Even better: sit in a tree!
“Sitting is the new smoking” sure does make for a catchy headline. But, let’s get serious. Standing all day is no better. Today I’d like to share some creative solutions. We can make different choices about how we sit and how often we sit in order to make our sitting time more nutritious.
I was recently discussing this issue with a client who wanted some alternatives to sitting at a desk for hours while doing her homework. “What can I do instead?” she asked.
That innocuous statement inspired this video.
Sitting on the floor offers numerous benefits. First, you need to be able to get down on the floor and get back up again. To many people, this is actually the most challenging part of the activity. In order to maintain this skill as we age, we need to practice. And since our environment is filled with chairs, benches, couches, and other places to sit with our knees and hips flexed, we rarely take the opportunity to get down on the ground.
On the floor, your body can take a number of interesting shapes. Changing your position every so often requires you to move your body in different ways, improving blood flow and reducing the amount of time you’re in any one shape. Muscles get tight if they’re always held at the same length and angle, so adding variety to your body position throughout the day can help relieve some of that chronic tightness.
Take a look at the positions in the video and see how many you can replicate. Work on transitioning smoothly and efficiently from one position to another. And, see how many more variations you can come up with.
Learn more about changing your sitting posture throughout the day from Katy Bowman’s blog.