sitting

Mother and son in a tribal Orissan village demonstrating excellent walking form. Notice that their heels remain on the floor well into their stride.

Do you have tight psoas muscles? Do you suspect the cause is too much time spent sitting in your daily life? There’s a complementary activity that helps counterbalance the time we spend sitting: walking — or, more specifically, glidewalking. Glidewalking helps balance our sitting in numerous ways — walking is dynamic versus sitting which is static. Yang balances Yin, viewed in the framework of traditional Chinese medicine. One underappreciated way in which walking can balance sitting pertains to the psoas muscle.

The psoas muscle originates on the front of the sides of all the lumbar vertebrae and discs, and ends on the lesser trochanter of the femur.

This pathway is quite circuitous and runs adjacent to several pelvic organs. With long hours of sitting, the psoas can adapt to a short resting length. Original image courtesy Anatomography on Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 2.1 JP.

A short psoas pulls forward on the lumbar spine any time the legs are outstretched. This is why many people are uncomfortable lying on the back with outstretched legs, and why some people feel sciatic twinges when they stand and walk. The natural antidote for this tendency of the psoas muscle to shorten in sustained sitting is glidewalking. Glidewalking is really natural or primal walking given a special name because it is a rare thing in modern times and deserves to be celebrated with a special name! Every step done with proper form naturally stretches the psoas. That amounts to 5,000 mini psoas stretches on each side if you are glidewalking the recommended 10K steps a day. This will keep your psoas in a healthy, stretched out, pliable state!

This Orissan woman demonstrates beautiful walking form with her body in line with her back leg, her back leg straightened but not locked, and her back heel staying close the ground well into her stride.

The best way to get your psoas stretches, or resets, is to punctuate your day with glidewalking. No instance of glidewalking is insignificant: glidewalking to the bathroom, glidewalking to get a glass of water, and glidewalking in kinhin (walking meditation) all help. So are the longer, more obvious instances of glidewalking such as the daily constitutional and the weekend hike.

Orissan women carrying water on their heads. Notice how the woman in front propels herself off her rear heel. This additionally gives her a healthy psoas stretch with every step she takes.

It has become popular to consider that “sitting is the new smoking.” Poor form and long stretches of uninterrupted sitting do indeed have a deleterious effect on health, but I believe that a significant unknown contributor is that most people do not walk in a way that resets the psoas muscle after it shortens during extended sitting.

Apart from responding to extended sitting, the psoas muscle is also very responsive to psychological stress. We see this in the Moro reflex in babies when they respond to loud noises and traumatic stimuli such as real or perceived falling. Addressing psoas tension is at the core of certain body modalities, such as Tension & Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE), and innovative developments in psychotherapy involving polyvagal theory.

This Rodin sculpture shows its subject well into a stride with the rear heel still down on the ground. This stance is a natural part of gait and stretches the psoas muscle.

It’s a tad complex to learn to stretch the psoas in glidewalking, but well worth the effort. It takes a combination of the following actions to do the job.

1. The rib cage needs to be anchored to stabilize the lumbar spine. Without this step, any other effort to stretch the psoas will result in arching the lower back. 

2. The back heel needs to stay on the ground a long time into a stride. Most people lift their heel up from the ground prematurely, losing the full extent of the psoas stretch that nature designed to be built into every step.

3. The gluteal muscles of the rear leg engage appropriately, further augmenting the psoas stretch.

Proper technique can help you avoid the cycle of tight psoas muscles, reduced activity, tighter psoas muscles, further-reduced activity…

How much have you succeeded in putting these pieces together? What helped the techniques coalesce? The book? The DVD? One of our courses? A topical workshop on glidewalking for our Gokhale Method Alumni? I’d love to hear from you in the comment section below.

This is the first post in our multi-part series on floor sitting. For Part 2 on squatting, click here.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor is common in many cultures around the world, and has become popular in some segments of modern Western societies.

This Druze woman who I met in Israel has sat cross-legged all her life. She runs a hospitality business — all the food is laid out on the floor and the guests sit along the periphery of the room. She is at ease in this position for extended periods with her back remaining upright and relaxed.
 

