Find your primal posture and sit without back pain | Esther Gokhale | TEDxStanford

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.

Esther Gokhale gives us a tip on how to find your primal posture and sit without back pain.

We, in modern society,

have really forgotten
how to use our bodies.

And we suffer a lot of aches, and pains,
and dysfunction because of that.

But the good news is that we can heal

most of the neck pain,
and the plantar fasciitis,

and the repetitive stress injuries,
and the back pain that we suffer.

And we can do it simply
by restoring our primal posture

and truly natural ways of bending,

walking, lifting, sitting.

Here you see two Portuguese horsemen,

and they are both relaxed,
but they are sitting very differently.

This guy is slumped,
head forward, shoulders forward;

and this guy is pretty upright.

Now, what would most parents tell
their children when sitting like this?

Sit up straight!

And he could do it, but it would
take tension in his lower back.

And he'd probably last a short while,
and then he get tired, maybe sore,

and he'd go back to slumping.

So most of us go back and forth
between being upright and tense

which we think is
good posture, but it isn't,

and then being relaxed and slumped
which we all know is bad posture.

What we really want

is to be upright and relaxed.

And what it takes
is a well-positioned pelvis.

This is like your foundation.

And the easy way to see
the difference in their pelvic positions

is to imagine that if they have tails.

Where would you say this guy's tail is?
Under him. He is sitting on it.

And that guy's tail? Out behind him.

And for our species, the natural way
to have your tail is out behind you,

anteverted: behind-behind.

And if you have that, then your blocks,
your vertebrae, get to stack easily,

and the muscles get to relax.

And when you breath now,
your whole back can move,

and that stimulates circulation.

It's like a little massage
going on all day,

and you can heal yourself that way.

If you sit on your tail,
you've got two bad options.

This is one, relaxed and slumped,

and here is the other, upright and tense.

So if tucking your pelvis
is so problematic,

how come so many of us do it?

The answer begins early in life
in the way we are carried

- you see the tucked pelvis -

and the way we are parked
in poorly designed baby furniture.

It's a sad thing, I know!

(Laughter)

And then, this is the age

at which our neural pathways
are getting set

as to what constitute sitting.

So we carry those habits into adulthood
where we continue to sit this way.

Then it doesn't help that most
of our furniture is poorly designed

including the ergonomic furniture;

and that we are instructed
by our fitness experts and so on

to tuck our pelvis to protect
our spines and so on,

very unfortunate guidelines.

So how are we going to return

to our truly primal posture,

behind-behind, bones well-stacked?

The same posture we used to have

when we were two,
and that our ancestors had.

I call it a "J-spine" where you see
how the behind is out behind,

and then the upper lumbar area
is pretty erect and elongated.

And it's the same posture

that you find in non-industrial
populations the world over.

These are the Iban tribesmen
from Borneo in Indonesia.

And you can see they have
admirable ... well, butts

(Laughter)

and even groove in the spine.

And you can see the shoulders
are prominent, really beautiful.

So let's begin this journey
back to our primal posture.

And I'm going to teach you
an exercise I call "stretch sitting".

You are going to sit with your bottom
well back in your chair,

and then hinge away from the back rest.

Place your fists
on the lower border of your rib cage,

and then gently push back
so as to elongate your lower back.

And now, grab some place of your chair

maybe your arm rests
or any other part of your chair,

and gently push the top of you
away form the bottom of you, like this;

and now, hitch yourself to the back rest.

OK, now, ideally the chair would have
some grippy thing mid-back to hold you,

like you see here;

or you would have an implement

like our stretch seat cushion,
or folded towel;

something with friction
to meet your mid-back

and actually hold you up.

Since you don't have
any implement, you might try

bunching up your fabric
in the back of you,

and creating a kind of ledge,

and then hooking yourself there,
and totally relaxing.

And what you have just done

is the first baby-step
towards elongating your spine,

restoring your primal posture,

and having a pain-free functional life.

That is our natural heritage.

Don't settle for anything less!

(Applause)