furniture

Signs of good sleep include taking less time to fall asleep and not waking up often or for long periods. And although the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) and the Sleep Research Society (SRS) recommend adults sleep at least seven hours a night,¹ over one-quarter of us fall short of this recommendation.² There are many factors contributing to this lack of sleep, and back pain is certainly one of them. 

When I had herniated my disc, it was the most sleep-deprived time of my life. I recall regularly walking around the block during the night, just to ease my back spasms enough to catch a few more hours of sleep. That was long before I knew the measures the Gokhale Method® now teaches to reduce such pain, accelerate healing, and prevent recurrence. For anyone in that situation, techniques like stretchlying and inner corset are no-brainers! 

But the most common—and most under-recognized—reason for our tossing and turning and sleep deprivation is less dramatic than a herniation, or even pulling a muscle. The numerous microaggressions that our bodies suffer during the day due to poor posture, predispose you to a nighttime beset by jangled nerves, tense muscles, and areas of inflammation. This is disruptive to both mind and body, especially in the hours when you want to rest and rejuvenate.

Poor use of our body during the day can unwittingly store up nighttime aches and agitation. Image by Andrea Placquadlo, 2017

Will the right mattress help me sleep?

In much of the world people sleep on the floor, often on just a throw or thin bedroll. In hot countries the floor is often the coolest place to be, and if your culture generally enjoys healthy posture and a low prevalence of back pain, lying on the floor can be perfectly comfortable. Most people in industrialized and postindustrial societies, however, have not preserved natural length, shape, and health in their spines, and therefore require more support and cushioning from their bed. 

A lengthened, supple spine can tolerate even an unforgiving surface, such as this log.

The most important thing to avoid is a sagging mattress or bed springs that let your spine fall into a compressive curve. As a general rule, the greater the number of springs/coils a mattress has, or the better quality the memory foam (some mattresses have both springs and a foam topper), the better the support you get for your weight and contours. However, I have known many people pay handsomely for mattresses that promise a lot but deliver little, so I recommend taking advantage of “try before you buy” deals.

I have also heard from many of our students over the years that their existing mattresses have, to their joy, become comfortable. In other words, as their posture has improved, more naturally aligned bones, relaxed muscles, and appropriately spaced discs and nerves, are happy at last. Their body is now comfortable, and their brain is no longer waking them to tell them something is hurting—insomnia resolved. One student reported that having learned the Gokhale Method she even said goodbye to a lifelong recurring nightmare!

There are many delicate and vital structures within the spine, as shown here in the neck. They require healthy alignment and length, rather than compression, to be happy (front view). Wikipedia

What is the best sleeping position?

In addition to healthy posture and moving as you are meant to during your daily activities, there is a lot you can do at night to arrange yourself well, encouraging muscle relaxation and improved circulation for healing. Comfortable sleep is sometimes the first place that you can break a pain cycle and start to mend. 

The Gokhale Method offers two main techniques for transforming your sleep: stretchlying on the back, and stretchlying on the side. These are taught in detail in our in-person Foundations course, and online Elements course. You can also learn all the steps involved from my book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, or DVD, Back Pain: The Primal Posture Solution. You can get started with our free Gokhale® Moment video (below) for stretchlying on the back.  

No special equipment is required for stretchlying—just learn the principles and moves involved, and how to arrange your pillows accordingly.

One breakthrough for many people is to use a pillow under the knees when lying on their back. This accommodates a tight, shortened psoas muscle, rather than let it pull on the lumbar spine. Though this pulling sometimes goes unrecognized at night, it can result in a back so stiff the following morning, it can be hard to move or dress yourself. 

Placing a pillow under your knees when lying down accommodates tightness in the psoas and avoids pulling on the vertebrae and surrounding tissues to which it is attached.

Snoring and sleep apnea

Snoring elicits reactions ranging from hilarity to fury. It can be transitory, due to a cold, for example, but persistent snoring can be embarrassing for the snorer and disruptive for others. Snoring may also be a precursor to other breathing and health problems; if you snore, you might benefit from working with a health professional. 

From a postural viewpoint, some overly tight muscles, including the psoas and the erector spinae, will contribute to arching your lower back or pulling your head back. The resulting additional weight from your throat and tongue on your airways could give rise to mouth breathing, thus aggravating both snoring and sleep apnea. 