In this temple in Bhubaneswar, devotees sit cross-legged for extended periods in performing rituals.
 

These Buddha figures in Thailand show relaxed, healthy, upright cross-legged sitting posture.

For those who grew up sitting on the floor (thus maintaining their original muscle flexibility and joint mobility), sitting on the floor is comfortable and healthy.

Babies in any culture have the capacity to sit cross-legged with healthy upright posture. This is Monisha White, Esther Gokhale’s youngest child.

It comes in handy at sporting events, in working with young children or with objects on the floor, or in a minimalist context. For people who did not grow up sitting on the floor, though, it can cause a host of problems.

When we are born, our hip, knee, and ankle joints are not yet made of bone, but rather of cartilage. The cartilage ossifies with a timeline that is specific for each joint. The hip socket, for example, is made of three cartilaginous plates at birth. The first pair of these plates ossifies at age 2; the last pair ossifies at age 16. We know that ossification patterns are influenced by mechanical stresses, so it is a commonsensical argument that the habitual positions a person assumes during the ossification period in childhood will dictate how the hip joints (and other lower body joints) set. Someone who has not sat on the floor since being a baby will have a different hip architecture than someone who sat on the floor to eat and squatted to use the toilet growing up. The shape of the joint will be different, as will its range of motion. Some joints have a “use it or lose it” mentality! Additionally, the muscles around these joints will have resting lengths that are adapted to the habitual positions. With muscles, it is simply a matter of stretching to get them to cooperate and be comfortable in new poses. For the bones and joints in an adult, however, things are more fixed. It is unlikely that any amount of practice could find us comfortable and sitting healthily in the lotus position for the first time as an adult.

In this first post of our multi-part series on floor sitting, we will teach you how to modify cross-legged sitting so it is more accessible and healthy for your modern body.

How the “pros” do it

Having grown up with this position since early childhood, people like the Thai woman below are able to preserve a healthy base anteverted pelvis and a well-stacked, relaxed, and upright torso.

This Thai woman sits through a prayer ceremony sitting cross-legged. Notice her upright and relaxed torso atop an anteverted pelvis.
 

In a tribal market in Orissa, this woman sells pots and roots while sitting cross-legged for hours comfortably.

The problem in modern cross-legged sitting

This position tends to tuck the pelvis in people who did not grow up sitting cross-legged. The pelvis is limited by the external hip rotators as well as by the shape of the hip socket itself. Without an optimal alignment of the pelvis, you will be stuck between two poor choices: relaxed and slumped, or upright and tense, each of which causes different kinds of damage.

Cross-legged sitting on the floor for modern urban people usually involves a tucked pelvis.

     
A retroverted (tucked) pelvis often results in a relaxed and slumped torso (left). Being upright on a tucked pelvis requires tension in the long back muscles (right). This is not a sustainable or healthy position for long periods.

The fix: use implements (pillows, wedge, blankets) under your bottom to help facilitate rotation of the pelvis. Allow the legs to be lower than the hips to accommodate tight external rotators and the shape of the hip socket.

A support under the sitz bones facilitates sitting cross-legged in a healthy way — upright and relaxed.

Do you use any of these techniques? Do you have props that help you sit on the floor more comfortably?

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

Join us in an upcoming Free Workshop (online or in person).  

Find a Foundations Course in your area to get the full training on the Gokhale Method!  

We also offer in person or online Initial Consultations with any of our qualified Gokhale Method teachers.

Earlier in the history of our company, we didn’t intend to create any posture products and thought education alone would be sufficient. We still stand by our philosophy that education is the most important ingredient in restoring primal posture.  

Posture braces, seat cushions, and shirts are not able to take the place of hands-on coaching to establish posture ideals or healthy ways of getting to those ideals. The Gokhale Method trains people on the look and feel of healthy posture; now you can choose aids wisely to support you.

