Puzzled by pain
Almost 5 years ago, I had a sports injury that triggered a series of chronic pain-inducing patterns of movement. As I jumped from doctor to doctor and alternative bodyworker to alternative bodyworker, questions started piling up in my mind about the human body and how we move.
I had been relatively sedentary through my later teens after a very active (or so I believed) childhood doing ballet, contemporary dance, and other activities. When this accident happened, I was 20 and had just gone back to practicing sports, and for a long time I couldnāt put together how something that was supposed to be good for me brought on this slow catastrophe of pain, frustration and confusion.
As nobody could pinpoint what was wrong with me, I started researching on my own: how are we supposed to move? why are so many people in pain? what were good exercises and postures to make sure we stayed in shape, and had enough mobility and strength to be healthy and pain-free during our lives? I looked into these questions, looked up my symptoms, tried to put the puzzle pieces together, and realized just how many non-congruent frameworks there are about the human bodyā¦ everyone from surgeons to physical therapists (of different schools), osteopaths, pilates teachers, yoga teachers, pain researchers and restorative exercise specialists said something different, but each seemed to only tell a part of the story.
Every framework had something valuable to add about injuries or recovery or wellbeing, but none offered me a comprehensive explanation of the whole movement ecosystem of our livesā¦ except for one which stood out to me: the ānutritious movementā paradigm by Katy Bowman, a biomechanist from the US. She seemed to answer my questions about the body, movement and pain, and the way she thought about it all just made sense to my Montessori mind.
Mechanically malnourished
The basic idea is that movement is sort of like a diet, in that you need certain macronutrients (cardiac activity, strengthā¦) but you ALSO need micronutrients - in the shape of all the little movements that your body is able to do, in different ranges of motion and under different loads. She posits that even people in our society who do a lot of exercise are still sedentary, because their body is still deprived of so many essential nutrients, caused by an overall sedentary society and world. Importantly, our environment is constraining how much and in what ways we move - just think about how much time the average western person spends sitting on a chair or in a chair-like position (driving a car, a bike, resting on the couch, working at the officeā¦)! Weāre missing essential movements - like squatting, hanging, *properly* walking, and millions of smaller, easy-to-miss movements - that made up the movement diet of our ancestors, the diet our bodies evolved to expect and need. These movements are, in a sense, endangered, because we have constructed environments that donāt require them or even actively avoid them.
As my perception has shifted and Iāve adopted this framework, Iāve started to notice sedentary design everywhereā¦ You wait in a doctorās office and the whole space is filled with chairs. Even when there is some chair-less space left, you still have to surpass the mental block of āwhat are people going to think if I squat or squat on the floor here?!ā. While weāre not able to shape every environment weāre in, there are certain spaces that we do have control overā¦ and with a bit of open-mindedness, imagination and a some tools, you too can create a sanctuary where movement diversity can flourish!
In rethinking your space to become more movement-friendly, you need to do the counterintuitive ā look to expend more effort and not less. Donāt make yourself too comfortable (read: still), look instead to maximize movement. I see it in the same way as designing a Montessori āprepared spaceā for children: youāre intentionally making the environment provide the constraints and the incentives you believe are best for development, observing how people use that space, and adjusting as needed. The environment does a big part of the work in how it shapes our behavior!
Designing movement-friendly living spaces
Here are some things weāve done in our own home, in part influenced by Katy Bowmanās suggestions - in her books, podcast and her āhome tourā video (linked at the bottom) - and in part just from carefully observing our movement and lifestyle habits, where my Montessori-priming came in handy š, then making the appropriate changes to our physical space to challenge those patterns of (non) movement.
Weāve taken a āfurniture-freeā or āfloor-livingā approach: this means we have less conventional furniture, and what we do have is low to the ground or at standing height, to avoid that āsitting heightā present everywhere else we go. We looked for flexible ways to use and move furniture around, so we can rethink our space whenever it seems necessary.
