When I was in high school in the 1980’s, I realized, three decades before Paleo, that I was paleo. What I mean is, suddenly I felt something was dead in me, and it had to do with, I would not feel the earth or my body or the depths of my being. This was far before the internet, and even computers. I knew something had to change. I found a book in the library that showed how to make moccasins. So my first step into the paleo world was connecting feet to ground. My other steps were to get rid of my bed and furniture. I was tapping into primal instincts. Get rid of everything I can think of to find what is really needed. Or to FEEL something. And stop using cars as much as possible.
Stuck at a desk all day in school, I would go home and find trees to climb, so I could read books on Native Americans and how they lived. It was more fun to be up in a tree watching the birds and clouds now and then, and dreaming of what is over the horizon and what it was like way back before modern. I was expanding my own horizons in ways that public education was never going to do and preparing myself for a future that no one could know was going to happen.
So many years later, all this research and science is coming out, confirming so many of the things I was drawn to doing without any example. At the time all I knew was I did not like to sit all day and that it made me feel bad. And I knew shoes also seemed to numb me from feeling something that today I would call life energy and connection to source. And being in a car, that was just more sitting. Something was dawning on me–that people didn’t really know what they were doing. Why drive when you can walk?–was my response to the car crazed society.
So when I recently ran across a blog post by Restorative Exercise Biomechanics and Human Movement instructor Katy Bowman, I was elated!
In Katy’s Blog Post  http://www.katysays.com/your-position-in-life/
she published this graphic from a 1955 report of physical anthropology professor Gordon W. Hewes, World Distribution of Certain Postural Habits. Â :http://www.jstor.org/pss/666393
Katy says, in the post
So, we need to think bigger. There is more than just sitting and standing. Create ten different options of each! If you have a standing work station, stand a few different ways every hour. When you sit, sit a few different ways every hour. Open your mind and open your joints! When you get home, stay out of your chairs and try out a lot of these Worldly Options.
So if you have what we call a sedentary job, it really isn’t the job that is sedentary. It is the way you are performing the job. What happened is, the Modern Sit Down Office is way behind the times. Anything that is done on a computer can be turned into an active and healthy experience.
I have been playing with my use-to-be sedentary environment for years. For this post I have put together a short video that explains the new Movement Friendly Office and how you can get more juice out of every minute of your day. Never waste a minute again destroying your health. Instead, tweak your environment and learn to interact with it so you are building muscle tone, joint flexibility, alignment and stimulating metabolism all at the same time…and all while you are working.