Posture devices as seen above usually induce people to switch from one bad posture (slumping) to another (arching). Most people believe they need to "sit up straight." In fact, arched posture can do as much harm as slumping does. Hands-on training by a Gokhale Method teacher can teach you truly healthy posture; following that, a reminder system, whether like the one above or a simple alarm that goes off periodically, will induce you to reset yourself in a healthy way.  

There’s no magic cushion, or brace, or buzzing device that will give someone perfect posture without hands-on coaching. But over the years, our students' input and feedback taught us to see that there is significant value to be had from certain types of posture aids.

We still teach the use of a towel as a great stretchsitting device, but before we developed the Stretchsit Cushion, we frequently received feedback about how people found it difficult—or impossible—to use a towel on their wooden chair, their plastic outdoor furniture, or their slippery office chair. They hated trying to use rubber bands and bungee cords and clothes pegs, and having to refold or readjust the towel to be the right size.

The towel method works for some seats, but many students found it frustrating to set up or adjust.

We kept hearing, “Can’t you just make something I can throw on a chair easily?” So we listened.

Having the Stretchsit Cushion in your car means you spend significantly less time setting up and adjusting your cushions, and it can't slip out of place!

Developing and manufacturing a product was new for me and for the company, so it took a few tries to get to where we are today. I learned a lot about persistence.

Our first round of the Stretchsit Cushion, V1, had oval rubber nubs. Pro: very sticky! Con: the stitches tore through the rubber from the shear forces of stretchsitting—people stuck too well! It’s better that the compression forces went to the nubs rather than the discs in people’s back, but our customers were naturally disappointed when their cushions failed.

This was V1 of the Stretchsit Cushion.

Instead of endlessly replacing products, we moved on to a tougher, textured nub that is stuffed with foam to be more durable.

The Stretchsit cushion's nubs are now made from a strong, textured material that will provide friction without ripping.

A lot of nubs to help a lot of spinal discs!

Additionally we switched to stronger, more color-fast fabric so cushions in cars or sunlit rooms don't get sun-bleached. We also used a more durable foam for the body of the cushion - one that is malleable enough to accommodate many spine shapes, but strong enough to stand up to wear and tear over time without deteriorating.

The front panel of the cushion created by a seamstress using a sewing machine.

It took us several rounds of production to get to the great cushion we have today. We were determined to not compromise on the quality of the materials or the function of the product. When we first started designing the cushion, we didn’t know all the factors we would have to take into account to reach a really high standard. Now we are proud that our cushion receives very few complaints and an awful lot of praise!

The Stretchsit cushion is available from a teacher near you, our website, or Amazon.

FAQs

Q: Where can I purchase a Stretchsit Cushion?

A: If you are taking a Gokhale Method class, we recommend purchasing one directly from your teacher. Otherwise, you can buy them from our website or from Amazon.com. You can save on bundles of 2 or 3 cushions, available only through our website.

Q: Why is there such firm / soft foam in the cushion? Wouldn’t a softer / harder cushion be more comfortable?

A: There are research studies showing that medium-firm mattresses provide people with the most comfort and support. We’ve discovered this to be true for our stretchsit cushion as well. On one hand, we wanted it to be supportive; on the other, we wanted it to be comfortable and conform to a variety of body shapes. We played with the hardness of the foam and of the nubs, and after many iterations have come to a harmonious place, similar to a medium-firm mattress.

Each nub is stuffed with foam of an appropriate density so it will protrude from the cushion without being uncomfortable against the back.

Q: Why isn’t the Stretchsit Cushion cheaper, when I can find $25 foam cushions at stores like Bed Bath & Beyond?

A: We find our Stretchsit Cushion is actually less expensive than high-end lumbar supports or memory foam pads, but yes, there are cheaper foam cushions on the market. Many of these cheap options deteriorate quickly, and aren’t dense enough to provide significant support (although they will soften a hard or rough surface, if that is all that is desired).

