171–180 of 184 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the same time you have no car crashes or other post-industrial dangers.
But you also were much more likely to farm and hunt and do manual labor. All much more dangerous than office chair
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…
If you're sleeping better, why cant you "strongly recommend" it?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The poor people in my country squat when they're resting. I was taught early on as a kid that I shouldn't sit like that because that's what "poor people do". I really regret listening to that piece of advice. As I observe my baby daughter, I realize how natural that squatting position is, and how much knee and hip mobility we really have.
Often the limiting factor is ankle mobility, as not being able to drive the knee in front of the toes means falling backwards as the center of mass never reaches mid foot. It's why weightlifters have elevated heels, and why great squatters tend to have short femurs (and/or be short in general).
I never focussed much on sleeping postures, but one day I read this article about how acid reflux goes away if you side-sleep on your left hand side i.e stomach is at a lower height than when you sleep on your right hand side that really changed my life, it was like, how did I waste 28 years of my life without finding this trick :D
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).
As a North African, I instinctively understand and firmly believe everything mentioned in this article about sleeping is true. From my perspective, the way I see your comment is this: give me scientific evidence that walking is beneficial to my health. We lose our identity when we disconnect from Nature. I even read a post recently here in HN where it was said that "Urban humans have lost much of their ability to dig…
This story is interesting, but doesn't shock me a whole lot from the perspective of losing our touch with nature, because we now have an understanding that our ancestors fluctuated between carnivory and herbivory quite a lot. If these population changes in gut bacteria can be caused in such a short span of time, it seems likely that it can also be reversed.
Is anyone planning on trying these sleeping techniques? I’d be curious to hear about your experience and if you noticed any difference at all.
When I was 16, I inherited a bit of money. Not a large sum at all, but enough so that I could afford a new bed, a bookshelf and some nick-nacks from my local furniture store. Being 16, I didn't exactly put much thought into how kind my new mattress would be to my back down the line, and so I managed to find the firmest mattress known to man. At first, it was hard to sleep on, but I'm lazy, and so I kept it. That was…
This sounds easy to a/b test. Just sleep on the floor for a month, then your squishy mattress for a month, and document everything. (A month is just a guess, one or two weeks seems like transitional effects would dominate, hopefully after that you'd see more of the ongoing effects?)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But you also were much more likely to farm and hunt and do manual labor. All much more dangerous than office chair
Is that true? I thought there was evidence for setrong divisions of labour as soon as agriculture came along. That brings surplus and, with it, social stratification.
It’s crazy to think about how little we actually know about how the human body functions- not even to say what an “optimal” sleep position might be, but even a high quality study on how different sleep positions might affect the physiology of the body. I have yet to find any real serious scientific analysis of this.
"not even to say what an “optimal” sleep position might be" As with most things, maybe there isn't one optimal solution,as otherwise we all would have found out about it, by now and all use it? Human bodies and minds are quite different. So what is comfortable to one person might not work for the next person. Maybe people have pain in the back or in the neck, forcing them into other positions. People with stomach pro…
"Slept well and wake refreshed" might be one version of it, but "slept like an infant in the womb and awoke younger and healthier" would be more optimal, if currently in the realm of science fiction.
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).
The poor people in my country squat when they're resting. I was taught early on as a kid that I shouldn't sit like that because that's what "poor people do". I really regret listening to that piece of advice. As I observe my baby daughter, I realize how natural that squatting position is, and how much knee and hip mobility we really have.
Now walking barefeet in the city is not recommended because of glass and dogshit everywhere, but through a path in the forest and over rocks it is much more fun (and healthy for my joints) without shoes. That is, if you relearned how to do it. You cannot walk barefeet, like you do with shoes. Also, if you started walking barefeet over 20, your skeleton and muscles in the feet will never really adopt again, like they would if you do it as a child. So if you have childs, let them go barefeet wherever and whenever possible (also in the snow for a short time).