Really, thereās only a couple of āfurnitureā pieces in our open living room - kitchen space: a firm foam mattress on the floor and a beanbag, instead of a couch, a small, side table / shelf thing for setting down books or drinks, a second small unit that supports our TV (low to the ground) and keeps a couple of music instruments, gaming equipment and movement tools (straps, weights, elastic bands, myofascial ball, toe spacersā¦); a kitchen shelf and an island / workbench we made out of an IKEA sit-stand desk frame and an oak countertop which can double as a conventional-height dining table when we have older or injured guests, or someone wants to work at a sitting-level (we keep a stack of stools around for these moments).
We also keep some moving pieces around: a yoga ball, a wooden balance board and floor cushions and meditation seats to bolster floor sitting. Starting to sit on the floor after years of sitting on chairs and couches might take a bit of practice and gradual adaptation. Hereās a good resource:
In the bathroom, we've got a squatty potty, to keep our bodies in a squatting position when using a western toilet. Another cool movement trick Iāve learned from someone on Katyās podcast was to set the toilet roll on the top of the toilet - behind you - instead of using a toilet roll support, for āfreeā spinal twists every time you use the toilet. Even better: turn one way to grab the roll and the other way to put it back š¤š§»
On our balcony, we've set up a pull-up bar as a place to āhangā out. Hanging is not only great to develop upper body strength and shoulder mobility, it decompresses the spine and can even help you develop more lung capacity. Ours is not in the most convenient spot, but it works for now. Ideally I would love for it to be in a doorway that I pass through frequently.
In the kitchen, we keep our tools minimal to (you guessed it!) encourage more movement: mortar and pestle, hand-cranked mixer instead of an electric one, knives and chopping board instead of food processor, etc. Iāll sometimes take my kitchen work to the floor on a tray! (Montessori much?) This isnāt just for varietyās sake, but because Iāve found that using a mortar and pestle to grind spices, for example, is much easier when you have your body weight to make use of, and not just arm strength.
We also keep our most-commonly used kitchen utensils in the bottom drawers, to the absolute shock of our family and friends, because it means we have to squat in order to put away forks, knives and mixing spoons.
We keep one of these on our kitchen, so we can get creative with our postures:
Another thing we do to keep our house movement-friendly is to have a no-outdoor-shoes-inside policy, as a clean floor is inviting to sit and lay on. We prefer to walk around barefoot so our feet can also move freely, but we have several sets of slippers for guests, so they never have to feel self-conscious about holey socks.
Overall, designing our space like this helps us to āstackā movements into the regular activities of our daily life, in quantity and variety, instead of having to depend on elaborate gym routines to keep our bodies working well. This doesnāt mean exercise isnāt still important, but it means it no longer has to be the only movement-forward part of our lives. It also rejects the idea of ergonomics, with its main premise being āwhatās the best position to spend a large amount of time in?ā, and offers opportunities to change and adapt constantly, keeping our bodies in motion.
We don't have a traditional bed; instead, we sleep on a thin futon mattress that we fold up and put away every day. Every few days, we take it outside to hang in the sun - this helps it to be dry, clean and free of dust. A futon might sound like an odd choice, especially since I've had back pain and usually sleep on my side, but Bowman really got me to rethink things - because rejecting the ergonomics angle also means you stop searching for the ābest mattressā that will keep you in the ābest sleeping positionā for longer. Instead, I wanted something firm enough that I would never sink into a single position, and would keep changing throughout the night. I used to consider myself a side sleeper, but now I sleep on my side, belly, other side, and even on my back (although I still canāt fall asleep like this! haha.)
