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This is One Thing, a column with tips on how to live.
You can read advice about habits for years before finally deciding to adopt one. I knew from following mobility influencers that they’re always sitting on the floor, touting it as a way to increase flexibility. The discomfort of the hard surface forces a seated person to shift positions more often, which is supposedly good for reducing inflammation and upping metabolism. If the big message from the 2000s and 2010s was “Every office worker needs a standing desk,” then “Everyone should sit on the floor” is the 2020s-era sequel. Earlier this year, I read a book called Built to Move, by Kelly Starrett, a physical therapist, and his wife, Juliet Starrett, a former attorney and world champion white-water rafter. It has a whole chapter on the habit, recommending it as a way to “rewild” the hip joints of bodies that have been sitting in chairs too long.
Makes sense! I said to myself, and proceeded not to do it. For me, floor sitting clicked only after I finally got COVID for the first time, this year. I was off my regular exercise routine for about a month, trying to get my breath back and not push myself. In previous stretches of life when I’ve had to stop exercising, I’ve felt as if ants are crawling under my skin. But this time, I was fresh from reading Built to Move, and floor sitting saved me.
I brought a bolster and a few yoga blocks into the room where I was isolating and used the small strip of floor in there to shift into different seated positions while watching streaming shows on my laptop. Then, when I was testing negative and back to work, and readopting the habit of using my standing desk looked daunting, I began to spend stretches of the afternoon on the floor. I’d sit with my legs in a V, crisscross applesauce, or the 90/90 position, and my laptop on an ottoman, Zooming or typing away.
Like they say in Built to Move, the idea is not to never sit, but to try to sit on the floor instead of a chair. I liked it enough that when I got better I kept on using floor sitting as a “rest” from standing at my desk, rather than collapsing into my office couch. And now I try to make it my default when I watch TV, or chat novels at book club, or wait at the airport gate.
I have no idea whether I’ll live longer, or get better at my formal exercise endeavors, because of this new habit. But floor sitting—and its close cousins, squatting and kneeling—feels great. Something about the feedback between my muscles and joints, gravity, and the floor keeps things feeling smoother than they do when I arrange myself in a 90-degree angle in a traditional chair for hours on end. Maybe the best thing about this habit is that, psychologically speaking, it’s very reassuring to know that this is a type of training you can do basically for free. It takes no extra time or money and can be done at any age, even when you have no energy at all. All you have to do is keep on doing it.
Ditching a chair when I can has made my joints and muscles feel great.
This is One Thing, a column with tips on how to live.
You can read advice about habits for years before finally deciding to adopt one. I knew from following mobility influencers that they’re always sitting on the floor, touting it as a way to increase flexibility. The discomfort of the hard surface forces a seated person to shift positions more often, which is supposedly good for reducing inflammation and upping metabolism. If the big message from the 2000s and 2010s was “Every office worker needs a standing desk,” then “Everyone should sit on the floor” is the 2020s-era sequel. Earlier this year, I read a book called Built to Move, by Kelly Starrett, a physical therapist, and his wife, Juliet Starrett, a former attorney and world champion white-water rafter. It has a whole chapter on the habit, recommending it as a way to “rewild” the hip joints of bodies that have been sitting in chairs too long.
Makes sense! I said to myself, and proceeded not to do it. For me, floor sitting clicked only after I finally got COVID for the first time, this year. I was off my regular exercise routine for about a month, trying to get my breath back and not push myself. In previous stretches of life when I’ve had to stop exercising, I’ve felt as if ants are crawling under my skin. But this time, I was fresh from reading Built to Move, and floor sitting saved me.
I brought a bolster and a few yoga blocks into the room where I was isolating and used the small strip of floor in there to shift into different seated positions while watching streaming shows on my laptop. Then, when I was testing negative and back to work, and readopting the habit of using my standing desk looked daunting, I began to spend stretches of the afternoon on the floor. I’d sit with my legs in a V, crisscross applesauce, or the 90/90 position, and my laptop on an ottoman, Zooming or typing away.
Like they say in Built to Move, the idea is not to never sit, but to try to sit on the floor instead of a chair. I liked it enough that when I got better I kept on using floor sitting as a “rest” from standing at my desk, rather than collapsing into my office couch. And now I try to make it my default when I watch TV, or chat novels at book club, or wait at the airport gate.
I have no idea whether I’ll live longer, or get better at my formal exercise endeavors, because of this new habit. But floor sitting—and its close cousins, squatting and kneeling—feels great. Something about the feedback between my muscles and joints, gravity, and the floor keeps things feeling smoother than they do when I arrange myself in a 90-degree angle in a traditional chair for hours on end. Maybe the best thing about this habit is that, psychologically speaking, it’s very reassuring to know that this is a type of training you can do basically for free. It takes no extra time or money and can be done at any age, even when you have no energy at all. All you have to do is keep on doing it.
