Have you ever observed a child or toddler playing?

They love to be on the floor, in fact they do pretty much everything on the

floor. Think about how many times they squat (like deep squats), lounge, lie down and stand up again during the day.

Now, think about yourself. When was the last time you spent at least 20 minutes sitting or moving

around on the floor? For how long can you hold a posture? How fast can you change positions?

What most of us would experience, as we grow up, is to reduce all the “floor time” that we used to

love and enjoyed so much when kids, and, instead we spend a bigger part of our day either

standing or hunched over behind a desk. And this will obviously impact your posture, muscle mass,

and flexibility.

It is very unfortunate that we don’t spend time seated on the floor more often as it is an excellent

habit and extremely beneficial for our body.

Floor sitting can improve posture, flexibility, core strength, and balance.

Here are some of the many benefits that spending time sitting on the floor has:

Reduce tension in your hips: sitting on a chair for a prolonged period can make your hips stiff
and tight. ( as you probably know by now) When you sit cross-legged on the ground, you open
your hips and stretch your hip flexors.
Increase muscle activity: when your muscles are engaged, they will stay stronger and in the long
term, you will increase overall muscle activity. Many of our chairs and sofas allow us to melt into
them. They DO the work, keeping us upright and allowing us to REST (or collapse). This isn’t
the case when sitting on the ground. Many sitting positions like squatting and kneeling are
considered active rest positions that require our muscles to be engaged.
Maintains natural stability: when adults spend more time seated on the floor, they will reduce the
fall risk in the older years. When seated on the floor you must engage core muscles to stabilise
your trunk and keep you upright.
Increase flexibility: whether cross-legged or sitting with legs extended in front of your, you
stretch your lower body muscles, increasing flexibility. And just by changing positions you will
make sure your hips have more mobility options available.
Better Posture: You will straighten your spine, pull shoulders back and become more
comfortable in this position.

If you sit down, you need to get up: the benefits of sitting on the floor include the time you spend

getting up. In fact, the sitting-rising test in which you get up from the crossed-legged position

without using your hands for assistance is a good marker of longevity.

There are many different ways to start and you should try and decide which one fits better and at

the beginning feels more comfortable:

Either during working time or leisure, like laying on the couch and watching a movie, research has

found that sitting in the same posture for extended periods can cause stress on the body. Here’s

our best advice: try to do an activity on the floor and move around. It might not be so easy at first

but by being consistent with this practice, your body will feel relieved and grateful.

To go for the extra mile, let’s do a little challenge:

Sit crossed- legged on the floor and try to stand up without touching the floor with your hands. You

can use the strategy your body feels most comfortable with - how many ways can you come up with?

Good luck!

Why should I sit on the floor?

The missing link to your recovery?