Meditation

Finding Balance During the Pandemic Pandamonium
Last week I found myself lost mid-sentence several times. I noticed my breathing was shallow. I have committed to meditating 20 minutes each morning and it has been helping to relieve the my stress and fears about the future. Even as recently as yesterday, I felt too agitated to do sitting meditation and did walking meditation instead. As a long time meditator, I’ve been surprised by my own lack of balance.

Isaac Galton Experiments With Meditation

Vippassana Breath Meditation

Meditation Basics: The Art Of Natural Sitting

Which Meditation Cushion Is For You? How To Choose A Meditation Cushion Or Bench
Movement Therapy

Don’t You Have a Chair? Four Sitting Alternatives Explored
When I was in highschool I got rid of the furniture in my bedroom and starting sitting and sleeping on the floor. I was exploring ways of arranging my space and using my body that felt more grounded and natural. Even now, I’m reluctant to sit on furniture. People say “there’s a couch”, as if they feel sorry for me,

Is Your Life Aligning Your Body? Simple Lifestyle Changes That Make You Feel and Look Great
Turn Your Office Into A Health Spa: 10 Easy Steps
Let’s face it—most of the time the office is the last place we would like to be. We associate the office with things like: ‘stifling’, ‘stuffy’, ‘confining’, ‘cramped’, ‘stuck’. Most suicides happen on Monday morning. We like to ‘escape’ from the office. Just like the frustration of sitting in traffic causes ‘road rage’, sitting in the office actually causes ‘office rage’. Much of the anxiety and job dissatisfaction in America could be directly traced to the environment. Studies…
read more
Laptop Ergonomics: How To Get Out Of Your Slump

Reading In Bed: Finding the Ultimate Position
If you’ve had a big day and you need some time to unwind and read a book or watch a movie–chances are it’s not going to be sitting at a desk or table. Who doesn’t love to cuddle with an interesting book and cup of tea on the bed or couch? And chances are you haven’t really found a comfortable position. You can prop yourself with pillows all you want, but at best, some part of your body–neck, back, arms–is crunched and you can’t really relax 100%. At the worst, you can develop injuries…
read more
Chair-Free Lifestyle: A New Approach To Fitness And Health
Note: This article is most useful for people who have some experience with natural sitting. If you want to learn how to get started, see The Art of Natural Sitting. Most modern furniture puts us in unhealthy positions which contribute to poor health and back pain. The alternative is furniture which puts you in healthy aligned positions which energize, tone and restore you as you work. Natural Sitting (a.k.a. Active Sitting) for most of us is a radical new way of doing things. There are many…
read more
What’s Wrong With The Chair?
Sleep Therapy

Six Ways to Improve Your Sleep and Meditation
Winter is a great time to get some extra beauty sleep. With the longer nights and cold temperatures, our bodies are designed to slow down and regenerate. Sleep and meditation compliment each other. Meditation helps us slow down so we can relax and experience deeper sleep, and sleep helps our meditation by optimizing our ability to focus and thus reach that magical silent peace of deep alpha and theta brain waves.

Sweet Dreams On A Hard Surface: The Ergonomics Of Sleep

Optimize Circadian Rhythms For The Sleep Of Your Dreams
Eleven Ways To Get Rid Of Dust Mites Without Chemicals
Dust mites are microscopic insects, found living in soft furnishings throughout the home, which feed on dead skin cells. In fact, an incredible one million dust mites can happily feed on the amount of skin shed daily by an average adult! While these tiny home invaders aren’t harmful in small numbers, larger mite populations can cause problems for some people. A Significant Cause of Allergies and Asthma The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America list dust mites and their droppings as one…
What’s Keeping You Awake At Night: Chemical Toxins In Bedding Explained
We have the illusion that clothes and bedding made from synthetic fibers are safe, but the materials are in fact full of invisible chemicals the clothing/furniture industry prefers we don’t think about. A hundred years ago, bedding and clothing was made of natural fibers like cotton, flax, wool, and silk. In the early 1900s synthetics were developed. Although rayon was introduced in 1924, the first truly synthetic fiber was nylon, made by DuPont from the petro-molecule, toluene. Nylon…

Reading In Bed: Finding the Ultimate Position
If you’ve had a big day and you need some time to unwind and read a book or watch a movie–chances are it’s not going to be sitting at a desk or table. Who doesn’t love to cuddle with an interesting book and cup of tea on the bed or couch? And chances are you haven’t really found a comfortable position. You can prop yourself with pillows all you want, but at best, some part of your body–neck, back, arms–is crunched and you can’t really relax 100%. At the worst, you can develop injuries…

Pillow Therapy: How To Turn Sleep Into Yoga
It’s sort of a standing joke – sometimes people cheer when it’s time for the last part of the yoga workout – Shavasana – that is, laying down to relax, breath and let the mind release. There usually is no pillow and very little padding. This is a chance to feel the body in a natural setting, without the furniture which surrounds us in everyday life, pushing us this way and that way. One way to integrate yoga into everyday life is to design one’s resting and sleeping environment around…

Sleeping On A Firm Or Hard Surface Benefits And Techniques
Small Space Living

Eight Steps to a Clutter Free Life
Lessons from a Tiny House Guru By Patrick Clark People often ask me how I got myself to fit into a 184 square foot tiny house (8’ x 23’). The answer is, by changing my paradigm about how I think about space, stuff and redefining what quality of life means to me. It didn’t happen overnight. It has taken me years of consistent effort to get to this point. So many people want to do what I have done. The first step to less stuff/more freedom is to declutter and downscale. Here is a basic…

No Space To Waste: Floor Sleeping As A Small Space Design Solution

The Lean Green Dwelling: Ten Solutions for Downscaling

The Paradox Of Small – Simplicity And Minimalism In The Bedroom
When I was in highschool I was inspired by Henry David Thoreau who lived in a 10’x10′ cabin as an experiment in self awareness and personal independence from herd mentality. Ever since, I had the ideal that living in a small space would be beautiful and simple. A small space offers a form of resistance or a boundary for me that feels safe and comforting. A small space helps me focus and inspires creativity. A small space has all the things I want: hassle-free, flexible, organized, easy to…
