Walking this much a day can lower your risk of lower back pain by 23%
A new study found that walking every day can significantly reduce your risk of lower back pain, which is a major drain on wallets, well-being and workdays across the US.
But there's a catch: how far you go and how fast you move makes all the difference in how much protection you'll actually get.
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3 Chronic back pain is a leading cause of disability in the US.
fizkes – stock.adobe.com
Scientists at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology analyzed data from more than 11,000 adults over the age of 20 who had no history of chronic back pain at the start of the study.
Each participant wore an activity tracker for a week, logging how long and how briskly they walked. Researchers then followed up over four years to see who developed lower back pain.
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By the end, the results were clear: 'The more steps the participants took, the less frequently they experienced back pain,' the study authors wrote.
Those who walked between 78 and 100 minutes a day lowered their odds by 13%. For people who clocked over 100 minutes daily, the risk dropped by a whopping 23%.
But it wasn't just about putting in time. Pace mattered, too.
3 Walking has been linked to a wide range of physical and mental health benefits.
Prostock-studio – stock.adobe.com
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Researchers found that participants who walked faster reduced their risk of developing lower back pain by 15% to 18% compared to slower walkers.
Still, total time on your feet made the biggest difference. The lowest chances were seen in people who walked more and picked up the pace.
'This is an important finding because walking is a simple, low cost, and accessible activity that can be promoted widely to reduce the burden of low back pain,' Rayane Haddadj, lead author of the study, told CNN.
3 Chronic back pain is persistent for at least 12 consecutive weeks.
amnaj – stock.adobe.com
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Back pain is one of the top reasons Americans go to the doctor.
Roughly 65 million Americans have had a recent flare up, and about 16 million suffer from chronic symptoms that interfere with their daily lives, according to Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute.
Common causes include arthritis, herniated discs and injuries. Johns Hopkins Medicine reports that lifestyle factors like smoking, obesity and lack of physical activity also increase the risk.
The ripple effects are serious.
Back pain is a leading cause of disability and missed workdays in the US — and it takes a major toll on overall health. One in four sufferers say they're in poor physical condition, more than double the rate of their pain-free peers.
But it's not just physical. Chronic back pain also affects people's social lives, relationships, and ability to enjoy everyday activities.
Nearly three-quarters of adults with back pain report feeling sad, worthless or hopeless — and they're far more likely to battle depression, anger and stress than those without.
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The price tag isn't small, either.
Back pain is the sixth most expensive condition in the country, costing the US more than $12 billion a year in medical bills and lost productivity.
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CNN
3 hours ago
- CNN
‘The stuff under the stuff': People with hoarding disorder open up
Mental healthFacebookTweetLink Follow The habit crept up on Kim. She would arrive at garage sales as they were ending to pick up what remained. 'I'd load my car full of the free stuff on the side of the road: clothes, things that needed to be fixed, projects,' she told CNN. It was only once things spiraled that Kim, 53, who asked to be identified by her first name to protect her privacy, realized she had a problem that was all too familiar: hoarding, a disorder that she'd spent years urging her mother to seek help for. 'I used to get very frustrated and say, 'Mom, we've helped you clean out this room 10 times, and we come back three months later and it's completely full of sh*t ,' she said. 'I learned about hoarding disorder when I was younger but somehow didn't recognize it in myself.' At first, Kim would pile the things around her bed and throughout her bedroom, eventually expanding into other areas of her home, including her living room and sunporch. Besides the garage sales, she would collect stuff at thrift stores and stored goods she said family gave her 'to hold and keep.' Today Kim runs a Facebook support group for 2,100 people with hoarding disorder, which the World Health Organization categorized as a mental health condition in 2018, five years after the condition was to the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. HD is characterized by excessive accumulation of possessions and difficulty in disposing of them . Kim only sought help when things became unsafe. 'The stuff starts piling up, the paths get narrower, and you start to trip (in your own house),' said the single mother. 'Putting things in the garbage is a big struggle — if we know it might go to the right home, that makes us feel better.' She thinks that mindset dates back to what her grandmother used to say: 'Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without,' she said. 'That was a phrase that was knocked into my head ever since I was little,' and it makes her worry about wasting anything. What people hoard varies: Kim's focus is books. 