In the Gokhale Method philosophy, lumbar supports do not solve, and may exacerbate, the problem of compression by causing a sway in the lumbar spine (lumbar supports are designed to encourage the S-shaped spinal ideal that we teach away from). What’s needed is a thoracic support that offers friction, which isn't possible with a simplistic single block of molded foam and a fabric cover.

A typical lumbar support cushion may exacerbate a sway and doesn't support a J-spine.

To provide function and comfort at the standard we hold ourselves to requires a higher level of sophistication, which we’re very happy to have reached in the Stretchsit Cushion. The production process for our cushion is rather intricate, and to make small high-friction nubs of appropriately strong material requires the individual nubs to be worked by someone using a sewing machine rather than industrial sewing. This, and the quality of our materials, is what dictates the price of our cushion. We receive numerous reports on how much benefit people get out of their cushions, so we consider that although it can seem expensive at first, when the cushion is considered as an investment in the health of your spinal discs, nerves, and vertebrae, it is really a steal!

Q: Should I buy your cushion and use it with my current chair or buy the Gokhale Pain Free Chair?

A: You will need the cushion for your carseat and in chairs that you have no control of. We sell a bundle of three cushions because people frequently want one for the car, one for their work chair, and one for their computer chair at home.

If you are in the market for a chair, the Gokhale Pain Free chair is a marvelous investment. It has a 10 year warranty on parts (here too we did not skimp on quality or function), and will support you in stretchsitting (it has a built-in stretchsit cushion) as well as in stacksitting (it has a built-in wedge). It has other helpful features like a “mushroom top” seat to facilitate external rotation of the legs, and no armrests so you can come in close to your work surface (if your shoulders are properly rolled open, you will not miss the arm rests). No other chair has these features.

The Gokhale Method Pain-Free Chair has a built-in Stretchsit Cushion and a built-in wedge with additional nubs in the seat for greater traction.

That said, if you are financially pressed, we recommend economizing by buying the Stretchsit Cushion and using a folded blanket for stacksitting. These inexpensive additions to your chair allow you to achieve healthy posture; the drawback is that it won’t look as elegant and you will need to adjust your implements periodically.

Watch our videos for guidance on using your Stretchsit Cushion:

A Stretchsit cushion helps fill the unhealthy
C shape found in many airplane seats, or
even better, facilitates gently
stretching the spine.

The summer is upon us and many of us will be traveling in buses, boats, cars, and planes. I have spent a lot of time on planes and have observed people in discomfort all around me. The shape of airplane seats varies from airline to airline, but all of them have a curvature that forces the spine into an uncomfortable C-shape. In this season of airline travel, I’d like to share some simple tips to protect the spine and reduce muscle tension during an airplane flight. 

1) Fill the C

The concave shape of airline seats puts pressure on the spinal discs and is the starting point for muscle tension. Fill the lower part of your seat with pillows, blankets, sweaters, or ideally a Stretchsit® Cushion to create a flat plane along which you can lengthen your spine. 

A seated hip hinge helps bypass the poor
design of some airplane seats.

2) Hiphinge Forward

You can avoid the C-shape altogether by hiphinging forward. Use your hands to support your head with your elbows resting on the open tray. You can adjust the placement and height of your hands to provide a gentle stretch in the neck.

Another possible variation for keeping
your spine healthy during a flight.

3) Support Your Head

One of the best ways to rest or sleep on a flight is to lengthen your spine and support your head against the seat in front of you. If you are lucky enough to be in a window seat, you can find even more support in the corner between the seat in front of you and the wall of the airplane. This technique works especially well for taller individuals, who can adjust the placement of their heads to allow the spine to stretch and relax even in cramped spaces. Be sure to use a Stretchsit cushion, blanket, pillow, or sweater to cushion your head.

Here’s wishing you safe and comfortable travels.

In the modern debate about whether to sit, stand or jiggle behind your desk all day, there is little examination of how we might improve our base positions as opposed to escape them. “The best position is the next position” exemplifies the common admission of hopelessness in finding any healthy base position.

In my view, all base positions have merits, and done with good form in moderation, are healthy and sustainable. Let us examine how we might improve each of our desk positions.