The gentle sloping arrangement of the pillows in stretchlying, combined with lengthening of the neck, helps to keep the airway clear and well aligned downward, reducing symptoms. This is helpful both when the condition is mild, and also when a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) machine is used. Our techniques can also be adapted with extra pillow elevation, and the side-lying position is of particular help with breathing difficulties.

Antique tomb sculpture shows how people positioned their pillows in earlier times—without sway in the back or neck. (Öhringen church, Germany.)

Best next action steps 

If you would like help with your sleeping positions, get started by booking a consultation, online or in person, with one of our teachers. Sweet dreams!

With the right help, we can all relax to sleep—like a baby!

References:

¹ Watson, Nathaniel F., M. Safwan Badr, Gregory Belenky, Donald L. Bliwise, Orfeu M. Buxton, Daniel Buysse, David F. Dinges, et al. 2015. “Recommended Amount of Sleep for a Healthy Adult: A Joint Consensus Statement of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society.” Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine 11 (6). https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.4758.

² “QuickStats: Percentage* of Adults Aged ≥18 Years Who Sleep <7 Hours on Average in a 24-Hour Period,† by Sex and Age Group — National Health Interview Survey,§ United States, 2020.” 2022. MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 71 (10): 393. https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7110a6.‌

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Today, those of us in the U.S. celebrate our nationhood. On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence announced colonial freedom from Great Britain; our history has included the winning of many more freedoms since. In various and sometimes contradictory ways, our society continues to defend much cherished freedoms, and also to aspire to new levels of freedom.

Abraham Lincoln is remembered for preserving the union of the U.S.. This 1864 photograph of Lincoln with his son, Tad, shows the upright posture characteristic of our ancestors. You can find it alongside many such examples in my book, 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back.

One freedom that everyone wishes for is to live and move free from aches and pains. I feel privileged that all day, every day, I get to support people in this basic endeavor. Our team of teachers is delighted to pass on to others how best to be in our bodies. We all want our bodies to be a source of true support, good health, and enjoyment for us, rather than a source of misery and a hindrance.

For too many of us, freedom in our body and delight in our physicality was left behind in childhood. We want to regain that pleasure! Image from Pexels

Your body is your primary instrument for existing in the world; it either supports or undermines each of your endeavors. Our intellectual, emotional, and physical selves can be severely challenged by musculoskeletal pain. A body that works well for us is more useful, more productive, gives us more scope to interact positively with others, and brings us more joy.

Enjoyable physical activity should be with us through all stages of life. Image from Pexels

Yet sadly there continue to be many ways in which our natural joyful physicality is undermined by our thinking, and the dominant paradigms around it. We are almost always born into this world highly functional, yet we get molded by misguided conventions and ill-conceived furniture into structures that systematically wear us down. A second whammy comes from not recognizing the red flags, and instead, normalizing them and lowering our expectations. Examples include “It’s normal to have disc degeneration by middle age”, or “We haven’t yet fully evolved to be upright”. The interventions we are offered to relieve pain symptoms, such as anti-inflammatory shots, while having a role to play, do not tackle the underlying causes of musculoskeletal pain, or offer solutions. We need freedom from this complex and catastrophic construction.

Poorly designed chairs such as these are a root cause of unhealthy posture and “ordinary” mechanical back pain. Learning to position our pelvis and spines well, in chairs that encourage healthy sitting, is an important part of the solution.

Could we use this Independence Day to awaken to the fact that we are actually very well designed? To realize that what is actually normal for us is to move and live mostly pain-free, and that our pain signals are an understandably unwelcome yet helpful nudge to move us in the right direction. To whatever extent you may need help in interpreting discomfort and understanding your particular posture puzzle, we are here to support you.

While the Gokhale Method® is sometimes thought to be about static posture, our method is equally about how to move well. Healthy posture is one frame in a motion picture. Collectively, these frames give you better balance, coordination, and flow. Everyday movements like bending and walking are a pleasure and are liberating, instead of being painful and restrictive..

Alumna Anissa Morgan tells the story of freeing herself from her “decade of darkness”. Anissa continues to enjoy improvement and to recommend the Gokhale Method.

The techniques and principles that restore our bodies’ freedom are taught in logical sequence and detail in our in-person Foundations course, one-day Pop-up course, our online Elements course, plus our Gokhale Exercise program. These offerings enable you to “move like you are meant to.”

Join us for a special online free workshop, Move Like You are Meant To, on Sunday July 7, 11 a.m. PST, where you can ask questions about how the Gokhale Method can help you to find and enjoy greater body freedom.