'It would have taken me 10 lifetimes to read them,' she said of the many boxes she gave away after extensive therapy, including '500 Dr. Phil books.' Two-thirds of people with the disorder have at least one other psychiatric condition, while physical comorbidities such as arthritis and diabetes are common, according to a 2024 US Senate report. Around 14 million Americans are affected by hoarding disorder, with similar rates across other Western countries. Hoarding can trigger countless complications, experts say. Bathrooms and kitchens can become unusable, impacting diet and personal hygiene. Housing authorities can threaten eviction leading to homelessness, while in extreme cases children have been removed by social services. There is also risk to life. Excessive stuff, especially books and paperwork, pose a serious fire hazard and can hamper rescue efforts by blocking escape routes. Collecting may be in our DNA, according to Dr. Nick Neave, a professor in the psychology department at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom and director of the university's Hoarding Research Group. 'Throughout history possessions have always been very important — you see people buried with grave goods,' he said. 'That urge to collect things, it's part of your personality, your culture. So hoarding is normal — we've all got stuff we don't need.' What separates regular collecting from hoarding is often trauma, Neave said. 'All the people who hoard I've ever met had traumatic childhoods, whether it's physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, chaotic backgrounds, lack of parents.' This resonates with Kim, whose symptoms emerged after she experienced an abusive relationship, the death of a friend and a serious medical diagnosis. 'We call it the stuff under the stuff,' said Kim, who lives in New York state. 'One of our therapists calls it the one, two, three punch. You can handle one trauma, maybe two, but after that, a lot of people will have hoarding disorder creep in.' 'I tried to fill the hole in my heart and soul with the stuff,' she added. Neave says hoarding is a 'coping strategy which starts off working very well' but can 'spiral quickly into a severe addiction and mental health problem that is very difficult to resolve.' Shame and stigma can then lead to further isolation, he said. 'The obvious thing to do is get rid of the clutter, but that doesn't solve the problem of why they've got it in the first place. If you're not treating that issue, it'll come back.' Heather Matuozzo is the founder of Clouds End, which works with Birmingham Council in the UK to support about 300 renters through an intervention project called 'Chaos 2 Order.' 'When you live in property that's not yours the landlord can go to court and get an injunction to forcibly clear your house,' she said. 'No matter what justification you give it, it's morally wrong and also makes people who hoard worse.' She believes the pandemic led to an increase in prevalence of hoarding disorders. 'We saw the whole world hoard, as everybody had that (fear that) 'Oh my God, I'm going to run out',' she said. 'If you're already anxious, then you drop a pandemic on top of that, where everything closes and your support, which was tenuous enough in the first place, just disappears, you will be beside yourself and gathering to feel better.' Matuozzo believes that Birmingham may be 'the first hoarding-aware city in the world.' The model should be replicated elsewhere, she said. Sophia, who runs the Facebook group with Kim, first realized she had a problem at graduate school after a close relative was diagnosed with a severe mental illness. 'In between classes, I was shopping and would bring all this stuff back: dolls, books, jewelry, clothing, shoes, toiletries, school supplies. It was a way to disassociate.' Sophia, who also lives in New York state and does not want to be fully identified to protect her privacy, recalls the moment she knew she had to act — when she tried to get rid of some of her stuff. 'I had this nervous reaction; my whole body was shaking.' Soon afterward, she came across an advertisement for volunteers for a trial treatment with Dr. Carolyn Rodriguez, director of the Stanford Hoarding Disorders Research Program. Sophia said the program was massively helpful, but still, she relapsed. 'I was going plane, bus, train, automobile, just to get stuff,' she said. She has tried many varied therapies since then, including cognitive behavior therapy, or CBT, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, or EMDR, while leaning into the Facebook group for support. 'I love that there's community and that I can share,' she said. 'And if I can make it less jacked up or reduce harm, anybody can do that .' Stanford's Rodriguez is currently testing a virtual reality intervention. 'Many current treatments emphasize skills related to discarding and decision-making about possessions, which can be practiced in the patient's home,' she said via email. 'In many cases, real-life discarding is too difficult or in-home visits are unfeasible for reasons such as location, availability, or clutter being stacked so high that it's dangerous for a team to go inside,' she said. 'Practicing letting go of items is such an important skill to develop, so we wanted to create a virtual and safe environment to do so.' Nine participants were asked to take 360-degree photos of the most cluttered room in their house, as well as 30 possessions to discard. Once virtual equivalents were created, participants could navigate their way around using VR headsets and handheld controllers. 