ainslie, Foster and dozens of colleagues for years of support. “The best part of these trips are the people you meet—researchers from all over the world. But it’s also a fantastic feeling knowing that your research is meaningful and impactful within the academic community."

Ainslie credits Tymko’s diverse interests, skills, leadership and dedication that made him an outstanding doctoral student.

“Not only can he operate as a high-level academic but he can also design, implement, build and lead high-level scientific initiatives,” he says. “His research interests expand those from normal laboratory-based experiments to the translation of the work into Indigenous populations at high altitude. He is a true allrounder and, importantly, also values the importance of scientific teaching and education. As an exceptional young scientist, he is fully worthy of this recognition.”

UBC Okanagan’s Governor General gold medal winner Mike Tymko takes ultrasound measurements of the internal carotid artery and vertebral artery while conducting research on the neural control of blood flow to the brain.

About UBC's Okanagan campus

UBC’s Okanagan campus is an innovative hub for research and learning founded in 2005 in partnership with local Indigenous peoples, the Syilx Okanagan Nation, in whose territory the campus resides. As part of UBC—ranked among the world’s top 20 public universities—the Okanagan campus combines a globally recognized UBC education with a tight-knit and entrepreneurial community that welcomes students and faculty from around the world in British Columbia’s stunning Okanagan Valley.

To find out more, visit: ok.ubc.ca

Lots of people are using creative ideas like painting to keep busy during times of self-isolation and social distancing.

UBCO researcher explores the science behind imagination

A new study from UBC’s Okanagan campus is shedding light into how human creativity works and how novel ideas are formed—something the study’s researchers say is becoming increasingly important.

“The more the world changes, the more we need creative ideas,” says Liane Gabora, a UBC Okanagan psychology professor and creativity researcher.

But how do people come up with these innovative solutions?

“Most creativity research is done on the final products of creativity—the finished work of art, or novel or technological invention,” says Gabora. “Yet when people talk about the ‘magic’ of creativity, by the time the final product exists, that ‘magic’ is over.”

The creative process has long been believed to involve searching memory and generating multiple independent ‘candidate’ ideas, followed by selection and refinement of the most promising. But Gabora suspects something else is happening during the creative process.

She proposes that the mental representation of an unborn idea may take different outward forms when looked at from different perspectives. What appears to be discrete, separate ideas can be described mathematically as different projections of the same underlying mental representation. As creative thought proceeds, this representation loses the potential to be viewed from different perspectives and manifest as different outcomes.

This theory, referred to as honing theory, grew out of the neuroscience of how memories are encoded and retrieved, and by studying mathematical models of concept combinations and interactions.

“We are constantly re-organizing our internal webs of knowledge and memory,” explains Gabora. “When we retrieve an item in a new context, it can generate emergent properties that are neither properties of the memory, nor of the context; they emerge as something totally new when the two combine.”

Gabora points to the invention of the kitchen island as an example.

“An island, we all agree, has the defining property of being surrounded by water,” she says. “However, we effortlessly accept that this is not a property of the compound concept kitchen island—because if your kitchen island is surrounded by water, you’re in trouble. But the property emerges when island appears in the concept kitchen.”

Gabora says to truly understand how the creative process works, one has to study the states of creative ideas midway through the creative process. She and four undergraduate researchers at UBCO recently conducted studies that did just that—publishing their results in Acta Psychologica.

Gabora and her team conducted two studies to test her theory. In the first, participants were interrupted midway through solving an analogy problem, writing down what they were thinking in terms of a solution. In the second, participants were instructed to create a painting that expressed their true essence and describe how they conceived of it.

For both studies, unbiased judges categorized responses as supportive of either the conventional or honing theory view.

To Gabora’s delight, the results were most consistent with honing theory, providing further evidence that her research is on the right track.

“This is exciting because having a deeper understanding of how the creative process works psychologically can greatly benefit society moving forward,” she says.

“If we can understand the mental progressions occurring during the creative process, we can better understand the steps involved in the generation of the world’s greatest masterpieces, and potentially pave the way to the next masterpieces,” she says.

Gabora adds that during times of rapid change such as a pandemic, understanding the creative process is more important than ever.

