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I find this article quite insubstantial. He lists alternative sleeping positions, but no sources backing up the claim that "western sleeping positions" (whateve

I find this article quite insubstantial. He lists alternative sleeping positions, but no sources backing up the claim that "western sleeping positions" (whatever that is) are worse. Also only one citation, and that is to back up the claim that there are 200 primates. Nice pictures though - I feel happy that I can sit (relatively) comfortably in the squatting position (as an European).

talonx 3y ago
It's a pity that not more published research is available on this.
kqr 3y ago
I think this clause near the end was what made the article make sense to me: > This observation must be recorded to allow further research in this direction This is just one person noting in public what could be a correlation, and then all the rest (confirming correlation, establishing causation) is up to someone else!
roenxi 3y ago
This appears to be a journal article. Why should it have citations? This is an arena where people are supposed to be doing primary research. "I have a PhD and this is my opinion" is probably at least 20% of academics.
- lou1306 3y ago
  I can't possibly imagine sleeping posture being such a a pristine research area that there is no prior work on the topic
  - roenxi 3y ago
    There is a search bar right above this article if you want to look that research up. This is some physiotherapist recording his opinion; based on field experience. I'm going out on a limb and saying none of the other researchers in the field have been writing about his experience so there isn't anything to cite.
- lazyasciiart 3y ago
  Primary research does not include simply stating “this is my opinion” - and this article also does not consist of someone stating their opinion, it is someone claiming to describe widespread behaviors and explanations for them.
- sowhat389 3y ago
  Journals publish articles beyond primary research: https://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-authors/article-types https://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-authors/article-type...
looping8 3y ago
It also feels a little strange in writing. Examples: "Figure Figure11 shows a mountain gorilla lying on the ground on his side without a pillow" - Of course it is without a pillow, it's a mountain gorilla! What is this clarification? "To start with, some Westerners have to hold on to a doorframe." - Would it not be better to say "you may have to hold on" or "newbies"? It is not like Westerners have some special physiological feature that makes them do it, it's about lack of practice.
- kijin 3y ago
  A pillow doesn't need to be a factory-made product that you buy at a store. Plenty of humans make pillows out of natural objects when sleeping outdoors. I can totally imagine a mountain gorilla using a chunk of wood, or even a body part of another gorilla, as a "pillow" if it makes them feel more comfortable.
  - helboi4 3y ago
    Yeah im sure there are many tribespeople with pillows. It feels wierdly racist that this guy is acting like people in societies like this just live instinctually like gorillas and don't actually have the universal human trait of creating and relying on manmade tools.
    - chillingeffect 3y ago
      He's viewing humans and gorillas as primates, not viewing tribespeople as gorillas. Tribes people don't live instinctually. They have culture, like us. The critique here is our culture could benefit from observing how their culture does it.
    - throwway120385 3y ago
      The thing that makes it not racist for me is that he's clearly trying to point out that, as primates, in non-Western surroundings and when not socialized to prefer soft beds with fluffy pillows we tend to adopt similar sleeping positions as other primates do. It would be very racist if he had adopted a sneering "look at the lowly primitives" tone, but he's trying to show that these sleeping positions have helped him immensely and he's suggesting that we might research sleep positioning more as there seem to be differences in the two populations under comparison. You can look at the COVID pandemic for an example of how body positioning has helped change how well people can breathe. Proning of severely sick patients substantially improved outcomes. That's literally just rolling the patient from their back to their stomach. So there might be something interesting there that we can learn if we pay attention. And he's trying to say "we can learn something from these people if only we pay attention."
NalNezumi 3y ago
I don't think it's fair to outright dismiss it because it is not a systematic/empirical study (and the author explicitly mention that). In the case of posture, stretching & training I think there's several exercises out there that doesn't have a rigorous empirical study to back it up, yet can be explained to be good/bad from our anatomical understanding of the human body.
- lazyasciiart 3y ago
  Well, unfortunately in this article there are claims that can be explained to be completely false from our anatomical understanding of the human body - such as the idea that it is impossible to snore with your mouth closed.
  - ricardobeat 3y ago
    I thought the 'impossible to snore' note was because of the downwards spine position, where the soft palate cannot collapse. Not because the mouth is closed.
- RamblingCTO 3y ago
  > I don't think it's fair to outright dismiss it because it is not a systematic/empirical study That's how science works. Show sources/data/experiments or gtfo
