walking lightly on earth
We’ve been out picking spray free strawberries for the freezer. At the same time it’s an activity that involves lots of nutritious movement. All the squatting and kneeling is great for a pregnant lady like me Opposite chair and couch sitting, it facilitates and encourages […]
I’m over half way in my second pregnancy (29 weeks). It’s going really well. So far not much has changed. My everyday routine and lifestyle is the same as before I was pregnant. I can still move around fairly easily and there are no complications […]
Do you feel that you’re sitting too much during your day?
I know that it can be difficult not to sit when you’re at work. For example it might not be possible to get a standing desk to avoid sitting all day.
To make chair sitting more nutritious, try to sit on the edge of your chair. Sitting like this will engage more core strength and it’s easier to move your legs and feet.
Mix it up. You can add even more variation by moving your feet and legs into different positions.
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Are you enjoying your shoes? I’m enjoying my new minimal shoes from Lems Shoes. More room for my toes compared to most traditional shoes. They’re very comfortable, light, breathable and without a positive heel. It’s wellness for my feet and they look great! It’s an […]
Wild mushroom side dish for lunch. Judas’s ear or Jew’s ear (Auricularia auricula-judae) is an edible mushroom most commonly found on Elder trees (Sambucus nigra). It grows during the cold season. A great way to get wild foods into your diet when there isn’t much […]
This has been a little morning ritual the last months.
It’s a great way to wake up 
and to get grounded.
It feels a little wild and crazy 😜
We get a better feel for the weather and what the birds, Icelandic horses and other animals are up to.
Getting outdoors and connect with the nature 
I try to encourage our son to be outdoors a lot so I don’t say no when my son asks me to come with him outside on an early Saturday morning. We both get out and move. In addition, I get to move with extra […]
I love natural movement but I don’t have the same freedom as before I became a mum. There’s isn’t much time after work, daycare pick up, cooking dinner and bedtime routine. Instead I focus on the movement I can implement while still doing daily tasks and work. I rarely […]
NATURAL MOVEMENT
In the previous posts, I share how our lifestyle-changes within nourishment, toxic free home & personal care and meditation & sleep have improved our vitality and health problems including neck pains that I’ve had for years. If you haven’t read part 1, part 2, part 3 or part 4 yet, I recommend that you read those first.
In this final part, I’ll talk about how natural movement has helped me reduce tensions and pain in my neck. Natural and ancestral movement is about moving as our human body has evolved to move. It’s also about being less sedentary and moving the whole body instead of isolated parts like just your fingers on the keyboard or restricting your feet and toes in traditional shoes 😉
When we as a family learned this, we started walking more either bare foot or wearing minimal footwear and carrying more; like for example our shopping and our three your old son instead of using a stroller or driving the car. We also reorganised our home, selling our couches to facilitate more movement rather than accepting a sedentary lifestyle full of furniture that creates a development-crippling environment, that inhibits our natural movement. Additionally, we’ve installed a standing desk and ditched our bed pillows when sleeping. At the time our son was very young and we asked ourselves ‘why had we become so attached to sleeping with pillows?’ Why is it that as we got older we sleep with pillows, when babies and young children do not? Just like walking bare foot and wearing minimal footwear, we chose to transition over a period of time to become accustomed to, and build up strength in under used areas of our bodies.
Movement is much much more than exercise, every movement or position that you place yourself into will impact your body shape and adaption. This is why we need a greater variety of movement and positions during our day. You should think about “movement” on a cellular level impacted by loads, squeeze, pull and push from external and internal forces. I also think “movement” when my body and vascular system contracts when I go for a dip in cold water in the winter.
Now that you’re thinking about this, you can perhaps start finding ways to organise your own home and daily activities in ways that will support moving more and in a more natural way. Think about how you move, sit, stand, sleep etc and find ways to combine or “stack” your activities. So that you can incorporate more movement when you for example, do gardening and squatting forage for food when walking in nature, play with your kids and achieve more exercise and walking while carrying groceries by leaving the car at home when you go shopping.
Below, I list my ideas how you can get more natural movement into your day.
MORE:
Natural movement
Greater variety of movement
Walking
Squatting
Carrying
Lifting
Crawling (foot-hand, knee-hand)
Hanging in our arms
Throwing
Practical work around the house
Processing your own food
Squatty potty
Winter bathing or cryotherapy
LESS/AVOID:
Sedentary
Traditional footwear
Couch-sitting
Chair-sitting
Learn more about natural movement in NUTRITIONAL STACKING FOR YOU AND THE ENVIRONMENT, MAKE EVERYTHING FROM WALKING TO DANCING MORE ENJOYABLE and HOW TO MAKE SITTING MORE NUTRITIOUS
Learn more about how to reorganise your home to facilitate movement in IMPROVING OUR HEALTH BY SELLING OUR COUCHES
If this post was valuable to you, I would be so grateful if you would share it with your friends and family.
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Sign up for my newsletter that comes out on the four major moon stages – new, first quarter, full and third quarter moon.
Beautiful Christmas decorations using only natural materials. I think that this is a great way to avoid or reduce plastic and use things that might already be around you. It was a great little family adventure spending time in nature collecting pine cones and branches […]