Best next action steps 

If you would like to find greater freedom in your posture and movement, get started by booking a consultation, online or in person, with one of our teachers. 

You can sign up below to join any one of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops…

Working from home looks a bit different for our animal companions than it does for us humans. Image courtesy Bruno Cervera on Unsplash.

How are you faring? Here in California, we’re still squarely in shelter-in-place mode, perhaps settling into “normal-for-now.” Some people, whose professions allow it and who didn’t already work remotely, are still acclimating to the experience of working from home full-time. How can we optimize our home work environments?

I recently had a discussion with a friend of mine who’s a full-time writer: let’s call him “Steve.” Steve recently decided to have someone build him a new writing desk to specs, and was curious to get my take on how to make sure his new desk, and home working environment more generally, is supportive of healthy posture.

What’s the best desk height?
Steve: My first concern is desk height. My laptop is a smallish one with a 13-inch display, so the screen doesn’t extend very high up from a desk surface. My existing desk feels low to me and is 29 inches tall. Apparently the industry standard is 29-30 inches. Is 29 inches too low or do I need a taller desk, especially if I’m working with my relatively low screen height? If I have a smaller display, do I need a desk which compensates by being 31 or 32 inches tall?

Esther Gokhale (EG): as long as the screen doesn’t induce your upper body to curve forward, it’s fine to have your screen lower than your eye level. Your eyes are perfectly capable of looking down to that degree without causing strain. The key thing is not a number, but rather what is happening in your body. Some people use floor-sitting desks that are only 6 inches off the ground perfectly well because they have good form while doing so. A custom-height desk as tall as 31 or 32 inches off the ground isn’t necessary unless it’s for comfort.

Floor-sitting with a wedge lets me comfortably use my Bellicon trampoline as a low desk.

How high should my monitor be?
Steve: Is the screen being 2 or 3 inches below eye level a problem? With my current desk height, I have to look slightly down at my display while writing. Should I be worried about the possibility of neck and back strain if I’m looking down that much and for that long?

EG: That sounds perfect, actually. Think hunter-gatherer: the line of vision would slant down since you have to be looking for animal tracks, signs of buried tubers, and watching where you step. Our bodies are perfectly capable of this behavior as they’ve been doing it for many millennia.

90-degree knees?
Steve: I’m curious about knee angle. I’ve heard that my knees should create a 90-degree angle while sitting. Is this true?

EG: There’s no research I know of that says this. People like even numbers and just make them up, even if they rarely exist in the complexity of nature and biology — parallel lines, 90-degree angles, etc. This reminds me for some reason of how rhino horns are supposed to be an aphrodisiac.

Humans are skilled at pattern recognition, which sometimes predisposes us to make conceptual leaps not grounded in fact when we see patterns that aren’t really there (i.e. rhino horns being thought of as an aphrodisiac). Part of the cultural baggage of having looked so strongly to Ancient Greece during the “Enlightenment” era of European history is a somewhat reductive expectation for symmetry and geometry, not only in the field of mathematics, but also in the human body. (More on that in another blog post.) In any case, worrying about human knees always being at a 90-degree angle while seated is not really a concern of mine. In fact, externally rotating the legs is a more constructive goal, and one among many other posture nuggets you can learn to achieve in our online posture coaching courses.

It’s also worth mentioning that, for seated desk work, the chair we painstakingly designed is both conducive to good posture and extremely durable. I’ve had mine for around 10 years and it’s still in great repair.

Modifying my laptop height with books, coming in close to the computer, and keeping my shoulders in a healthy position help make this seated desk arrangement gentle on the body, as well as sustainable. And with my decade-old Gokhale Pain-Free™ Chair, I can actually stretchsit while I work.

Keyboard placement: what’s the right distance?
Steve: How important is it that I be able to come in close to the keyboard?

EG: Very. Though your arms are certainly capable of reaching out to a more distant keyboard, this takes more muscular effort. If you have the choice, come in super close — the feeling wants to be almost like you're surrounded by your desk or as though you're in a cockpit. When the keyboard is further away, this can easily play into old habits of curving the upper back forward, craning the neck forward, or displacing the shoulders forward, all of which compromise the body.

Standing desks: what’s the best approach?
Steve: I want to fashion a standing workspace out of my new seated desk. I figure I’ll probably get an additional place-on-top appliance to make the desk work for standing as well as sitting.

EG: I use a simple wooden footstool on top of my massage table when I want a standing desk — I just place my laptop on the stool and work away.