'For people who experience considerable distress even attempting to part with possessions, it's nice to be able to practice the activity in a virtual space as well as process the emotions of it,' said Rodriguez, who hopes to expand the project. 'In these one-hour sessions, they learned to better understand their attachment to the objects and practiced placing them in virtual bins for recycling, donation, or trash — the latter of which was taken away by a virtual garbage truck. They were then assigned the task of discarding the actual item at home.' The sessions were run as part of the 'Buried in Treasures' group treatment program. Based on a book of the same name by David Tolin, Randy Frost and Gail Steketee , it's a 16-week peer-led initiative running in numerous countries including the United States, Canada and Australia. Frost, also the Smith College Harold and Elsa Siipola Israel professor emeritus of psychology, developed the course with Lee Shuer, who now facilitates it around the world. Shuer, a certified peer specialist and hoarding disorder expert, said he never calls anyone a 'hoarder.' 'If you're trying to build trust and rapport, it's often such a turn-off. I self-identify as a finder-keeper in recovery, but a lot of people use collector, archivist, environmentalist, prepper. 'But it doesn't matter what we call it — we want to call it getting better.' Shuer started 'collecting' at school, as children often do. 'I didn't abandon that phase,' he said. 'Suddenly we weren't getting together to trade stickers and baseball cards. They were at parties, and I was reading comic books by flashlight at 3 in the morning, miserable.' In hindsight, he realizes he began to develop signs of depression in his teens and that the 'treasure hunting' ramped up in his 20s. 'It was a self-soothing coping skill for my extreme ups and downs with bipolar disorder and ADD (attention deficit disorder). As my mental health challenges continued to manifest and become more significant, so did the maladaptive coping skills.' Like others, Shuer's collections were broad, but he was particularly interested in video games, especially once he realized their social currency. 'I went from being an awkward outsider to being interesting because of my stuff,' he said. It was only with therapy that he really began to understand that dynamic. 'I realized Space Invaders was the key memory I have from the day of my grandfather's funeral. I was dropped off at a family friend's house and remember playing that.' That realization triggered a 'wave of emotion,' he said. The video games were 'an example of all the things around me that represented unresolved grief, guilt, loss.' Shuer described hoarding as 'intention without opportunity,' suggesting most of those with the condition are well intentioned and plan to use the stuff for good, though often it doesn't work out that way. 'The misunderstanding is that people love their stuff more than their family,' he said. The truth, he said, is that most of those affected are trying 'to be a good person, not a bad person.' They need help and understanding, which is what their peers can give them, Shuer said. The success of Buried in Treasures comes down to the social interaction with their peers, which enables people to open up in a reassuringly safe environment, he said. 'Learning the skills and being treated with respect like this is really empowering. You're also receiving that positive reinforcement that you're not some kind of social pariah and you're not crazy,' Shuer said. 'By the end of the course people often feel hopeful and that for the first time they have a chance. I believe that if you care enough and you want it bad enough, you can change anything. That was definitely a motivator for me.'
CNBC
3 hours ago
- CNBC
From Starbucks to Smoothie King, restaurants seek to cash in on consumers' protein frenzy
Restaurant chains are joining in on the protein frenzy, hoping to encourage diners to pay more for extra macronutrients during a time when many consumers aren't spending as much. From "gym bros" to users of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, many Americans are trying to add more protein to their diets, with the goal of building or maintaining their muscle mass and feeling more satiated after meals. Moreover, diet trends that don't emphasize protein intake, such as the ketogenic diet, have fallen out of favor. "A lot of younger consumers are more proactive about their health habits, so they're looking for ways to support health now but also to support their health in the future," said Julia Mills, a food and drink analyst for market research firm Mintel. "Generation Alpha, Gen Z, millennials — these consumers are very active on social media, so they're constantly being fed this message that you need more protein, and protein helps you gain muscle and makes you stronger." Roughly a third of consumers said they loved high protein in the second quarter of 2025, up from 24% three years ago, according to Datassential, which tracks restaurant menus and consumer preferences. The trend has fueled a protein takeover in grocery store aisles, from protein-packed Eggo waffles to Khloe Kardashian's Khloud protein popcorn. But it's also hitting the menus of restaurants that are seeking ways to encourage diners to pay for premium food and drinks. Take Starbucks, for