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

I am a bodywork and movement instructor. Have been following Esther for years now. Her work is so simple, and so ground breaking. We've normalized hideous posture, then go to doctors for back and neck pain. Try it. You'll like it.

This lady's method has literally saved my spine.

Oh man, I bet she is the best and nicest and most honest mom ever. Look at those facial expression that could cure even the most cynical man. And listen to her tone, so easy to the ear, you cannot help but listen.

Holy Cow - I tried it while watching this video; and the pain in my back is GONE!!

4:24 for how to sit primal posture.

Perhaps these issues are really just a reflection of our lost ability to truly be present in the moment. To actually FEEL our bodies. Our society nowadays has lost the ability to even be aware of our bodies, so many people just slump into a seat and think nothing of it as they are too busy watching a screen, until they experience pain - and by that time they're so far into poor posture they have no idea how to fix it because it has unknowingly become their 'norm'... We really need to re-learn how to move again, and that involves being present in our bodies to know when we're moving or sitting in a way that is not right, BEFORE it caused pain.

As a chiropractor I know that she is basically right about this. It has always been interesting to me that back pain is nearly ubiquitous in the west. Yet, it has been know by researchers for some time that back pain is actually quite rare in all remaining indigenous cultures. Most people have assumed the problem is that we sit too much and walk too little. While that is probably true, it is not the whole story. A developing theory is that of the "J" spine which she mentions in this video. Our textbooks teach that the "S" spine is normal, but it may actually be the source of our pain. The "S" spine has these dramatic reciprocating curves in each region, sacral, then lumbar, then thoracic, then cervical. New research suggests that these indigenous peoples have these curves but to a much lesser degree, other than the sacral curve which is fused in place at an early age. So, their spines curve up from the sacrum and rise like a tower from there. It is a fascinating thing.

Esther Gokhale's tips are incredibly helpful! Thank you for sharing this! If we may add, proper posture also helps reduce the risk of developing carpal tunnel syndrome.

Best speaker about posture so far

This has literally changed my life

My solution is to learn not to do the things that cause bad posture, rather than trying to add new effort to a muscular system that is already imbalanced. This is what one does in Alexander Technique lessons.

good advice I'm a professional driver so I drive long hours and yes it works.

Esther Gokale changed my life. Her strategies made me pain-free after years of trying various medical treatments to no avail.

As soon as I did this, I can feel my shoulders relax into a posterior position, my abs and even my quads tighten while sitting. I can also feel much more pressure on my right buttock... I have a functional limb length discrepancy and I have always slouched towards my left buttock. Fantastic stuff

Throughout the years, my own practices and observances have taught me proper posture is the only way to optimal health. A healthy spine is everything 😊

This works! I am so very grateful for this! I changed to this way of sitting a couple of days ago and the extreme pain that I had is gone! GONE! I'm amazed. I recently began working as a share driver and would feel as if I were handicapped every time I stood up outside of the car. The pain slowed me down considerably and I couldn't quickly move to help my riders with luggage. or to refuel. It was discouraging, I felt so old and unattractive, and uncomfortable. I was trying to help myself by tucking my pelvis and tightening my abdominals. Apparently that was all wrong. Luckily I saw this talk. The next day I purchased a support that is meant for the lumbar back at the dollar store. I push it up so that it sits higher and I let that curve in my back happen, and voila! The difference is truly life changing. Yes, my tummy sticks out more, but who cares! My back doesn't hurt! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Oh my freaking back! Listen to her, ppl, that's good advice! I miss the days when my back was good and pain free. 15 years of "sitting on my tail" for work ruined my spine.

Terrible editing showing audience instead of Esther when shes instructing you how to sit. Now i don't know what she was showing. Also sitting in a chair is part of the problem, at least shes showing a way around it as chairs are our only comfortable option in 1st world countries. Does anyone have a better idea, or should we just go back to squatting?

I've been trying to get comfortable sitting on the floor and as soon as she said "imagine they have tails" I thought about having a tail, not wanting to sit on it, moved my pelvis accordingly, and criss cross on the floor became 10x more comfortable

Turn your chair around and sit backwards like a rebel.

Thank you for this! Great content in just a few minutes. You're also a fantastic speaker.

Her book totally saved my back!

Her technique has certainly helped me and I have plenty of back issues.