“A key step is appreciating how each person’s uniqueness gives them a potential to create in ways that are uniquely theirs. Whether it’s creating a new kind of robot, making a new delicious kind of sourdough bread or writing country music’s next big hit—our potential is endless.”

About UBC's Okanagan campus

UBC’s Okanagan campus is an innovative hub for research and learning founded in 2005 in partnership with local Indigenous peoples, the Syilx Okanagan Nation, in whose territory the campus resides. As part of UBC—ranked among the world’s top 20 public universities—the Okanagan campus combines a globally recognized UBC education with a tight-knit and entrepreneurial community that welcomes students and faculty from around the world in British Columbia’s stunning Okanagan Valley.

To find out more, visit: ok.ubc.ca

Take a minute to notice how you feel before, during and after your time on something like Facebook or Instagram. Does it pick you up or pull you down?

Along with being socially distant, should we ditch social media?

Even though much of Canada is loosening stay-at-home restrictions, people are realizing that social distancing and working from home is the new normal. And might be for some time.

For most, this means a continuation of personal contact only via social media, texting and video-meetings. But are we now suffering from too much screen time? Should we stay away from social media while we're social distancing? Or participate in every new Facebook group or chatting app that's created to help keep us connected?

Susan Holtzman is an associate professor of psychology at UBC Okanagan. Part of her research focuses on how our social environment can influence our physical and emotional well-being during times of stress.

These are stressful times, indeed. And for most, social media is the only point of contact with friends. Should we be limiting our electronic time?

I don’t think people should be too hard on themselves about the time they are spending on social media right now. There is very useful and important information being shared out there and it can be a helpful way to stay connected with friends and family. But there is a “but.” Social media affects people in different ways. For some, it leaves them feeling happier and more connected, but for others it can result in feelings of anxiety, emptiness and inadequacy.

I would suggest taking a minute to notice how you feel before, during and after your time on something like Facebook or Instagram. Does it pick you up or pull you down? If it pulls you down, maybe you need to cut down. Or, maybe you need to use it in a more active way, like sharing pictures, commenting on posts or as a tool to reconnect with old friends.

What's the best thing about being connected through social media. And perhaps the worst?

There is no denying that this virus has brought a level of devastation to the human population that would have been unimaginable just a few months ago. Through it all, humans continue to have a basic need to feel connected to others and to feel like we belong. Social media has gifted us with the ability to see that we are not alone in our struggles. It has also provided us with access to stories that inspire and make us laugh.

There is a great deal of fear and anxiety in our society right now, and this is completely understandable. However, there is research to suggest that something called “emotional contagion” might be taking place when people are spending time on social media. Emotional contagion is the idea that we can “catch” emotions when we see them online and we can carry those emotions with us into our offline lives. This is another reason to be mindful about what type of social media we are consuming and how it might be affecting our well-being.

Any tips for parents on keeping the kids occupied and entertained?

Being a parent during the pandemic is hard. Really hard. There is no shortage of ideas out there on the internet for how to keep children entertained—from making doll clothes out of old socks, to scavenger hunts, to going on a virtual tour of a museum. There are websites that can transport you anywhere in the world, to Africa to watch gorillas in their habitat or to beaches in Hawaii. But the very presence of all of these ideas can be overwhelming.

Whatever you do, keep your goals simple and realistic. Get outside at least once a day (ideally, to do something physically active), sing or dance to your favourite music, cook or create something together as a family, call or video-chat with a friend or family member. Now is the time to be compassionate to ourselves and understand that we are all just doing the best we can.

What does your research tell us about social media?

Previous research in my lab has shown that digital communication, like texting, doesn’t give us the same boost in positive mood as in-person interactions during times of stress. I think our society is now feeling these effects first-hand. Online communication is the only option that many of us have to stay in touch with our friends and family right now, especially those who are elderly or medically at-risk—but it often doesn’t feel as satisfying as in-person communication.

Generally speaking, research suggests that technology that provides us with more visual and auditory cues, like video-chatting or voice calls, will help us to feel more connected, compared to things like texting or social media (which can absolutely still have benefits). It is safe to say that there is nothing “good” about a pandemic, but I suspect we will see some very innovative and creative new technologies emerge out of this period that will help us to stay connected when distancing measures are in place.