Sometimes when I talk about this, friends have expressed concern that theyād lose quality of sleep due to moving more during the night, but for me I havenāt found anything like thatā¦ I sleep quite well, wake up feeling like my body has been massaged by the ground, and if my smart ringās sleep metrics are at all accurate, it seems like I have a good sleep score. I think what happens is that during the micro-wake ups that everyone has during the night, I happen to shift instead of staying immobile. Whenever we travel or I sleep at my momās house on a regular mattress, I struggle to fall asleep from the āsinkingā sensation, and wake up with a stiff back. This whole process required a slow deliberate transition because I slept on a regular mattress and didnāt want to injure myself any further - but maybe Iāll write a more detailed post on floor sleeping later. For bedside tables, we actually use chopping boards from IKEA that are really low to the ground and the right height for our bed, just enough for a book and some smaller items. I think it looks cool.
Maybe you think weād be sad and grumpy in our less cushy and under-furnished home, but actually my partner and I have realized how, when weāre at other peopleās homes and other places, we crave coming back to a home that allows so much movementā¦ where we are encouraged by the space to lay on the floor, roll, sit in different ways, hang, etc. and where we donāt feel like we are navigating an obstacle course. Itās definitely a good balance between making our home cosy and free enough for moving around.
I still needed (and continue to need) restorative exercise, manual therapy and pain relief as I recover from my chronic condition, but I feel strongly that these changes weāve made to our living space have made my baseline much better - Iām stronger, more flexible, and my body gets more of the movements it needs throughout the day, even if Iām not particularly active some days. And this is important for chronic pain sufferers: sometimes itās hard to get out and walk, or do any kind of exercises, and your activity level gets reduced to what you need to survive. If my house requires more movement of me, then it doesnāt feel effortful, and I know I can always adapt things to my needs to make it more comfortable or easy when I need that. Then, when Iām ready for more challenges, my home doesnāt stand in the way of my progress.
What about homes with kids?
Of course, because my work is centered around young children, and because I have friends with babies and toddlers that come around our house every so often, Iāve realized how naturally child-friendly our setup is - kids love to use the low dining table, climb all over the cushions, bounce on the yoga ball, and I think they really like being able to see most things at their level! - and this made me wonder what else I would shift when applying these ideas to a home with childrenā¦ š¤
Montessori baby spaces at home are already much more movement-friendly than conventional baby-oriented ones. We get down on the ground to see things from their perspective, and try to let them have access to all the spaces in the home - whether theyāre rolling, crawling, cruising or walking. When we use a floor bed instead of crib, we promote freedom of movement and vision, and opportunities for babies to practice crawling up and down. When we create an open movement area on the floor instead of using baby containers (stuff like bouncers, swings, and other baby āseatsā), we encourage them to use their whole bodies from the beginning, gradually learning to coordinate their actions as they develop the strength to move more. When we use a low weaning table or a climbable, accessible highchair instead of a traditional highchair we invite children to move their own bodies for meal times, instead of always being carried and placed down somewhere.
Bonus point: if you make the switch to a floor table for the whole family, thereās no need to purchase an expensive Montessori-friendly high chair, because the height is already great for babies. When a friend of mine comes over with her toddler, I grab a yoga block or an upside-down wooden crate and boom: perfect toddler seat!
In all cases, the trick is to seek the sweet spot between accessibility and convenienceā¦ you want to make getting something easy enough that they are able to do something, but not too easy that it stands in the way of necessary and nourishing movements. For example: keep a stepstool or learning tower next to the kitchen counter but not on the exact spot itās always used.
Toddlers love to use their bodyās strength to push and pull heavy objects - in Montessori we call this āmaximum effortā. Try to harness the fact that children will naturally move more and deliberately struggle more for things than us as adults (due to having more energy, a natural drive to experiment, and less cultural conditioning towards sedentarism) and reinforce that as much as possible, by letting them use their bodies in different ways, instead of suppressing that in favor of expending the least amount of energy.
Perpetual motion
I canāt help but wonder how different our lives would be if we all started adopting more movement-friendly principles in designing our spaces, and how so many āageing problemsā and sources of pain wouldnāt be avoided if we never stopped squatting, reaching up, getting down to the floor and back again every day, like we did when we were kids! Consider this post an invitation for you to get down on the floor (alone or with your kids) and start rescuing some endangered movements of your own āŗļø