Keep your chest UP Thats it, all fixed...forward head,round shoulders, round back...all. So keep than in mind and eventually your posture will feel natural

I have figured out a very simple method to finding your ideal posture, whether standing or sitting. This method may sound a tad crude, but I encourage anyone brave enough to try this. Long story short, a few months ago I started suffering from immense pelvic pain, which I could also feel in my lower back. Years of bad sitting posture can of course cause this, but in my case it was also stress related, so there really was no quick fix. After a week of daily pain and constipation, and the stretching exercises doing nothing at all, I decided to try something a little bit different: butt plugs. My theory was, that if I instinctively tighten myself all the time, the best way to address this would be to create a constant counter-pressure, which in time would teach my pelvis to stay relaxed all the time. This all may sound like a stretch (pun intended), but my theory actually worked perfectly. Not only is my body more relaxed now, but the plugs actually reveal all the unnecessary muscle tension, whatever it is your doing. Whether it's bad sitting posture, or stiff walking, your body feels it as a tension in your anus. I've watched countless videos on Alexander Technique without ever understanding, what intuitive body movement is supposed to be like, but with a plug you don't even need intuition, you're just simply learning to move around without causing any pain in your anus. In a week or two I already noticed my posture changing into what I saw in this video. Pretty much everyone suffers from a tight pelvic floor nowadays, so I encourage anyone to try this (or other measures) to eliminate these issues. What many people don't necessarily know, is that a lot of the mental turmoil people go through (stress, neuroses, anxiety), also has a physical component to it, mainly a tight pelvis. Fixing the physical symptoms is, at least in my opinion, way more efficient than just going to a therapist, because you're actually changing the way you experience your body.

Good work, great message and answer to sitting problem.

INTERVIEWER: sir, what are you doing, i only told you to sit down. ME: yeah, its what I'm doing ma'am, give me a minute or two

The best fix is re learning the squat and use it as rest position. That's it

I love her voice

Very good material. Primal posture is a good branding phrase too.

Best ever backpain solution thank you sosososo much.

I had a J spine but had some mild back pain so then tried to make my spine an S (because it's regarded as healthy spine) Now I have EVEN WORSE back issues :( Working my way back to a J spine now, I think it really is the way the spine is meant to be.

Thanks from Italy Esther a great hug Ciao

Bless you.

the most important way is knowing how to release the tension at the pelvis girdles from the front forward back to downward and the imbalance between two sides ( the bulging of the ligerment binding the sides together).

Gracias!!

I think she's right, but I didn't get how to do it😟!

I'm sure people see ballerinas as being stiff (I certainly did) but what my ballet teacher taught us is quite similar to this. They wanted us to shift our hips only and elongate our spine. We are, to a point, rigid in our stature, but we must also have grace. I think these two factors in posture have a lot to do with the perfect, almost doll-like, gracefulness ballerinas have.

Padmasana (lotus pose) and Sukhasana .... best sitting postures of all time

Thank you Madame...great video

Wow. I followed her technique sitting in the chair I could really feel the difference. I need to find her office or training videos if possible. I really need to work on my posture.

3:29 It's always astounding to see how much we can learn by simply observing nature and our ancestry primates. That's why evolutionary science holds the key to understanding who we truly are and how we should live.

Fantastic, thanks very much.x

Worth watching it!

Oh! This presentation was very interesting. From today onwards I'm going to use those advises in my daily life! :)

where do i find the rest of the steps?

sitting correctly is like a massage all day!!!

I'll Comment on this after one month..really motivated.

Picture not of ubang tribe of Borneo Indonesia but of the last nomads of Borneo the Penans. They are hunter gatherer who live mainly in Sarawak , (East Malaysia and Brunei) on the island of Borneo , rather than Kalimantan the Indonesian side

Im sitting like she told me now, and I can feel my spine slipping back into slot.....its amazing and disgusting!

Amazing

Sitting on chairs in itself is unnatural and something that our bodies were not meant to be doing.

Intersting reference to the image of baby being carried at 2:48. Does it matter that at this stage of development a human child has not yet formed a lumbar curve? And that the position of the pelvis is related to the position and structure of the spine? I'm genuinely curious about this. I'm not sure if the 'answer' beings that early in life? It's a good question. Also the infant in the car seat: How else are we going to carry our children at that very early age from place to place in a car? If I had it my way, I'll carry my infant from place to place while riding regally on a back of a horse.... We should perhaps start redesigning our cars, cities, ways of getting from place to place too? All important considerations.