From a public health perspective, one issue that we have recently been investigating in my lab is how social media can be used to perpetuate false information. We remind people to check credible websites, like the BC Centre for Disease Control.

But we know that people aren’t going to stop sharing COVID-related information on social media. UNESCO has actually responded with a social campaign using #ThinkBeforeSharing, #ThinkBeforeClicking and #ShareKnowledge to encourage thoughtful sharing. And reminding us all to be kind during these unusual times.

About UBC's Okanagan campus

UBC’s Okanagan campus is an innovative hub for research and learning founded in 2005 in partnership with local Indigenous peoples, the Syilx Okanagan Nation, in whose territory the campus resides. As part of UBC—ranked among the world’s top 20 public universities—the Okanagan campus combines a globally recognized UBC education with a tight-knit and entrepreneurial community that welcomes students and faculty from around the world in British Columbia’s stunning Okanagan Valley.

To find out more, visit: ok.ubc.ca

UBC Okanagan’s Rehan Sadiq, left, discusses drinking water assessment tools and benchmarking strategies with students Gyan K C Shrestha and Sarin Raj Pokhrel.

UBC researchers establish performance assessment guidelines for local water utilities

Researchers at UBC Okanagan’s School of Engineering are launching a community-focused research program as they seek to assess the performance of water utilities and municipalities across the Okanagan Valley.

The project, funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), will serve as a foundation for analyzing the drinking water, wastewater and stormwater services for several communities across the Okanagan region.

“Although all the systems are independent, they all face the similar challenges when it comes to rapid population growth, aging infrastructure and climate change,” explains Rehan Sadiq, professor of civil engineering and lead researcher on the project. “Our goal is to develop a data-sharing platform, assessment tools and benchmarking strategies through a ‘one water approach’ to enable continuous monitoring and improvements to the systems.”

The four-phase project will investigate state-of-the-art practices in urban water management. At the same time, researchers will identify and develop performance indicators, performance assessment and benchmarking framework, and create a portal for information analysis, sharing and learning.

The Okanagan Valley is a mix of urban and rural communities serviced by small to medium-sized water utilities, municipalities and regional districts, explains Sadiq. Signing on to the ‘one water approach’ will allow these systems to share their collective data and learn from each other practices and experiences.

“There are so many similarities within our infrastructure and usage that being involved in a comparative study just makes sense,” says Ed Hoppe, water quality and customer care supervisor at the City of Kelowna.

The Okanagan Basin Water Board is also a stakeholder in the research. For the past 50 years, the board has been providing leadership on water issues that span the valley.

“To have access to the resources and researchers at UBC is invaluable for our communities, and will help us continue to address our water needs into the future,” says Anna Warwick Sears, executive director of the Okanagan Basin Water Board.

With funding from NSERC’s Collaborative Research and Develop Grant, the researchers will spend the next four years analyzing and developing tools to maintain and improve the region’s water systems. The goal, says Sadiq, is to create clear benchmarks that all water systems can strive to reach.

“What I’m proposing is we should all work together to identify where we are based on existing resources, determine how can we do better and learn from each other—that is performance benchmarking,” he says. “It has to be a continuous performance improvement process. It exists in the corporate sector, it exists in the manufacturing sector, it exists in all other industries. Why don’t we treat water the same way?”

The project is also supported by the City of Kelowna, City of West Kelowna, City of Vernon, District of Peachland, District of Lake Country, Town of Osoyoos, Regional District of North Okanagan and Okanagan Basin Water Board. It is expected that more community partners from the Valley will also join this project.

“Water is often taken for granted, especially in the Okanagan,” says Sadiq. “But it’s so vital to our existence. Through this research, we look forward to empowering our communities to address their water needs. And ensure everyone has safe, and clean water to drink.”

