I start my yoga classes asking students to sit on the floor. I often ask “has anyone sat on the floor this week – aside from a yoga class?” I get a lot of “no’s.” Then I suggest opportunities for converting couch/chair sitting to floor sitting/squatting, such as when you are watching TV or reading or try performing activities at a low table like paying bills, computer time, eating meals, playing games, etc.
Sitting at a desk or on the couch/recliner/easy chair for long periods of time is associated with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and many cancers, which means it increases your risk of death from one of these diseases. One study showed a 61% greater risk for those who sit 7+ hours per day watching TV over those who sit less than 30 min. When you sit on furniture, especially cushy furniture that molds itself to your body, thus casting it into the shape of said furniture, you end up nearly motionless for long periods of time. You use few skeletal muscles when you lounge back on the couch. Idle muscles burn less fat (you get fat), respond less effectively to insulin production (you get diabetes), and promote less blood flow. Poor circulation in legs results in unsightly swollen ankles and puts you at risk for varicose veins and, even worse, blood clots. Muscles that sit around on easy chairs don’t contribute to cellular waste removal and conduct less energy to boot. Slouching back on a comfy sofa puts you in a tail tucked position that can, over time, result in pelvic floor disorders. When you sit on your tailbone, as a slouchy couch promotes, you risk herniated spinal discs, pressure on your sciatic nerve – which can lead to the painful condition of sciatica – and weak butt muscles. Sitting with your hips and knees flexed for long periods of time, in any type of chair, decreases range of motion in your hamstrings and limits hip mobility, which is a major cause of falls in older persons. While it may seem comfortable while you are doing it, when you get up from your recliner after a Netflix binge, you are sure to experience a stiff spine and sore low back, shoulders, and neck.
So what happens if instead of slumping onto the couch, you choose instead to sit on the floor? When you sit on the floor, with your back unsupported by anything other than your own musculature, you in fact strengthen that supporting musculature otherwise known as the postural muscles of your trunk aka your core. A daily practice of sitting on the floor with your back unsupported (this means you don’t sit against a wall or couch) strengthens the stabilizer muscles that protect your spine, as well as trims your waist in a natural, functional way. I would put my money on floor sitting over abdominal crunches as the optimal way to strengthen my core ANY DAY. When your postural muscles are firing at their optimal lengths, you become strong enough to align or stack your vertebra, bringing back the natural, compression reducing, curves of your spine. When you sit on the floor, you are more likely to be on your sitting bones rather than on your tailbone, which is better for your pelvic floor musculature and your low back. Hanging out in seated postures on the floor increases your tolerance to greater ranges of motion in your joints, which results in a sensual experience of more flexibility. You feel less stiff, less tight.
When you sit on the floor supporting your own spine, you squirm. You don’t sit still. You move about. Frequently changing positions articulates your joints into many different angles, causing a seemingly infinite variety of loads to the tissues of your spine, pelvis, hips, groin, and legs. Different loads stimulate different muscles which, through the process of mechanotransduction, pushes blood into the smallest of blood vessels, innervates the tissues, and removes waste products.
When you sit on the floor, you do something you almost never do on furniture – you stretch. Just sitting on the floor in a cross-legged position provides passive tensile and compressive loads to your connective tissues, increasing strength and suppleness. But active stretching is likely to happen as well. Once you’ve shifted your position a dozen times to get comfortable, you’ll usually give in and just begin actively stretching your muscles! This would not happen if you were in a chair. Just sayin.
Claudio Gil Araujo is a Brazilian researcher who studies people’s’ ability to get on and off the floor as a marker of longevity. Basically, those study subjects that had to use one or both hands, an arm, their knees, a lower leg, a hand/s on their leg/ as a brace, or momentum to stand up from a floor-seated position, had a greater mortality rate as compared to those who could bring themselves from a floor seat to standing and back to a floor seat using only the strength of their bodies. While internal force production, or being able to mobilize and lift your own body weight, may not predict how long YOU will live, it is certainly a marker of functional health and reflects your mobilities and strengths at the deeper level of your cells and blood vessels.
Lose points for:
In the image above, you would lose points in your overall sit/stand test score for using a hand, knee, forearm, hand on knee, or side of leg to brace or leverage getting on/off floor.
Here is a video of Araujo’s sit/stand test, with English subtitles.
Sitting on the floor. Being able to get down onto the floor and back up again with grace and ease, like all things worth achieving, takes practice. It also takes remembering to do it, forming a habit. The next time you find yourself sitting in a chair, nudge yourself to take your task onto the floor, even if only for a minute, to begin a daily, lifelong habit and practice of sitting on the floor.
So here is my proposal.
“Do you FootLove Yoga Blog Reader promise to sit on the floor, unsupported, everyday, several times a day, for as long as you live?”
“Do you?”
“Do you?”
Namaste, Michele
Michele McGinnis 