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It’s a furniture staple for many but experts are calling for people to break up with their couch.
While the idea sounds controversial, Katy Bowman – biomechanist, movement advocate and author of the acclaimed Move Your DNA says ditching your couch is one of the best things you can do for your health.
“Many people struggle every day to find time for movement,” Bowman says, according to Domain.
“Chairs restrict your movement, and we’ve been conditioned to think that they’re the only way to rest our bodies,” she says. “But rather, you can take a seat while still moving the parts of you that hardly ever get moved.”
Bowman explains that sitting on the floor allows people to perform squats and hip stretches naturally.
“Many of them are essentially just sitting on the floor in various shapes,” she says.
The movement friendly home trend
Why stop at the couch? As minimalism becomes more popular, people are choosing to live a chair-free lifestyle in their homes, choosing to sit on cushions and rugs instead.
A quick search of the hashtags #movementfriendly and #furniturefree bring up scores of living and dining rooms with something in common: they don’t have chairs.
Here are our favourite movement-friendly spaces on Instagram.
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