It's better to sit on floor cross legged and work like we do in east . Chairs changes body's centre of mass thus creating unnecessary stress on some body parts . More over blood circulation is also hindered in chair position

I wanna know what the other steps are after this baby step as it has helped me heaps!

very nice, thank you

That lovely smart lady has a great future behind her ;D

Thank You for sharing this wisdom. Scoliosis Gym invented algorithmic scoliosis exercises to straighten scoliosis.

that was amazing

Someone needs to invent furniture to correct our posture.

the exercise is at 4:27 in case you forget it (note to self)

For many of the reasons that she describes, in western culture the para-spinal muscles atrophy. I think that in the name of "relaxing the back muscles," she does a disservice to something needed by nearly everyone we see or work with: strengthening those muscles in poses like Salabasana, and later, in Virabadrasana III (humorously referred to yesterday by a person I know as "eka pada salabasana"). Still, happy that someone popular is disseminating this message to a wide audience! My two rupees.

Really informative :)

Esther, potentially a thin yoga mat on the chair might provide enough friction to help maintain the decompressed lumbar and thoracic spine. Great exercise btw. I did feel the tightness. Very grateful. Find Root cause, Apply permanent fix. Namaste 🙏💐❤️☮️

I'm 23 and my unhealthy lifestyle gave me the back of a 60 year old, so i'll keep this advice dearly.

that was really informative

i love this

Squatting is our primal sitting position.

What is key in this exercise is to elonge your back while your sitting, but in a relaxed way. There are really good chairs out there that can give you that extra hook where you can "hang your spine". Humanscale Freedom, by Humanscale Furniture; and HON Ignition 2.0, by HON Furniture, are very good examples. In New York City, they are available in Manhattan Office Design.

Indian heritage is what made her think about it. in rural india it's common place.

very good. it is helping me. :-)

Thank u Maam

Fantastic

I've lived with back pain for decades until uncovered a amazing treatment.

This reminds me of how ladies are depicted sitting in the Victorian era to accommodate their dresses

The exercise starts at 4:29

would love a video on how to sit on the floor with a floor desk and write, without neck pain

nice video!

I feel back pain after watching this 😀

Yeah, it doesn't work well with my comfy chairs.

To truly change your posture you need to work hard on changing the weakness in your muscles and restore the natural position of your joints with physiotherapy. There are no easy tricks. The internet is full of people who will make you feel better about yourself by doing the tiny step towards the big change... you need to devote yourself to the process, instead of pat yourself on the back.

Great lecture! Absolutely eye-opening. Thanks! I need more exercises. Where can I find them? BTW, the dress ist beautiful.

"If I can walk I don't run .if I can sit down I don't walk. If I can lie down I don't sit" satchell paige

I do this instinctually due to back pain. "Comfortable" sitting is painful for me.

ive been doing 300 good situps a day to help my uneven muscles and posture... also been walking straight up, with my neck between straight and naturally looking, a few degrees forward. Also sleeping in good facing up and my back is dying

Check out Alexander Technique, sit on sitting bones and how to get up and down from sitting position.

the reason for the J posture is due to the strong core muscles that they have, which many of us lack. Bad habits like sitting down too much is also the reason for the s shaped spine.

Huh, so anterior pelvic tilt is good now? Which one is it, I'm so confused?

She is dead right..I agree with her 100 percent...very true she is

Human phenotypes have different shaped skulls. I can't help but think that those differing skulls are likely to sit on top of a variety of spines, for which the advise would be different on a case by case basis. I'm always wary of 'one size fits all' remedies. I imagine there is much value in this lady's method, but maybe not for everyone.

I like the way she presents her ideas, though somewhat sceptical. Its worth pointing out that non-industrialised tribes have a life expectancy of ~50 years and they don't have data collection which would prove this theory. When we say primal most of evolution has taken place in animals that live in a horizontal configuration (not vertical, i.e. standing) - you could argue our spine wasn't build for standing in the first place.

Good presentation. While much was covered in only 6 minutes, I think she could greatly benefit from taking some Alexander Technique lessons. The Alexander Technique provides a more comprehensive, thorough and accurate view on how we are designed to balance & move (what good posture is) and how to dissolve the negative postural habits of excess tension and collapse that we've acquired.

Cool. I'm gonna work on my back.

I have been in pain in years been to therapy no relief god I wish I could find some way to feel good again..I have fasciitis, neck, and shoulder joint pain and lower back it all hurts all the time.

What about video game playing? You wind up with rounded shoulders because the controller is small and you have to round your arms to grip the controller which pushes the shoulders forward.

The truth is, sitting in any chair is a dysfunctional position for our bodies. Our primal sitting position is a squat, the chair was created long after the fact.

Is this posture just an anterior pelvic tilt which is so common in low back pain?

Learn more from "8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back" by Esther Gokhale Best-seller, 5 Star Amazon Rating

exellante

What about a “knee chair”???