example. The coffee giant said in late July that it will roll out a cold foam packed with 15 grams of protein later this year; the regular cold foam add-on typically costs customers an extra $1.25 per drink. The new foam comes as the chain's U.S. sales have been shrinking for the past year as coffee drinkers brew their java at home or seek out trendier options. Rival Dutch Bros launched a protein coffee in early 2024 and charges customers an extra $1 for the customization. The menu addition fueled strong same-store sales growth and profits for the upstart chain. Eateries are seeking to attract diners like Jared Hutkowski, a 42-year-old director of brokerage in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He works out six days a week and tries to hit his daily protein goal to improve his physique and overall health. When he dines out, he tries to maximize his protein, although he sometimes goes for pizza anyway. "The biggest factor is what I am in the mood for that day, and then I normally try and select a meal that has a least a serving of some type of protein in it," Hutkowski said. This year, 28.4% of U.S. restaurant menus call out "protein," up from 5.9% a decade ago, according to Datassential. And the trend looks like it has staying power. Datassential predicts that by 2029, more than 40% of eateries will highlight protein on their menus. "Protein is one of those things that's never been vilified, because no one's ever said that eating too much protein can be bad for you," Mintel's Mills said. In the short term, consuming more protein than your body needs likely won't cause health issues, but in the long term, it could cause kidney problems, according to Diane Han, a registered dietitian based in San Francisco and the founder of Woking Balance Wellness. The recommended daily amount of protein intake varies by body weight but is roughly 46 grams for women and 56 grams for men, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For restaurants, protein's step change happened several years ago. In 2021, protein only had a menu penetration of 11.5%; by 2022, more than a quarter of restaurant menus used the term, based on Datassential data. That year, Dine Brands' IHOP, for example, introduced pancakes with 18 grams of protein per flapjack. Fast-casual eateries are the restaurant segment most likely to call out protein on their menus, thanks to the common practice of asking customers to pick their protein or offering to double their portion, according to Datassential. Fast-casual salad chain Sweetgreen introduced a line of "protein plates" in late 2023 as part of an effort to introduce more hearty options for dinner customers. The menu addition has helped the company grow its dinner business from 35% of sales to about 40%, executives said in March. Many restaurants are also leaning into U.S. consumers' desire for convenience. Accessibility may be why Datassential found that consumers tend to prefer protein-packed beverages. For Smoothie King, protein has been a menu staple since its founding more than 50 years ago. But in October, the chain took one step further, launching a menu aimed at consumers who take GLP-1 drugs for weight loss or diabetes. The rapid weight loss that can occur from the medications can cause muscle mass to drop, so doctors often advise patients to increase their protein intake to maintain their muscle. "It's a convenient, on-the-go way to get in your protein that you're looking for in your diet," said Lori Primavera, Smoothie King's vice president of research and development and product marketing. Many restaurants are also choosing to highlight existing protein-packed options, rather than adding new menu items that would slow down kitchens or add to much complexity to their operations. For example, Panda Express introduced its own protein plates earlier this year. The line, created in partnership with a registered dietitian, includes pre-existing menu items but packages them as a balanced meal, highlighting protein and fiber content. Chipotle Mexican Grill employed a similar strategy back in 2019 when it introduced "lifestyle bowls," marketed to fit different dietary goals, like the paleo diet or offering double protein. Likewise, in July, Chick-fil-A put the spotlight on its own high-protein options in a company blog, highlighting its grilled nuggets and the Cool Wrap, which features a grilled chicken breast, cheese and lettuce in a tortilla. But for the eateries that want to add new menu items, nachos with a choice of protein, restaurant-made protein bars and egg dishes that highlight high protein content are all increasingly popular options, according to Datassential trendologist Claire Conaghan. Eggs are one reason why breakfast, brunch and lunch eatery First Watch has always been "protein forward," CEO Chris Tomasso told CNBC. The chain hasn't adjusted its menu specifically to address consumers' demand for more protein, but TikTok influencers have highlighted how to order a high-protein meal when visiting its restaurants. "We hope that continues to be a trend because we're right down the middle of the fairway on that," Tomasso said. Of course, protein isn't the only way to win over health-conscious consumers. Hutkowski said his primary issue with eating at restaurants is that most of the food is cooked in oils, butter and heavy greases that rapidly add to his intake of fats for the day. "A restaurant finding cleaner ways to cook would be much more attractive to me than overly loaded protein dishes," he said.
