Get on the floor more

Get on the floor more!

Getting down on the floor is important for your longevity.

Article about the Asian Squat

An article with video on getting on the floor and some positions to move through.

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:16

spend time on the floor. If you have little ones, this is probably something that you are doing, actually right now fairly often getting down on the floor with them. But as you get older, you are not going to be spending as much time on the floor. And I want to encourage you that even though your children may be getting older, I want you to continue to get down on the floor. And here's why. When we sit in chairs for extended periods of time, our hips go into this 90 degree fashion, and they start to get tight and comfortable in that position. But our body is not designed to be in that position for extended periods of time, our bodies are designed to be spending a lot more time up and moving around. And I'm sure you've probably heard that sitting is the new smoking. And it is because we are at a point where we are sitting at least six to eight hours a day for many of us. And this is going to cause cardiovascular risk with heart disease being higher blood pressure, developing insulin resistance, type two diabetes, and increase risk of abdominal obesity. And they also notice that there is an increased risk of cancer when you sit for extended periods of time. And our body is designed to move I cannot stress that enough. And that doesn't mean you have to constantly be walking. What it does mean is that you need to be changing your positions a lot. And what happens when we sit in a chair or on our bed or on the couch, we can be sitting in the same position for an extended period of time, compared to if you were to get down on the floor. What will you notice once you sit down on the floor, you have to move fairly often because it gets uncomfortable. So I encourage you this week to get down on the floor a little bit more. And play around with the different positions you can be sitting in. So you can sit cross legged, you can sit where your knees drop to one side and your feet are going in the opposite direction. And I'll make sure to post some pictures of this. You can set where your bottom is down and then your feet are on the floor and your knees are up. There's so many different ways you can sit. And actually, I love Katie Bowman, she has, I'll try to see if I can link it. But there is this little chart that she has, I think there's like 100 different ways to sit and she shows all of them, I would encourage you to look at that chart and try to play around with some of the different positions, especially for if you are wanting to I mean, who isn't really wanting to live a long life and a long and mobile life, you need to get out of this 90 degree position, we've got to get down on the floor more. And you know, it's one of those situations where if you don't use it, you're gonna lose it. And if you look at our elderly population, and how they move, you will see how difficult it is for many people to get down and up off the floor. So imagine how that extends into your full life, you know, with walking and everything and then how getting down and up from a chair is going to be difficult as well, if that's the only position that you go down to with your hips at some point, you know, that's going to be more difficult as well. So, practice getting down on the floor. If you look at people from other countries, most specifically Asia. They don't use traditional toilets like we do here in Western culture, and they go into a full squat position to use the restroom. And if anyone's interested, I'm actually going to put a link for an article that I read in regards to them. And how they're elderly and all of them, they all squat a lot throughout the day. And we, and we assume that it's an age thing here, over in our Western culture, that it's an age thing. And oh, you know, we just aren't able to do that, as we get older, yet, other cultures don't have any difficulty with this. So it's important to make sure that we are getting down and moving those hips further than that 90 degree position as often as possible. And in addition to sitting on the floor, I also encourage you to move through different positions where you lay down on the floor, and feel what that feels like on the body, there's a lot of cues that can occur when you lay down flat on your back on the floor, you can find tension spots from how you feel how your body feels on the floor. And, you know, this is a great way to kind of check in to see those tension spots. And also to kind of realign so to speak your posture. So you're laying down, you're on a flat surface, and you can just lay and let your body relax, and feel where what points of your body touch the floor, and how they're interacting. And I always joke in my classes that like that's the best massage, just laying on the floor. No one likes that joke, but I find it funny. And for those of you with little ones, one of the best things you can do for your children to feel safe and more in control is to get down on their level, so squat down, or kneel down to them, so that they can feel safe with you, you show that you're giving them your full attention. And it signals that you're willing and ready to engage with them. So it is one of the most important ways you can send the mesh message to your children that you're important to me by listening, active listening to them. So by getting down on their level, and making eye contact with them, it helps them to feel more secure about themselves. So there's that that added benefit. So I encourage you this week to get out on the floorboard and see what it feels like. Are you able to move around? What do you notice is tight? Do you feel tight in your hips or your knees? Does anything feel achy? Again, also tried to lay all the way back and see Do you notice anything with your head some people if you work a lot at a desk where you've got this forward head posture, or they're calling it text neck now, if you have that it might be difficult for you to lay down without having a pillow under your head. So be cognizant of that. Be aware of that? Does it feel uncomfortable? Does your head feel like it's hard to touch the ground when you are laying flat. All of these are indicators of what your body is doing in space. So I'm here to kind of help you become aware of that through your movement and activity. And awareness is key to change. So we're going to work on getting down on the floor this week. Laying down sitting down, move through different positions. Usually people will ask me, How long should I do this? Well, or how long should I sit in one position, you sit in one position until it gets uncomfortable. And when it gets uncomfortable? Yes switch. Like that's your best indicator of how long you should be in a position. When you start to get tired of sitting on the floor. Get up. If you are unable to get all the way down to the floor because of knee issues, knee pains, or hip pains. There are ways that you can start working on getting further down to where you know you're moving a little bit closer to the floor. So if you need help with that, let me know and I'd be happy to give you some modifications in the meantime, but our goal is to get to where we can all be sitting on the floor interacting with our children on the floor. Have fun with it, move around. And I'm actually going to ask you to take it a step further and try to see if you can for one meal, sit on the floor while you eat. A picnic is a great idea. And since today's Memorial Day maybe you could do it today, but you know you You can get down, I know when my kids were younger. And I'm thinking we need to do this again. But when my kids were younger, we would do a movie night every once in a while. And they loved to do picnics. And it wasn't always a situation where we could go out for a picnic. So, especially in the summertime, it gets really hot here. So we, I would lay down a blanket on the living room floor. And it was like our, our pizza night, we would have a picnic in our living room, and we would all get down on the floor. And you know, watch a movie, have our pizza and have our picnic, they would call it like pizza and picnic, I can't remember. But they, they always looked forward to that. And it's what's so neat about when your children are little is, it's the smallest things that they get so excited about. So try that out. And see. And I wanted to let you know, I had read some information about sitting on the floor, and eating. And they talked about how it improves the digestion, because what happens is when your food is out in front of you, your body tends to move forward to pick up the food, so not just your hand, but your whole body kind of moves forward. And then when you go, you know, when you're actually eating it, you end up doing this sitting back. So you're almost in this little constant rocking motion, which helps in activating the abdomen muscles through the meal and secretes better digestive juices into the abdomen, which I thought was really fascinating. Also, when you sit on the floor cross legged, that position calms the mind and applies pressure on the lower part of the spine, which facilitates relaxation. So I hope that I've given you some interesting information that you feel that you're ready to sit down on the floor. And that is going to be your actionable step. This week, practice getting down on the floor, moving around saying what feels right, feel free to lay all the way down and listen to your body. Find those points that are uncomfortable because that usually is giving you an indicator as to something you might need to work on or release, work on releasing. Again, sitting trying to sit as much as possible, finding different ways to move on to the floor. And again, feeling what that feels like with your hips and your knees if anything feels uncomfortable. And enjoy a picnic on the floor as well if you are interested in that, if you think your kids would enjoy that. It might change things up a little bit and make something fun and different for them for this week. So that is your actionable step. And I hope you all have a wonderful week.