I bought a very strange mattress six months ago. This isn't an advertisement -- I can't strongly recommend it -- but it's called SONU Sleep. It has a "channel" along the top that you can lower your arm into when sleeping on the side. I got it due to persistent shoulder pain from side sleeping. Gradually I've adjusted to it and am now sleeping better.
But that's an argument against my usual paleo heuristic: this sure isn't how we evolved to sleep over millions of years. I wonder if I'd sleep well in orbit.
I very predictably have nightmares whenever I fall asleep flat on my back, sleep paralysis kind of things. In Germanic mythology the mare is a demon who sits on your chest, so my conclusion is that I'm not alone in this.
I can't understand how anyone can sleep on their back. They snore and can't breathe it's like they're dying it's pretty obviously wrong.
I'm an expert snorer and can snore in any position. Probably central apnea, which only activates when most comfortable; previous sleep study showed nothing, presumably because I wasn't totally comfortable. I'd self medicate with a cpap if they were sold without a prescription. B1 with dinner/before bed helps, oddly.
Also, my previous cats preferred to sleep on my chest, so they trained me to sleep without a lot of motion. Currenrly, one cat likes to sleep on my legs and overheats them, resulting in a lot of movement at night; the other cat will only briefly visit at night, but will help me stay in place for naps on the couch.
It also feels a little strange in writing. Examples: "Figure Figure11 shows a mountain gorilla lying on the ground on his side without a pillow" - Of course it is without a pillow, it's a mountain gorilla! What is this clarification? "To start with, some Westerners have to hold on to a doorframe." - Would it not be better to say "you may have to hold on" or "newbies"? It is not like Westerners have some special physi…
A pillow doesn't need to be a factory-made product that you buy at a store. Plenty of humans make pillows out of natural objects when sleeping outdoors. I can totally imagine a mountain gorilla using a chunk of wood, or even a body part of another gorilla, as a "pillow" if it makes them feel more comfortable.
Yeah im sure there are many tribespeople with pillows. It feels wierdly racist that this guy is acting like people in societies like this just live instinctually like gorillas and don't actually have the universal human trait of creating and relying on manmade tools.
I find this article quite insubstantial. He lists alternative sleeping positions, but no sources backing up the claim that "western sleeping positions" (whatever that is) are worse. Also only one citation, and that is to back up the claim that there are 200 primates. Nice pictures though - I feel happy that I can sit (relatively) comfortably in the squatting position (as an European).
It also feels a little strange in writing. Examples: "Figure Figure11 shows a mountain gorilla lying on the ground on his side without a pillow" - Of course it is without a pillow, it's a mountain gorilla! What is this clarification? "To start with, some Westerners have to hold on to a doorframe." - Would it not be better to say "you may have to hold on" or "newbies"? It is not like Westerners have some special physi…
Funnily, as a brit, I have always had the ability to sit in a deep squat comfortably and it's not even from tons of practice. I only even realised that its unusual to be able to do and that it may be good for you when I was about 21. By which point there were many people who couldn't do it already. I certainly hadn't been practicing it throughout my teenage years.
I'm fairly sure the cause of back pain is sitting at desks, not the position I'm sleeping in.
I'm skeptical that there's anything especially unhealthy about sitting at a desk even for long periods of time. What's more plausible to me is that back pain comes from having a weak back and it's more about what you're not doing, which is training your back muscles. Over the course of about a year, weight lifting eliminated a range of aches and pains I'd developed throughout adulthood, including back, wrist and knee…
I dunno. I never had chronic back or neck pain until I started working office jobs. When I was at university, I spent periods sitting at desks, but was never strapped to one for 8 hour shifts. I would sit down at a desk for max 4 hours at a time apart from during extreme crunch periods, and would spend the rest of my day walking around, lounging and chilling in different positions, excercising, etc. As soon as I started working at an office it became noticably harder to reach an over-10k step count daily, and even though I continued going to the gym and doing heavy back days, my left trap has become completely hardened up, and I've occasionally had lower back pain too during stressful times. I'm totally unable to train upper traps because they are literally like bricks. When I have a weekend where I walk and lounge a lot, or am off sick, or go on holiday, my traps feel significantly better and my workouts are better. It's a lifestyle where you are unnaturally in one position for too long that causes this.
Is this considered unusual? I’ve used minor variations of all of these except the sleeping on the shins posture, and I’m from Europe, not some African tribe.
Yeah fr. The first one he showed I was like, duh... that is the most obvious way to sleep possible
I find this article quite insubstantial. He lists alternative sleeping positions, but no sources backing up the claim that "western sleeping positions" (whatever that is) are worse. Also only one citation, and that is to back up the claim that there are 200 primates. Nice pictures though - I feel happy that I can sit (relatively) comfortably in the squatting position (as an European).
It also feels a little strange in writing. Examples: "Figure Figure11 shows a mountain gorilla lying on the ground on his side without a pillow" - Of course it is without a pillow, it's a mountain gorilla! What is this clarification? "To start with, some Westerners have to hold on to a doorframe." - Would it not be better to say "you may have to hold on" or "newbies"? It is not like Westerners have some special physi…
> Of course it is without a pillow, it's a mountain gorilla!
That doesn't follow at all. Gorillas are well known for their habit of making nests. Making pillows isn't difficult.
It also feels a little strange in writing. Examples: "Figure Figure11 shows a mountain gorilla lying on the ground on his side without a pillow" - Of course it is without a pillow, it's a mountain gorilla! What is this clarification? "To start with, some Westerners have to hold on to a doorframe." - Would it not be better to say "you may have to hold on" or "newbies"? It is not like Westerners have some special physi…
Funnily, as a brit, I have always had the ability to sit in a deep squat comfortably and it's not even from tons of practice. I only even realised that its unusual to be able to do and that it may be good for you when I was about 21. By which point there were many people who couldn't do it already. I certainly hadn't been practicing it throughout my teenage years.
I'm a Brit who can squat too, and I think it has quite a bit to do with not weather shoes at home and wearing "barefoot" shoes / zero-drop trainers outside. I have a hunch that it's lengthened my calf muscles and achilles tendons, which makes squatting much more comfortable. I couldn't really do it before switching to barefoot shoes.