Learn more about the one water approach at: ok.ubc.ca/okanagan-stories/one-water

About UBC's Okanagan campus

UBC’s Okanagan campus is an innovative hub for research and learning founded in 2005 in partnership with local Indigenous peoples, the Syilx Okanagan Nation, in whose territory the campus resides. As part of UBC—ranked among the world’s top 20 public universities—the Okanagan campus combines a globally recognized UBC education with a tight-knit and entrepreneurial community that welcomes students and faculty from around the world in British Columbia’s stunning Okanagan Valley.

To find out more, visit: ok.ubc.ca

UBCO researchers are looking at creating new policy and planning tools to address flooding in the Okanagan Valley.

Engineers create risk assessment and vulnerability tools

With many eyes on rising lake levels these days, UBC researchers from the Lifecycle Management Laboratory are partnering with the Okanagan Basin Water Board (OBWB) to develop new policy and planning tools to address flooding in the Okanagan Valley.

Given recent flooding and its disastrous consequences on communities throughout the region, this research project will help local governments make informed decisions to mitigate flood-related risks, says UBCO researcher Kh Md Nahiduzzaman.

“Communities like Kelowna are facing flooding on a regular basis, so creating models based on historical trends and future projections is vital for decision-makers,” explains Nahiduzzaman, who is currently a visiting professor and teaching at UBCO’s School of Engineering.

According to Anna Warwick Sears, executive director of OBWB, these tools are needed by the region’s stakeholders. The OBWB has contributed more than $37,000 to help UBC engineers create modelling tools and flood protection strategies.

“Cities across the Okanagan are increasingly at risk of repeated flooding due to a variety of factors, including the impacts of climate change.”

Sears points to the impact of flooding on neighbourhoods from a social, financial and environmental perspective.

“What we need is a shift in focus from a flood-protection approach to an adaptive resilience approach,” says Nahiduzzaman.

The research will develop risk and vulnerability assessment tools, make future risk projections, review current decision-making tools and identify ways that multiple levels of government can work together seamlessly.

About UBC's Okanagan campus

UBC’s Okanagan campus is an innovative hub for research and learning founded in 2005 in partnership with local Indigenous peoples, the Syilx Okanagan Nation, in whose territory the campus resides. As part of UBC—ranked among the world’s top 20 public universities—the Okanagan campus combines a globally recognized UBC education with a tight-knit and entrepreneurial community that welcomes students and faculty from around the world in British Columbia’s stunning Okanagan Valley.

To find out more, visit: ok.ubc.ca

Katrina Plamondon, assistant professor in UBC Okanagan’s School of Nursing.

The COVID-19 outbreak creates a clear image of unbalanced, unfair societies

A UBC researcher says the COVID-19 outbreak provides a distinct example of how different populations are differentially affected by health issues.

Katrina Plamondon, an assistant professor in UBC Okanagan’s School of Nursing, studies and looks for ways to support global health equity. Achieving health equity, she says, is about creating a world where regardless of where a person is born or lives, all people can reach their full potential.

“Health equity is something to strive for, it’s an aspiration,” she explains. “In a world of health equity, life trajectories aren’t determined by race, class, education or other unearned social disadvantages.”

Today, as the world struggles through COVID-19, it’s clear that at local, regional, and national levels, the world still has a long way to toward health equity, says Plamondon.

“Health is shaped by all sorts of social determinants, and different populations navigate and are affected by these determinants in different ways,” Plamondon says. “When societies are more inequitable, different populations or communities do not enjoy the same benefits as others.”

For example, Plamondon says the life expectancy of people living “rough” or without housing can be half of those who live in houses, have secure employment and education.

“In Canada, people living rough have a life expectancy of about 40,” she says. “This is a huge difference and it’s not by accident. It’s not because people living rough are biologically dispositioned to a lower life expectancy or aren’t as deserving—there are lots of systemic reasons why someone’s life trajectory lands there.”

And the COVID-19 outbreak offers another window into understanding how different populations are differentially affected by health issues. People working in jobs with poor benefits and protections face significantly different challenges in responding to public health advice—a circumstance that could be mitigated by social policies that protect job security and income if people need to be away from work. While the Canadian government has invested millions to help individuals, landlords and companies during COVID-19, many countries simply cannot afford to do so.

