Floor Sitting

My 2-year War on Chairs

man sitting on the floor in front of a floor desk

This isn’t directly diet related, but it’s another one of those weird lifestyle interventions a lot of people are interested in.

I sat exclusively on the ground for about 2 years.

I had no chairs in my apartment. I built a custom floor height desk by screwing the legs from a coffee table into a regular desk top. This floor desk is also where I ate & drank most of my coffee. My bed was just a mattress lying almost directly on the ground, just resting on some IKEA slats for ventilation & moisture control.

After about 2 years of doing this I liked it quite a bit, but I am currently no longer sitting on the floor. The reason isn’t that I’m unhappy with it, but I moved and the new place came with a bunch of stuff that I’d have to get rid of, so it’s easier not to. Also the benefits weren’t exactly staggering.

I might consider floor sitting again in the future, if I ever move into an empty apartment again.

Why sit on the floor?

There are some people out there claiming that sitting is literally killing us, and is inherently unhealthy. The phrase “sitting is the new smoking” is out there, although I’m not sure who coined it.

I have a friend who is waging a “war on chairs” and has been for nearly a decade, who will only sit on floors and construct makeshift desks & tables at floor height wherever he goes.

Additionally, I slept on a mattress on the floor for most of my college years and quite liked it.

Sleep, eat & work directly on the floor

My setup was this:

• Mattress on IKEA slats on the ground

• 42x24” desk top screwed to coffee table legs for comfortable height

• Monitor arm to easily change the height/position of monitor on the fly

• Japanese zabuton sitting/meditation pillow to sit on

Not my setup, but similar to the Zabuton pillow I used

At one point I bought a tatami mat, but I didn’t like it. It was too rough/scratchy to sit on directly, and it felt sort of weird to have it with the zabuton on top. I ended up tossing it and using the zabuton directly on the wood (vinyl plank?) floor.

The zabuton would collect dust quickly, and I’d clean it with a vacuum frequently.

If you do this, make sure to measure what a comfortable height from the floor is for you. Unlike with a chair, you don’t have an easy way to change your sitting height once you have a desk, except by maybe adding more cushioning up to a point.

This is easy to try out just by stacking a few boxes or book on top of each other, sitting in front of them, and using them as a desk.

For me, the height of a regular coffee table was pretty much perfect.

I installed a monitor arm off Amazon so I could raise or lower the monitor depending on how I was sitting. Sometimes I was more straight up, other times sort of crouching/leaning forward and therefore lower.

How to sit

There are quite a few ways of actually sitting when you sit on the floor. The big question is, where do your legs go?

There are basically just a couple ways of doing it:

• Sticking your legs out in front of you under the desk, either straight or in a V shape

• Sitting sideways with both legs off to one side, either left or right

• Sitting cross-legged

• Seiza, which is basically just kneeling and sitting down on your heels. This is the traditional and “proper” way of sitting in Japan.

• Sitting on your butt with your knees tucked up against your chest/chin

Modi & Abe sitting in Seiza

The Japanese have all sorts of dedicated names for all these and various traditions (because of course they do). E.g. there is one that to me just looks like “anime girl sitting” with the legs spread out underneath you, but I found it pretty uncomfortable for my knees.

I never got used to comfortable Seiza sitting. After a few minutes my thighs would burn. This tells me I wasn’t flexible enough, or maybe it’s still an angle thing and I’d have to be skinnier to do it right.

Usually I’d just alternate the sideways sitting positions every few minutes, and throw in some tucked knees or V-shape here or there.

Woman sitting in Yokozuwari or “sideways sitting”

Overall I never sat still for an hour at a time, frequently switching positions seems to be key to this. I didn’t have to think of it or anything, I’d just intuitively change positions once in a while.

Maybe that’s why people think sitting on the floor is healthier, you keep moving and your blood flowing I suppose. Is that actually healthier? Who knows.

Adaptation was difficult

The first week was hell, and it continued being very difficult for about 3-4 weeks I’d say. After that it became significantly easier, and probably 2-3 months in it was just normal and I didn’t notice it at all any more.

