An inner-tube accident as a teenager left Mr. (Donovan) McNutt, now 44, with a bad back. Thousands of hours sitting at a desk only compounded the problem. Over the years, Mr. McNutt has tried various ergonomic configurations prescribed by experts — keeping his monitor and chair at just the right height, holding his elbows and knees in certain approved positions — but none solved his problem.
“For me, the thing I kept hearing my body say was much more simple: ‘Move! Change positions once in a while!’ ” he wrote in an e-mail message. “The back pain had me listening.”
Mr. McNutt rigged up a few prototypes and found they confirmed his basic hypothesis. Although standing up all day seemed better for his back than sitting down, the real pleasure was in being able to change positions over the course of the day. A moveable desk lets him do that; whenever his body threatens to stiffen into a single aching pose, he switches to another. On any given day, Mr. McNutt spends about 20 to 40 percent of his time standing up to work.
This line is powerful and it is worth exploring each part:“The thing I kept hearing my body say was much more simple: ‘Move! Change positions once in a while!’”
“Hearing my body” – How many of you can hear your body’s messages? What is your body saying? Do you listen? Why or why not?
“Much more simple”- The body’s messages are very simple, but we tend to disregard the simple messages thinking it must be something more complicated than that. Could it really be that simple? What if the “experts” are telling you something different? Who do you listen to?
“Move!” – Simple, but true. We forget how important movement is. Kids understand this – they are constantly in movement – running, jumping, climbing, rolling, skipping, kicking, throwing, ducking, dancing, etc. What has today looked like for you? Is there any variety of movement? Is it interspersed throughout the day or all in one chunk? What does your body like better?
“Change positions once in a while” – We have all had this message from our body, whether during a 3 hour plane flight or cross-country drive or long day at the office sitting at the computer…but did you listen? Why or why not?
Pete Egoscue’s new book, Let’s Lighten Up, speaks directly to this topic of listening to your body. His “disclaimer” at the beginning of the book reads like this:
I believe this book validates the wisdom, knowledge and experience you have about your own health. Because you know more about it than anyone else, I offer the following counsel. It’s always a good idea to seek out and carefully listen to intelligent and perceptive health care advice. It’s always a bad idea to act on that advice, including my own, without fully accepting your paramount role in safeguarding the perfect health that comes to all of us as a precious human birthright and legacy.
from Chapter 1…
The book you are reading (and the Egoscue Method) is a celebration of our perfect health, and an invitation to retrieve the body’s power to heal, to grow, to live a long, joyful life free of limitations and chronic pain.
This is an excerpt of an article from the New York Times titled “Can’t Stand to Sit Too Long? There’s a Desk for That.”
This line is powerful and it is worth exploring each part: “The thing I kept hearing my body say was much more simple: ‘Move! Change positions once in a while!’”
Pete Egoscue’s new book, Let’s Lighten Up , speaks directly to this topic of listening to your body. His “disclaimer” at the beginning of the book reads like this:
from Chapter 1…
I invite you all to celebrate with us!