Populations already known to experience the greatest inequities are also experiencing the greatest impacts of the pandemic, she says. Racialized populations in the United States, displaced peoples, including climate refugees, those living in rural or remote communities, or people coping with housing insecurity, among others, were already facing inequities in access to healthcare and, in many cases, to basic human rights.

“At a time when the health of everyone affects everyone else, these inequities in access to care are a powerful demonstration of why equity matters to everyone.”

Plamondon says advancing health equity is complex, difficult and worth doing. While many people are aware of unfair differences in health across societies, Plamondon says the tendency is to pay attention to symptoms of inequities, rather than the causes. Governments, researchers and health professionals can pay a lot of attention to people with poor health, saying it is their individual responsibility to remain healthy.

Plamondon’s research has a focus on advancing health equity and she has written extensively on Canada’s role in global health research. One study, published in the International Journal for Equity in Health, identified a set of tools that can be used to guide actions to achieve health equity. “Our research shines a light on what can we do differently as we make decisions that influence people and their opportunities for health,” she says. “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first review to critically examine promising and empirically-derived strategies for advancing productive action on the root causes of health inequities.”

Based on this review, some things that can advance health equity are:

• Creating systems that acknowledge the importance of health equity in their policies and commit to identifying equity impacts of their decisions and bureaucratic structures
• Work with others, with particular attention to inclusion
• Take time to examine relationships between policies, actions, and equity outcomes
• Actively mitigate power imbalances (e.g., amplifying voices of historically excluded groups)
• Work with data in ways that show the health outcomes by different—and intersecting—social positions (e.g., consider both Indigeneity and gender in analysis, rather than gender alone)
• Tell the human story behind data, evoke compassion
• Offer feasible policy options alongside research results, offering policymakers starting points for making evidence and equity-informed decisions

About UBC's Okanagan campus

UBC’s Okanagan campus is an innovative hub for research and learning founded in 2005 in partnership with local Indigenous peoples, the Syilx Okanagan Nation, in whose territory the campus resides. As part of UBC—ranked among the world’s top 20 public universities—the Okanagan campus combines a globally recognized UBC education with a tight-knit and entrepreneurial community that welcomes students and faculty from around the world in British Columbia’s stunning Okanagan Valley.

To find out more, visit: ok.ubc.ca

With gyms, recreation centres and sports programs closed due to COVID-19, people living with disabilities are looking for creative ways to stay active at home.

UBCO, Queen’s University, offer virtual, at-home physical activity program

For many people, staying active during COVID-19 isolation can be a struggle. More so for people living with disabilities, says UBC Okanagan’s Kathleen Martin Ginis.

Martin Ginis is a professor in UBCO’s School of Health and Exercise Sciences and director of the UBC Faculty of Medicine Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Management. She’s also the director of the Canadian Disability Participation Project (CDPP)—a group that has revived a service called Get in Motion to support people with disabilities get regular physical activity.

Get in Motion was a phone-in coaching service led by Martin Ginis’s lab, but put on hold a few years ago. Now, with people self-isolating, there is a push from public health authorities for people to get a daily dose of physical activity. However, Martin Ginis and her colleagues from Queen’s University, Amy Latimer-Cheung and Jennifer Tomasone, say Canadians with disabilities have fewer options than others to get exercise.

“People with a disability are at increased risk for social isolation under ‘usual’ circumstances, but especially so during the COVID outbreak,” says Martin Ginis. “They also face unique barriers and challenges to physical activity. With the closure of adapted physical activity and recreation programs, we are very concerned about the health and well-being of Canadians with disabilities. We are offering the Get in Motion service as a way to manage some of the psychosocial and physical health risks of being inactive at home.”

Martin Ginis explains that adapted sport and exercise programs were closed across the country because of COVID-19.

“We had been talking to our community partners who were closing their programs and we were all feeling upset about the impact these closures will have on community members with disabilities,” she says. “We were all thinking ‘I wish we still had Get in Motion’ and then Amy Latimer-Cheung started the ball rolling—and got the service back up and running.”