I dove in cold turkey, and I might recommend not doing that. My first work day I could only sit for about an hour, after which the muscles of my lower back were so fried that I was in physical pain for the rest of the day, and had to prop myself up or lie down. I think I worked quite a few hours just lying on the floor those first few days.

My lower back especially, but also my hip and thigh mobility (hamstring?) was so bad that just sitting on the floor was pulling on some tissues constantly, like being in a deep stretch. Sometimes, my tendons (?) would feel red hot from all the stretching and I had to take a break.

The muscles in my lower back were also much too weak to hold me up straight for more than a few minutes at a time.

It was seriously a very uncomfortable first month as my ligaments/tendons stretched out and my lower back muscles slowly became strong enough to hold me up for extended periods of time, e.g. an 8 hour work day or a 12+ hour computer day since I spend much of my free time on the computer on top of work.

Improved flexibility & balance

The biggest improvement was in my flexibility and balance. Especially my hips got much more flexible after the first few weeks. I still couldn’t get into a perfect ass-to-the-grass, flat-heeled squat, but I think that has to do with weight & leg geometry too: after losing 80lbs, it is much easier for my legs to get into the correct angle for a squat.

At 300lbs, my thighs were just too fat to even “sit back” in a squat, I had to carry it all with muscles the entire time - and of course it was a lot more weight then than now.

Now I can squat pretty well, better than most modern people I’d say, and for longer. But when I watch some Japanese or Vietnamese people hang out in a squat, I’d clearly have to lose even more weight to get the angle right with skinnier thighs.

Still, I got so used to sitting down on and getting up from the floor that it became second nature. I did it probably hundreds of times a day, especially at the desk.

Surely my leg & core muscles got a bit stronger from this as well, as evidenced by the fact that I did in fact get used to sitting on the floor. But it didn’t seem to do much beyond that.

I suppose it’s a bit like going for long walks; after you’ve adapted to walking, you’re probably not going to gain much else in terms of athletic capacity just by walking more.

Posture: almost unchanged

I’ll say maybe my posture got a tiny bit better, but not enough that I’d notice a big difference. Then again I didn’t make an effort to sit super straight at the floor desk either, often times I’d lean on/against it or sit somewhat crooked.

I suppose if you want amazing posture, you’ll have to expend extra effort.

Requires more cleaning

Because your head is so much closer to the ground when sitting on the floor, dust and other particles will have an easier time getting to you.

It’s maybe not a coincidence that the Japanese, who have many traditional ways of sitting on the ground, have a thing for cleaning daily and for wood floors.

I didn’t clean/vacuum/dust daily, but even the amount of dust collecting on the floor during 1 week was usually too much. I’d say I probably dusted every 3-4 days on average, mostly just by sweeping with a big dust mop (dry).

On top of that, I targeted vacuuming every week, although I probably didn’t quite keep to the schedule and it might’ve been every 10 days on average. When I did vacuum, I also vacuumed off the zabuton from all the dust it had been collecting.

It’s especially noticeable in the bedroom, because lying down on a mattress on the floor puts your head even closer to the ground than sitting down on the floor.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I think that sitting on the floor is a great exercise. Like so many things, sitting on the ground for prolonged periods is something a healthy human SHOULD be able to do, even if he does not constantly practice it.

That said, the benefits weren’t overwhelming: I gained some flexibility and balance, and maybe a little leg/core strength, but it didn’t seem to make a dent in terms of weight loss or in any other noticeable way.

If this sounds fun to you, try it for a while. But I’d ease into it if I were you, maybe start just by seeing how long you can sit on the floor comfortably, in terms of flexibility and lower back muscles. Maybe it’s 2 minutes, maybe all day long, depending on your flexibility and lower back strength.

If it’s not too long, maybe start slow and do 15 minute blocks a couple of times a day, then up to 30 minutes, or something like that. I can’t emphasize enough how painful that first month was, lol. I was sore all day every day!

Don’t expect any miracles either, but I would predict that you become more flexible in your hips and hamstrings and build a bit of core strength as well.

I’m certainly glad I tried it for 2 years, just because I know I can do it now, and could go back to it any time with a little adjustment.