Sitting

The act of sitting has come under the gun in recent years. There are studies showing that sitting for extended periods of time, even when supplemented with sporadic exercise, does lasting damage to a person’s health. But people have sat for millennia, weaving baskets, sewing clothes, preparing meals, and talking story.  Might it be that the way we sit is a key determiner in just how bad sitting is for us? Most people today slump or tense as they sit – this severely compromises circulation, breathing and digestion as well as musculoskeletal health. With stacksitting and stretchsitting, the health profile of sitting looks quite different. It would be interesting to see a study done on people who more closely approximate our ancestors in their sitting form and who also incorporate a more traditional pattern of breaking to stand, walk (maybe dance?)

In any case, some things just need to be done sitting – sharing a meal with your family, nursing your baby, relaxing with a movie, or travelling by car, plane or bus. Most of us find that clearer, deeper and more focused thinking is possible when we sit, and that we are less distracted when not having to navigate the physical world around us.

So, rather than abandoning or feeling guilty about sitting, I suggest we improve our form when we have to or want to sit. And maybe sitting, like some other previously maligned activities like exposure to sun and consuming fat, will turn out to have some overlooked benefits and/or be good if done in a healthy fashion.

We refer you to the techniques of stretchsitting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9CDhcVTAdc

and stacksitting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkWtO6He7VM

Standing

Standing has come in favor amongst the ergo pundits of the day. Unfortunately most people are not comfortable standing for long periods of time. Their feet or backs hurt, they develop varicose veins, or they get tired. Most people can relate to not being comfortable for long periods of time spent standing in museums.

In fact, the most common ways of standing with locked knees and groin and weight thrust forward on the foot, damage not only the feet, knees and hips, but the entire spine through the neck. The exaggerated spinal curves that result from a forward thrust and tucked pelvis threaten every disc and spinal nerve root in the body, with the cervical and lumbar levels being the most vulnerable.

The example of the Inuit seal hunter is inspiring in this context. He has to stand for long periods without moving (to not frighten away prey) in extreme weather conditions. And he isn’t tired, achy or damaged from this. Standing can be done for long periods! 

Tallstanding, as we teach it, is one of the more challenging things to learn from a book or even DVD. When we teach this technique in our Foundations course, it takes several lessons for people to accept that the strange-feeling new way of being upright is not orangutan-esque and ridiculous. It takes looking in a mirror to convince most students that though they feel weird, they don’t look weird (and that in fact they look better than usual!) So for this technique, beyond studying 8 Steps and the DVD Back Pain: The Primal Posture Solution, we refer you to our basic course, where standing is first introduced in Lesson 3 of six lessons.

Treadmill desks

The latest trend in office furniture includes exercise machines. Workers are encouraged to walk or jog on treadmills while they push the company agenda forward.

Whereas it is clearly better to have exercise than not, I wonder whether we wouldn’t be better off encouraging people to walk, run and move from time to time for selected work tasks rather than simulating those behind a desk in an office setting. And I wonder whether it isn’t critical that, whether the jogging and exercising is done behind a desk or away from it, it be done in a posture-friendly manner.

At home, my family has a table tennis table parked in the living room that my husband and I use for breaks from work or for work-related discussions. I find it helps on many levels – it provides whole body exercise (it provides stretch, strength, cardiovascular stimulation), mental stimulation, eye-hand co-ordination, competitive edge (testosterone zip?), and plain fun and connection.

For some of my long distance meetings, I walk the neighborhood with my cell phone and headphones (thank you, modern technology).

With one of my colleagues I often turn on Brazilian music and “meet” over dance. Again, the benefits are numerous and diverse. I hope one day to influence more corporations to encourage posture-friendly dance-outs. I think they would provide a perfect complement to the gravity of the work environment.

Meanwhile, in writing this newsletter, I’m glad to have a regular desk, a comfortable chair and my thoughts focused and uncluttered. I edited the newsletter doing a little samba at my kitchen counter. I’d love to hear about your experiments in working, moving and getting comfortable.

Best,
Esther