Based virtually out of Latimer-Cheung and Tomasone’s lab at Queen’s, Get in Motion is available for all Canadians with physical disabilities, as well as for Special Olympics athletes. Participants can connect with a volunteer physical activity coach via phone or online conferencing. The volunteer then guides that person through an at-home physical activity program.

The CDPP is based out of UBC Okanagan and Martin Ginis has several students actively counselling Get in Motion participants while others are being trained.

Get in Motion volunteer Sarah Lawrason is a second-year doctoral student who studies physical activity participation among people with spinal cord injuries who walk. She was matched with someone who fits into her research population.

“My client lost access to her regular physiotherapy when COVID-19 happened. We talk once a week about her exercise goals,” says Lawrason. “She appreciates the accountability of checking in and setting a goal each week and she's enjoyed the resources I've sent her that have similar exercises to her normal routine.”

Lawrason notes, however, this is definitely a two-way relationship where both the coach and the client are benefitting.

“Initially, I was really excited to start coaching as it aligns with my own research,” she says. “But I also really look forward to my calls each week because it's a new friendly person to talk to when I'm feeling isolated.”

The CDPP has documented data about the benefits of sport and exercise participation for Canadians with disabilities including improved health, well-being and overall life satisfaction.

“Our research has shown that a sense of belonging is key to people with disabilities experiencing ‘full and effective participation’ in sport and exercise,” says Martin Ginis. “With Get in Motion, we are striving to provide that sense of belonging through phone calls with trained volunteers who have experience with adapted sport and exercise. Because the belongingness piece is removed if you are doing this all alone.”

For more information about the Get in Motion, or to enrol in the program, visit: cdpp.ca/get-involved

About UBC's Okanagan campus

UBC’s Okanagan campus is an innovative hub for research and learning founded in 2005 in partnership with local Indigenous peoples, the Syilx Okanagan Nation, in whose territory the campus resides. As part of UBC—ranked among the world’s top 20 public universities—the Okanagan campus combines a globally recognized UBC education with a tight-knit and entrepreneurial community that welcomes students and faculty from around the world in British Columbia’s stunning Okanagan Valley.

To find out more, visit: ok.ubc.ca

UBCO Associate Professor Jonathan Little discusses how just the right amount of exercise can help build immunity.

UBCO professor provides exercise guidelines during COVID-19

By now, everyone has read some guidelines on how to stay healthy while living with the COVID-19 stay-at-home policy. Tips include keeping a routine, eating well, not staying up too late and getting exercise regularly. But how much exercise? And is there such a thing as too much exercise?

UBC Okanagan Associate Professor Jonathan Little, who conducts research with the School of Health and Exercise Sciences, answers some of these questions.

Can getting regular exercise really increase my immunity? If so, how?

Being inactive is linked to poor metabolic and psychological health and a less functional immune system. Most people know that regular exercise can improve markers of metabolic or psychological wellbeing, but what is less appreciated are the effects of exercise on the immune system.

Working through multiple pathways, research shows that the right amount of exercise can boost immunity.

If I’m eating properly, and getting the right amount of sleep, do I really need to exercise?

That’s a great question. Certainly, eating healthy and sleep are very important for overall health. But I think the evidence showing how exercise has such wide-ranging health benefits, including improving our immune system, suggests that our bodies have evolved to function optimally when we are regularly active. So, I don’t think anything can substitute for regular physical activity when it comes to optimizing health.

Is there such a thing as too much exercise?

We can think of exercise as medicine for boosting our immune function; too little and we have no effect but too much might actually be bad. There is evidence that after extreme exertion, like a marathon or very strenuous bout of prolonged exercise, our immune cells don’t work as well to fight off infections.

Finding the sweet spot right now by engaging in regular moderate exercise is probably the best approach.

With all this extra time people have these days, is now a good time to train for a marathon or CrossFit competition?

You don’t want to be inactive but it’s probably also not the best time to be tripling your regular exercise routine because you have extra time on your hands.

I wouldn’t discourage anyone from creating a realistic goal or new challenge but using some common sense, increasing your mileage or minutes moderately, and keeping within your limits is best right now. We also don’t know when races or competitions are going to start up again so that probably should come into consideration.

The gyms are all closed. What should people be doing to keep themselves fit? And sane?

