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Instinctive Sleeping and Resting Postures (2000)

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Re: Instinctive Sleeping and Resting Postures (2000)

#81

Post by hnbad »

It's odd that the paper goes to great lengths to talk about protecting your penis from insects but at the same point seems to ignore women completely - all the illustrations depict men. Having met women (shocking, I know), bust size can be a significant factor in ergonomics so it would be interesting to see how that factors into it. Also anecdotally, pregnant belly-sleepers frequently rely on cushioning and people may prefer certain sleeping positions after having given birth or suffering from certain ailments. I'm also certain that waist size (esp. obesity) may alter preferences.

It's an interesting paper but given the lack of substance this feels more like a school presentation than something you'd find in an academic journal.

Re: Instinctive Sleeping and Resting Postures (2000)

#82

Post by GlenTheEskimo »

vasco wrote: post #44

> Forest dwellers and nomads suffer fewer musculoskeletal lesions than “civilised” people > I tried to carry out surveys to collect evidence but they were meaningless, as tribespeople give you the answer they think you want. Could they simply have higher thresholds for complaining?

They sure seem to complain a lot about insects on their penises

Re: Instinctive Sleeping and Resting Postures (2000)

#83

Post by navane »

kijin wrote: post #25
looping8 wrote: post #14

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…

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.

My dog loves pillows. But he doesn't move them. If he's laying down, and a pillow-like object is near, he'll use it. But if the sun moves, he'll move, without the pillow.

Re: Instinctive Sleeping and Resting Postures (2000)

#84

Post by navane »

jawns wrote: post #66
begueradj wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I instinctively understand and firmly believe everything mentioned in this article about sleeping is true. Well, yes, but that's a standard quality of B.S. It's plausible, and intuitive. When you actually start trying to prove it out, though, you discover it's wrong. True, there is a category of "no duh" scientific findings, like walking is beneficial to one's health, that do align with our intuition. But where sci…

Freakonomics!

Re: Instinctive Sleeping and Resting Postures (2000)

#86

Post by kqr »

anentropic wrote: post #61
safety1st wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yeah I think it's exactly this. A lot of people end up thinking it's about ergonomic chairs. An un-ergonomic chair will make things bad pretty quick, but supportive ergonomic chairs are part of the long term problem IMHO. And deadlifts are not the only solution. I started out using just a backless stool and it helped a bit (can't slouch!), but what really sorted me out was using the "lumbar machine" at the gym for a…

> A lot of people end up thinking it's about ergonomic chairs. An un-ergonomic chair will make things bad pretty quick

I'm still fairly young so I probably shouldn't be so quick to say – maybe I'll have to eat my hat in the next decade or two – but I feel like this is also one of those "it's not the thing but how you use it" type situations. I have always used un-ergonomic fairly spartan wood chairs and stools without problem.

What I do, that I don't see everyone else do, is adjust my position a lot. Since I find the chair slightly uncomfortable, I have like a million different positions I can sit in and I rotate through them naturally throughout the day. I haven't seen any science on it but it would make sense that variety helps prevent damage caused by prolonged exposure to one position.

Re: Instinctive Sleeping and Resting Postures (2000)

#87

Post by kqr »

hnbad wrote: post #81

It's odd that the paper goes to great lengths to talk about protecting your penis from insects but at the same point seems to ignore women completely - all the illustrations depict men. Having met women (shocking, I know), bust size can be a significant factor in ergonomics so it would be interesting to see how that factors into it. Also anecdotally, pregnant belly-sleepers frequently rely on cushioning and people ma…

> Also anecdotally, pregnant belly-sleepers frequently rely on cushioning

I mean, undergoing pregnancy is in and of itself not great for one's health (especially without modern healthcare), so I don't know how much that specific thing should be factored into healthy lifestyle choices.

In particular, pregnancy puts a lot of pressure on internal organs in a way that means one should not be surprised to have only one working sleeping position by the third trimester. At that point it's governed by Newton and another growing human, not choice.

(To be clear, I'm not saying pregnancy is a bad lifestyle choice, just that pregnancy is not kind to the human body.)

Re: Instinctive Sleeping and Resting Postures (2000)

#89

Post by nightowl_games »

onetimeuse92304 wrote: post #62

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…

Pillow or no pillow? Hard mattress? No mattress?

Re: Instinctive Sleeping and Resting Postures (2000)

#90

Post by spaceman_2020 »

FredrikMeyer wrote: post #7

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.

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