CNN
3 hours ago
- CNN
‘The stuff under the stuff': People with hoarding disorder open up
The habit crept up on Kim. She would arrive at garage sales as they were ending to pick up what remained. 'I'd load my car full of the free stuff on the side of the road: clothes, things that needed to be fixed, projects,' she told CNN. It was only once things spiraled that Kim, 53, who asked to be identified by her first name to protect her privacy, realized she had a problem that was all too familiar: hoarding, a disorder that she'd spent years urging her mother to seek help for. 'I used to get very frustrated and say, 'Mom, we've helped you clean out this room 10 times, and we come back three months later and it's completely full of sh*t ,' she said. 'I learned about hoarding disorder when I was younger but somehow didn't recognize it in myself.' At first, Kim would pile the things around her bed and throughout her bedroom, eventually expanding into other areas of her home, including her living room and sunporch. Besides the garage sales, she would collect stuff at thrift stores and stored goods she said family gave her 'to hold and keep.' Today Kim runs a Facebook support group for 2,100 people with hoarding disorder, which the World Health Organization categorized as a mental health condition in 2018, five years after the condition was to the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. HD is characterized by excessive accumulation of possessions and difficulty in disposing of them . Kim only sought help when things became unsafe. 'The stuff starts piling up, the paths get narrower, and you start to trip (in your own house),' said the single mother. 'Putting things in the garbage is a big struggle — if we know it might go to the right home, that makes us feel better.' She thinks that mindset dates back to what her grandmother used to say: 'Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without,' she said. 'That was a phrase that was knocked into my head ever since I was little,' and it makes her worry about wasting anything. What people hoard varies: Kim's focus is books. 'It would have taken me 10 lifetimes to read them,' she said of the many boxes she gave away after extensive therapy, including '500 Dr. Phil books.' Two-thirds of people with the disorder have at least one other psychiatric condition, while physical comorbidities such as arthritis and diabetes are common, according to a 2024 US Senate report. Around 14 million Americans are affected by hoarding disorder, with similar rates across other Western countries. Hoarding can trigger countless complications, experts say. Bathrooms and kitchens can become unusable, impacting diet and personal hygiene. Housing authorities can threaten eviction leading to homelessness, while in extreme cases children have been removed by social services. There is also risk to life. Excessive stuff, especially books and paperwork, pose a serious fire hazard and can hamper rescue efforts by blocking escape routes. Collecting may be in our DNA, according to Dr. Nick Neave, a professor in the psychology department at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom and director of the university's Hoarding Research Group. 'Throughout history possessions have always been very important — you see people buried with grave goods,' he said. 'That urge to collect things, it's part of your personality, your culture. So hoarding is normal — we've all got stuff we don't need.' What separates regular collecting from hoarding is often trauma, Neave said. 'All the people who hoard I've ever met had traumatic childhoods, whether it's physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, chaotic backgrounds, lack of parents.' This resonates with Kim, whose symptoms emerged after she experienced an abusive relationship, the death of a friend and a serious medical diagnosis. 'We call it the stuff under the stuff,' said Kim, who lives in New York state. 'One of our therapists calls it the one, two, three punch. You can handle one trauma, maybe two, but after that, a lot of people will have hoarding disorder creep in.' 'I tried to fill the hole in my heart and soul with the stuff,' she added. Neave says hoarding is a 'coping strategy which starts off working very well' but can 'spiral quickly into a severe addiction and mental health problem that is very difficult to resolve.' Shame and stigma can then lead to further isolation, he said. 'The obvious thing to do is get rid of the clutter, but that doesn't solve the problem of why they've got it in the first place. If you're not treating that issue, it'll come back.' Heather Matuozzo is the founder of Clouds End, which works with Birmingham Council in the UK to support about 300 renters through an intervention project called 'Chaos 2 Order.' 'When you live in property that's not yours the landlord can go to court and get an injunction to forcibly clear your house,' she said. 'No matter what justification you give it, it's morally wrong and also makes people who hoard worse.' She believes the pandemic led to an increase in prevalence of hoarding disorders. 'We saw the whole world hoard, as everybody had that (fear that) 'Oh my God, I'm going to run out',' she said. 'If you're already anxious, then you drop a pandemic on top of that, where everything closes and your support, which was tenuous enough in the first place, just disappears, you will be beside yourself and gathering to feel better.' Matuozzo believes that Birmingham may be 'the first hoarding-aware city in the world.' The model should be replicated elsewhere, she said. Sophia, who runs the Facebook group with Kim, first realized she had a problem at graduate school after a close relative was diagnosed with a severe mental illness. 