If you are a regular gym-goer and can’t keep up with your routine, I think now is the time to try out some different activities like hiking, jogging, cycling and bodyweight exercises that you can do from home. Naturally, there are a lot of great resources online to help guide you and many gyms are maintaining online fitness classes to provide some guidance and direction.

I think it’s important to remember that exercise, even if it is moderate intensity such as a walk or hike, helps to reduce stress, improve mood, and as discussed above improve metabolic health and immune function.

So even if you can’t bang out your regular workout at the gym, preventing yourself from being inactive during these times is probably one of the best things that you can do for yourself. And it’s something that you can control.

Can you provide a few tips on how to get started?

There are lots of great online resources out there, especially right now. Whether it is fitness or yoga classes, video demonstrations, or virtual cycling there seem to be options for everyone. However, just getting outdoors for a walk or hike (while maintaining physical distancing, of course) will have benefits to many aspects of your health.

About UBC's Okanagan campus

UBC’s Okanagan campus is an innovative hub for research and learning founded in 2005 in partnership with local Indigenous peoples, the Syilx Okanagan Nation, in whose territory the campus resides. As part of UBC—ranked among the world’s top 20 public universities—the Okanagan campus combines a globally recognized UBC education with a tight-knit and entrepreneurial community that welcomes students and faculty from around the world in British Columbia’s stunning Okanagan Valley.

To find out more, visit: ok.ubc.ca

Assistant Professor Mahmudur Fatmi wants to hear how COVID-19 has impacted people’s travel, whether it’s running errands, going on a road trip or a cancelling that trip of a lifetime.

Online survey examines out-of-home and in-home activities

The COVID-19 outbreak has impacted everyone in Canada and around the world. While people are being asked to stay at home and maintain social distancing, a UBC Okanagan professor is collecting data about people’s travel habits.

Assistant Professor Mahmudur Fatmi leads the Centre for Transportation and Land Use Research at UBC Okanagan's School of Engineering. His research includes travel behaviour analysis, transportation and land use interaction, urban system simulation, autonomous and shared mobility, activity-based modelling, and road safety. His research findings help to develop effective transportation and land use plans and policies, as well as assist in infrastructure investment decision making.

While travel has pretty much ground to a halt, Fatmi is examining how these unprecedented events impact individuals’ daily and long-distance travel. For example, he is investigating how people have adjusted their out-of-home activities with in-home activities such as online shopping. He is also studying the purpose of travel such as to pick-up online orders and analyzing whether there is an increase in the usage of any travel mode such as cycling.  

Fatmi’s  COVID -19 Survey for assessing Travel impact (COST) online survey collects information on how COVID–19 has affected participant’s daily and long-distance travel decisions.

What is the goal of this study?

COVID–19 has significantly affected individuals’ travel decisions around the world and little is known about this impact. The COST survey will collect information regarding the impact of COVID-19 travel restrictions on people daily (weekday and weekend) and their long-distance travel.

What are you hoping to learn?

The findings of this research will provide insights on how people have adapted their daily out-of-home activities such as work and shopping and switched to in-home activities such as work-from-home and online shopping. This study will also explore individuals’ mental well-being after completing a task that involved travel and an in-home activity.

This study will also focus on long-distance travel, asking people about long-distance trips that were completed and those that were cancelled during this unusual time. The findings of this research will provide important behavioural insights regarding the travel adjustments people are making due to this pandemic, which is expected to assist in the development of policies to minimize disruptions due to such unprecedented scenarios.

For the most part, people have been staying at home in response to the outbreak. Can you explain what specific answers you are looking for?

This survey collects information regarding individuals’ current out-of-home travel, and how it has changed due to COVID-19. It looks at how individuals are spending time by performing in-home activities, online ordering, travelling to pick-up online orders, among others. For example, the survey collects information about respondents’ weekday travel such as why they are travelling, how frequently they are travelling and what travel mode they are using.

What are you going to do with this data?

The findings of this research will provide important behavioural insights on the changes in travel demand during the COVID–19 outbreak.

For example, this study offers insights into: what types of activities people are performing more frequently? What type of travel mode they are using more frequently?

