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Instinctive Sleeping and Resting Postures (2000)

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

161–170 of 184 posts

Re: Instinctive Sleeping and Resting Postures (2000)

#161

I am very uncomfortable with this paper to be called scientific research. It certainly appears the author had extensive life experiences, but does not demonstrate any of the data he collected. > If you are a medical professional and have been trained in a “civilised” country you probably know next to nothing about the primate Homo sapiens and how they survive in the wild. Starting off by insulting an entire populatio…

You have high expectations for something that is not a scientific paper.

Re: Instinctive Sleeping and Resting Postures (2000)

#162

For my entire life I slept in one of those postures ("the lookout"). I had a bunch of problems (pain in the chest, pain in the back, some problems with my knees not loaded symmetrically, my feet getting "extended" for quite a long time causing problems with Achilles). I also had a problem with restlessness -- these positions cannot be maintained for long without moving, I would be changing my position very frequently…

As a back sleeper, get a pillow or cushion under your knees/legs. Otherwise the arch of your back is in constant stress when you sleep and can lead to back problems. You can guess how I know.

That doesn't sound like good advice. Your hip flexors are likely very tight/shortened, so you put a pillow underneath your knees/legs to prevent them from stretching at night and thereby make them even more shorter?

Re: Instinctive Sleeping and Resting Postures (2000)

#163

This is so fascinating. I slept (on my back) on the floor for a while. It was at times amazing—I would wake up and feel ready to go. Not like my muscles were weak or temporarily atrophied. Like, I didn’t know that was possible after a full nights sleep. There seems to be so much potential in just reflecting on an considering what a “paleo” approach to something would be. And then you can just do that. You don’t even…

> Why do we make things complicated?

Because we genuinely care more about how people perceive us ("am I acting normal?") than how we feel.

That's been engrained over generations, for most humans.

Re: Instinctive Sleeping and Resting Postures (2000)

#164
post #159
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Appeal to nature is bad as a source of ultimate truth, "nature does it this way therefore it must be better." But it's good as a source of hypotheses, "nature does it this way, perhaps we should try it?" This paper seems more like the second.

I don't see the difference between those two statements absent scientific data. That's merely a useful seed of an idea, not a sufficient premise for an argument.

Hypotheses are not for arguments. They are indeed a seed for discovery.

What are you talking about, Willis?

Re: Instinctive Sleeping and Resting Postures (2000)

#165
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have never worn shoes at home, that's for sure. Not into barefoot shoes though. I'm not really sure why it is for me. If it's to do with calf muscles, I guess we could attribute it that my mother never learned how to drive and so we used to walk EVERYWHERE. And we lived in a tiny town.

Re: Instinctive Sleeping and Resting Postures (2000)

#166
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. But just publishing your observations is not enough. And this seems to be a published paper, which I find very weird.

First, you might want to refresh your understanding of the scientific process. Its first step is "Observation/question." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method Next, the acceptability of journal papers without conclusive experiments varies across fields. In some fields, such as observational sciences (e.g., astronomy, ecology, sociology), observational studies are common and valuable contributions to the lit…

And how old are these publications? And did you have a look at the paper that we're talking about?

Re: Instinctive Sleeping and Resting Postures (2000)

#167
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have read your comment before reading the article, and at that time I have thought that you must be right. Nevertheless, after reading the article I have seen that the clarification about the gorilla sleeping without a pillow made perfect sense in its context, because it has not been added to provide any additional information, but it was added for emphasis, in a context where the sleeping positions in modern envir…

It did not made sense to me, because I am not a gorilla. They have different bodies. They look kinda similar in body shape, but they climb treat the way I will never be able to no matter how much I train. So, gorila sleeping position implies exactly nothing for my sleeping position.

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Re: Instinctive Sleeping and Resting Postures (2000)

#168
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, you might want to refresh your understanding of the scientific process. Its first step is "Observation/question." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method Next, the acceptability of journal papers without conclusive experiments varies across fields. In some fields, such as observational sciences (e.g., astronomy, ecology, sociology), observational studies are common and valuable contributions to the lit…

And how old are these publications? And did you have a look at the paper that we're talking about?

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Re: Instinctive Sleeping and Resting Postures (2000)

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> It is not like Westerners have some special physiological feature that makes them do it, it's about lack of practice. Lack of practice causes a "special physiological feature": ankle inflexibility. For some people it would take a significant amount of time stretching the ankles every day to recover enough ankle flexibility to squat, and that could perhaps still be insufficient, as joint mobility is established base…

All the babies/toddlers I've seen (my own kids included) naturally do that "asian/slav squat" - for example to pick up toys from the ground, or when they want to rest a bit without completely sitting, right?

So at which point/age do some of us stop doing that type of squat before "use it or lose it" kicks in?

Re: Instinctive Sleeping and Resting Postures (2000)

#170

I am very uncomfortable with this paper to be called scientific research. It certainly appears the author had extensive life experiences, but does not demonstrate any of the data he collected. > If you are a medical professional and have been trained in a “civilised” country you probably know next to nothing about the primate Homo sapiens and how they survive in the wild. Starting off by insulting an entire populatio…

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