'In between classes, I was shopping and would bring all this stuff back: dolls, books, jewelry, clothing, shoes, toiletries, school supplies. It was a way to disassociate.' Sophia, who also lives in New York state and does not want to be fully identified to protect her privacy, recalls the moment she knew she had to act — when she tried to get rid of some of her stuff. 'I had this nervous reaction; my whole body was shaking.' Soon afterward, she came across an advertisement for volunteers for a trial treatment with Dr. Carolyn Rodriguez, director of the Stanford Hoarding Disorders Research Program. Sophia said the program was massively helpful, but still, she relapsed. 'I was going plane, bus, train, automobile, just to get stuff,' she said. She has tried many varied therapies since then, including cognitive behavior therapy, or CBT, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, or EMDR, while leaning into the Facebook group for support. 'I love that there's community and that I can share,' she said. 'And if I can make it less jacked up or reduce harm, anybody can do that .' Stanford's Rodriguez is currently testing a virtual reality intervention. 'Many current treatments emphasize skills related to discarding and decision-making about possessions, which can be practiced in the patient's home,' she said via email. 'In many cases, real-life discarding is too difficult or in-home visits are unfeasible for reasons such as location, availability, or clutter being stacked so high that it's dangerous for a team to go inside,' she said. 'Practicing letting go of items is such an important skill to develop, so we wanted to create a virtual and safe environment to do so.' Nine participants were asked to take 360-degree photos of the most cluttered room in their house, as well as 30 possessions to discard. Once virtual equivalents were created, participants could navigate their way around using VR headsets and handheld controllers. 'For people who experience considerable distress even attempting to part with possessions, it's nice to be able to practice the activity in a virtual space as well as process the emotions of it,' said Rodriguez, who hopes to expand the project. 'In these one-hour sessions, they learned to better understand their attachment to the objects and practiced placing them in virtual bins for recycling, donation, or trash — the latter of which was taken away by a virtual garbage truck. They were then assigned the task of discarding the actual item at home.' The sessions were run as part of the 'Buried in Treasures' group treatment program. Based on a book of the same name by David Tolin, Randy Frost and Gail Steketee , it's a 16-week peer-led initiative running in numerous countries including the United States, Canada and Australia. Frost, also the Smith College Harold and Elsa Siipola Israel professor emeritus of psychology, developed the course with Lee Shuer, who now facilitates it around the world. Shuer, a certified peer specialist and hoarding disorder expert, said he never calls anyone a 'hoarder.' 'If you're trying to build trust and rapport, it's often such a turn-off. I self-identify as a finder-keeper in recovery, but a lot of people use collector, archivist, environmentalist, prepper. 'But it doesn't matter what we call it — we want to call it getting better.' Shuer started 'collecting' at school, as children often do. 'I didn't abandon that phase,' he said. 'Suddenly we weren't getting together to trade stickers and baseball cards. They were at parties, and I was reading comic books by flashlight at 3 in the morning, miserable.' In hindsight, he realizes he began to develop signs of depression in his teens and that the 'treasure hunting' ramped up in his 20s. 'It was a self-soothing coping skill for my extreme ups and downs with bipolar disorder and ADD (attention deficit disorder). As my mental health challenges continued to manifest and become more significant, so did the maladaptive coping skills.' Like others, Shuer's collections were broad, but he was particularly interested in video games, especially once he realized their social currency. 'I went from being an awkward outsider to being interesting because of my stuff,' he said. It was only with therapy that he really began to understand that dynamic. 'I realized Space Invaders was the key memory I have from the day of my grandfather's funeral. I was dropped off at a family friend's house and remember playing that.' That realization triggered a 'wave of emotion,' he said. The video games were 'an example of all the things around me that represented unresolved grief, guilt, loss.' Shuer described hoarding as 'intention without opportunity,' suggesting most of those with the condition are well intentioned and plan to use the stuff for good, though often it doesn't work out that way. 'The misunderstanding is that people love their stuff more than their family,' he said. The truth, he said, is that most of those affected are trying 'to be a good person, not a bad person.' They need help and understanding, which is what their peers can give them, Shuer said. The success of Buried in Treasures comes down to the social interaction with their peers, which enables people to open up in a reassuringly safe environment, he said. 'Learning the skills and being treated with respect like this is really empowering. You're also receiving that positive reinforcement that you're not some kind of social pariah and you're not crazy,' Shuer said. 'By the end of the course people often feel hopeful and that for the first time they have a chance. I believe that if you care enough and you want it bad enough, you can change anything. That was definitely a motivator for me.'