This understanding will help policymakers identify priorities for minimizing disruptions due to the COVID-19 outbreak while developing policies and making infrastructure investment decisions.

How can people take part in this research?

People can take the survey here: engineering.ok.ubc.ca/surveys/cost

And they can learn more about the survey at: cetlur.ok.ubc.ca/surveys/cost

There is also information on Facebook and Twitter.

About UBC's Okanagan campus

UBC’s Okanagan campus is an innovative hub for research and learning founded in 2005 in partnership with local Indigenous peoples, the Syilx Okanagan Nation, in whose territory the campus resides. As part of UBC—ranked among the world’s top 20 public universities—the Okanagan campus combines a globally recognized UBC education with a tight-knit and entrepreneurial community that welcomes students and faculty from around the world in British Columbia’s stunning Okanagan Valley.

To find out more, visit: ok.ubc.ca

Vernon’s Josh Dueck is one of many people who have given the physical activity guidelines a test drive. Photo by: OI Canada

Researchers take the guesswork out of exercising effectively

A team of researchers has developed an online platform of tried and true resources to help people living with spinal cord injury (SCI) lead a more active life.

Professor Kathleen Martin Ginis is the director of the Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Management based at UBC Okanagan. She says a major barrier to physical activity for people with a spinal cord injury is a lack of knowledge or resources about the amount and type of activity needed to achieve health and fitness benefits.

“It’s really hard for people to be active, let alone people living with a spinal cord injury,” she says.

To complicate matters, an international consortium of experts created two international guidelines for people with SCI. One provides recommendations for using exercise to increase cardiorespiratory fitness and muscle strength while the other is a recommendation for using exercise to improve cardiometabolic health.

Both guidelines stipulate the minimum amount of aerobic exercise and strengthening exercises needed weekly.

“These are scientific guidelines, that are great for scientists,” says Martin Ginis, who led the international consortium of experts. “But for Canadians with an SCI, we didn’t provide a really clear path and clear information on how to implement those guidelines into a daily routine.”

Martin Ginis’s team, including staff from Spinal Cord Injury BC and researchers with the International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries, spent the past two years reviewing, analyzing and testing the guidelines. More than a hundred people from the SCI community provided feedback.

“We sat down with experts, scientists, clinicians, people living with spinal cord injury, and key organizations and asked how we can take this scientific information and put it into something that people with spinal cord injury can use,” she explains.

The end result is a concise combination of the two scientific exercise guidelines into one clear and understandable online physical activity guideline.

“After two years of research, we’ve provided an online tool that people with a spinal cord injury can use with confidence to become more physically active.”

Along with suggested amounts of cardio required each week, the research also provides strength training ideas and tips. Users will find links to community resources, suggestions on how to get started with a physical activity program and advice from people living with an SCI.

One such end-user is Vernon’s Josh Dueck, retired Paralympic athlete and current executive director for Freestyle BC. Injured in a skiing accident in 2004, Dueck has continued with an active lifestyle winning numerous accolades in the sport of para-alpine ski racing. He has worked with UBCO’s research team providing insight to the activity guidelines, which he says are easy to follow and should help promote an active lifestyle for the SCI community.

“There is a beauty in simplicity and the simple approach is often the most attainable,” Dueck adds. “The SCI physical activity guidelines take the mystery out of what is needed to keep your body and mind thriving. It brings great joy to know the base parameters to maintain a healthy life are accessible and achievable.”

Users will find beginner and advanced levels along with additional tips and suggestions to avoid chronic ailments like Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

This research, partially funded by the Praxis Spinal Cord Institute and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, is published in Nature’s Spinal Cord journal.

About UBC's Okanagan campus

UBC’s Okanagan campus is an innovative hub for research and learning founded in 2005 in partnership with local Indigenous peoples, the Syilx Okanagan Nation, in whose territory the campus resides. As part of UBC—ranked among the world’s top 20 public universities—the Okanagan campus combines a globally recognized UBC education with a tight-knit and entrepreneurial community that welcomes students and faculty from around the world in British Columbia’s stunning Okanagan Valley.

To find out more, visit: ok.ubc.ca