This simple footstool on top of my massage table is my preferred standing desk setup.

Sometimes my Congolese drum can be useful too, but it’s not really stable enough. Whatever you use doesn’t have to be formal — just a nice height.

My Congolese drum is another option for a standing desk surface.

The home work space posts on the Twitter thread started by @julesforrest illustrate this nicely.

Whatever your creative desk arrangement, make sure you use healthy posture while standing — tallstanding comes to mind. Get creative and experiment: changing your work location and/or position can inject a fresh burst of energy into your day. Give it a try!

The oldest surviving dated Chinese Buddha figure shows surprisingly slumped posture. Note the forward head, absence of a stacked spine, and tucked pelvis. He would not look out of place with a smartphone in his hand!

This surprisingly hunched Chinese Buddha figure is the oldest dated Chinese Buddha figure that has survived into modern times. The inscription on its base dates it to 338 AD, 500 years after Buddhism came to China from India. Compare the Chinese Buddha figure with this Indian Buddha figure from roughly 800-1000 AD…
 

This North Indian Buddha figure from the post-Gupta period (7th - 8th century AD) shows excellent form. He has a well-stacked spine, open shoulders, and an elongated neck.

There is a dramatic difference in posture. The Chinese figure looks like a lot of modern folk, whereas the Indian one looks upright and relaxed. Why the difference?

Since the models these figures were based on, and everything and everyone contemporaneous to them are long dead, the best we can do is to make educated guesses about these characters.

India, compared to China, is a warm country. Much of the Indian population sits on the floor cross-legged to gather, eat, play, socialize, and more. To this day, the default praying position is cross-legged without props.

Devotees attending a puja in a temple in Bhubansewar, Orissa.

China, by contrast, is generally a cold country, being further north. It is not comfortable to sit cross-legged on the floor in a cold country, and accordingly, it is common for Han Chinese people to use furniture. In fact, China has many famous styles of furniture, like Ming and Qing Dynasty furniture, and the oldest sitting implements date to earlier than 1000 BC.

This historical northern Chinese furniture dates back to the Liao Dynasty (907-1125 AD). Though they are weathered, the chairs’ armrests, backrests, and seat shape give clues about posture in this period. Original image is licensed by Wikimedia Commons user smartneddy under CC BY-SA 2.5.

As is true in our culture, when people sit on chairs, stools, and benches, the hip socket (acetabulum) is not subject to the same forces as in a person who sits cross-legged on the floor habitually. In my blog post about cross-legged sitting, I use a common-sense argument about why the shape of the hip sockets of someone who grew up sitting on the floor are different from those of someone who grew up sitting on chairs. By the time we are 16 years old, the hip socket is entirely ossified and not amenable to significant shaping or “editing”. For this reason, most modern people from colder climates cannot sit comfortably on the floor for long periods without props. This is also why, I conjecture, this oldest Chinese Buddha figure shows an awkward and uncomfortable posture as he sits cross-legged without props.

I imagine the model for the Chinese Buddha statue to have been a dedicated seeker, eager to embody every aspect of his chosen spiritual tradition. Some of these borrowed aspects would have worked well, probably bestowing on him benefits in his chosen path and practice. The borrowed posture, however, does not help him. He would do better with a prop. If he used a prop to elevate his ischial tuberosities (sitz bones) and let his pelvis tip forward, he would all of a sudden discover that he could be upright without any tension or effort. His back could rise and fall with his inhalations and exhalations. And he would be spared much degeneration and discomfort. My guess is that he had the skills to work with much of his pain, but maybe not all of it, maybe not all the time, and maybe not into his old age. The mind has amazing capabilities to override pain signals, but when those pain signals can be quite addressed at their root with simple mechanical solutions, this is worth learning how to do. The mind can then be used to try to address more unavoidable pain, both physical and emotional.

This young woman’s posture, with her protruding head, slumped shoulders, and tucked pelvis, shares many similarities with that of the ancient Chinese Buddha figure. Original image courtesy Andrew Le on Unsplash.

With such slumped posture, my experience indicates that the model’s chest and back would be encumbered by the cantilevered weight of the upper body, and not available for easy expansion. Only the belly is readily available for expansion. The person would learn to soften the belly to allow for easier expansion with the breath. In my imaginings, the belly breathing pattern that started out as a hack could easily get mistaken for a desirable practice to emulate. And this misperception continues into modern times.

If there is any truth to this storyline, the posture demonstrated by the oldest Chinese Buddha figure serves as a cautionary tale. It reminds us that practices develop and thrive in a culturally-specific context. When we import a practice from a different context, it behooves us to consider which portions of the practice can be imported whole, which need modification for local conditions and use, and which need to be edited out of our local version of the practice.

Centuries later, in Japan, Buddhist practitioners invented the zafu, the perfect prop for hip sockets of the kind found in cold countries. A zafu enables a modern meditator to be upright and relaxed, just like the Buddha!

Elevating the seat can make a big difference in meditation posture.

Do you engage in practices you find challenging that are easy in the country of their origin? How have you modified an “imported” cultural practice?

Sitting has been much maligned in the last decade. News sources love to dramatize the issue, and you can find many alarming headlines—such as, “Sitting will kill you, even if you exercise” from CNN in 2015. The debate about the various risks of sitting and possible ways to mitigate them is raging, and articles and research range from “sitting is the new smoking” to “sitting isn’t actually bad for you.”

 
Sitting: is it bad for you?

In the last few years, some research has seemed to backtrack or qualify the fears of the past, making a distinction between sitting for work versus sitting in front of the TV; news articles have begun to note the higher risks of sitting for those who are obese or inactive, and the potentially minimal risks of sitting for otherwise healthy adults. Just two years after telling us that sitting will kill us, CNN now claims, “Sitting might not be so bad for you after all.” There are also studies now suggesting that standing presents its own risks and problems including hospitalization due to varicose veins and inreased risk of atherosclerosis. In any case, studies show that after one month, users of standing desks return to sitting. 

People have been spending long hours each day sitting before the rise of ailments like heart disease and diabetes—is sitting really so bad for us? 

So what are we to believe? Do we sit, or stand—or are both harmful? You have to earn your living some way, and if it’s not going to be sitting, it’s going to be standing. All the back-and-forth in the media might have you believe the trendy guideline “the best position is the next position.” To me, this is a rather defeatist take on the human body. I believe all positions are good for you—if done with good posture, and in moderation.

Many famous thinkers can be quoted on the benefits of sitting calmly.

What is overlooked in all the studies and articles on the subject, is our sitting form and our furniture. Beyond one article that explored the benefits of sitting reclined, which is a relaxing but not a very practical posture, the medical literature seldom touches on how people sit, what they sit on, and what difference these can make to health and back pain. 

Bad furniture can contribute to harmful sitting, but even the best-shaped furniture can’t force you into a good posture. Compare the woman on the left, sitting with a tucked pelvis and rounded spine, to the woman on the right who uses the seat shape to her advantage, stacking her spine effortlessly on top of an anteverted pelvis.

In my experience, a person’s posture, what the person is doing while sitting, and what they are sitting on makes a huge health difference, both through correlated factors and through causation. Sitting with poor posture, whether from habit or from bad furniture, has many negative side effects, from causing joint and muscle pain in the back (and as we know, chronic back pain can bring down your mood and keep you from being active), to limiting lung capacity and circulation, which hinders the body’s ability to heal, remove toxins, and circulate oxygen. Even just being able to breath more deeply can have wonderful effects on physical and mental health, boosting energy, digestion, and mood. All these processes are linked, and when one suffers, it is no surprise that other weak spots in a person’s system can take a big hit, even to the extent of increasing the risk of health issues like heart disease or diabetes.

Sitting slouched all day will leave this surgeon tired and in pain, and less able to effectively help others. 

Apart from these direct effects, someone who sits with good form may be more likely to practice other beneficial health habits, like daily exercise and eating a healthy diet; while someone in the habit of sitting in front of the TV, unmoving for hours at a time is likely to harbor other unhealthy habits.

Sitting with good form can allow you to enjoy other activities that enrich your life and help you maintain mental and physical health.

These women in Burkina Faso are both working and relaxed as they sit for several hours spinning cotton. 

This baby naturally sits with good posture, and surely does not find it tiring or uncomfortable in the least. 

So wave goodbye to your anxiety about whether your desk job or your 3-hour seminar are going to give you health woes. Work on your form, maintain healthy habits like daily exercise and limited TV-watching (or other forms of lazy sitting), and take frequent breaks to move around and get your heart rate up a little. Sitting is a natural human activity, and your body is strong enough to handle moderate amounts of any position, when it’s done well.

 
Sometimes, simply by sitting, the soul collects wisdom.
- Zen proverb

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