  - roenxi 3y ago
    Science requires a level of common sense and intuition. Famously: https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094 https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094 It is fine, indeed should be encouraged, to put some papers in the system that don't have formal data but do record common-sense observations. If people don't like them, then they can trump opinion with data in the scientific process.
  - 0xEF 3y ago
    Don't forget the "repeat" part. Sources and data are great, but if they can't be replicated by others, the it's not verifiable.
begueradj 3y ago
As a North African, I instinctively understand and firmly believe everything mentioned in this article about sleeping is true. From my perspective, the way I see your comment is this: give me scientific evidence that walking is beneficial to my health. We lose our identity when we disconnect from Nature. I even read a post recently here in HN where it was said that "Urban humans have lost much of their ability to digest plants": https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/03/human-gut-bacteria-that-can-digest-plant-matter-probably-came-from-cows/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/03/human-gut-bacteria-t... That's where we are.
- jawns 3y ago
  > I instinctively understand and firmly believe everything mentioned in this article about sleeping is true. Well, yes, but that's a standard quality of B.S. It's plausible, and intuitive. When you actually start trying to prove it out, though, you discover it's wrong. True, there is a category of "no duh" scientific findings, like walking is beneficial to one's health, that do align with our intuition. But where science really shines is when the evidence points to something counterintuitive.
  - GuB-42 3y ago
    Even the "walking is beneficial" part is not just "duh". I mean, what is "walking". What distance? What pace? There are negative health effects from walking too much. The general idea is that moderate exercise is the best, too little is bad, too much is also bad. But where is the peak? It seems that walking is beneficial to the average city dweller, which aligns with our intuition, but what about foot soldiers? And where does the intuition that walking is beneficial comes from? Walking is tiring, it is not something we do naturally if we can avoid it, not very "intuitive". That's the problem by the way, because we can avoid it in modern society. I think the intuition comes from the fact that we get told over and over than walking is beneficial, so much that we made these thought our own, i.e. that's conditioning. And the reason we are told that is because it is backed by observation and science.
  - navane 3y ago
    Freakonomics!
spaceman_2020 3y ago
The poor people in my country squat when they're resting. I was taught early on as a kid that I shouldn't sit like that because that's what "poor people do". I really regret listening to that piece of advice. As I observe my baby daughter, I realize how natural that squatting position is, and how much knee and hip mobility we really have.
- fredrikholm 3y ago
  Often the limiting factor is ankle mobility, as not being able to drive the knee in front of the toes means falling backwards as the center of mass never reaches mid foot. It's why weightlifters have elevated heels, and why great squatters tend to have short femurs (and/or be short in general).
  - polishdude20 3y ago
    A lot of it also depends on getting the knees spread out and letting your stomach come forward in between. This keeps your center of gravity forward.
- lukan 3y ago
  Same with walking barefeet. Now it is somewhat hip again in some areas, but not where I live. "Mum, why does this man wear no shoes?" I hear so often. Now walking barefeet in the city is not recommended because of glass and dogshit everywhere, but through a path in the forest and over rocks it is much more fun (and healthy for my joints) without shoes. That is, if you relearned how to do it. You cannot walk barefeet, like you do with shoes. Also, if you started walking barefeet over 20, your skeleton and muscles in the feet will never really adopt again, like they would if you do it as a child. So if you have childs, let them go barefeet wherever and whenever possible (also in the snow for a short time).
whalabi 3y ago
Yeah I had the same response. He makes lots of anecdotal claims about tribespeople's back trouble but where's the data? It's mildly interesting nonetheless.
IncreasePosts 3y ago
There's also so much talk about penis protection, I would love to know if women use different sleeping positions at different rates than men
sandspar 3y ago
I'm not saying it's an either/or choice, but I'd rather trust articles written by obsessed old dude experts rather than articles written by "publish or perish" academics citing 100 other p-hacked "publish or perish" articles.

talonx 3y ago

It's a pity that not more published research is available on this.

kqr 3y ago

I think this clause near the end was what made the article make sense to me: > This observation must be recorded to allow further research in this direction This is just one person noting in public what could be a correlation, and then all the rest (confirming correlation, establishing causation) is up to someone else!

roenxi 3y ago

This appears to be a journal article. Why should it have citations? This is an arena where people are supposed to be doing primary research. "I have a PhD and this is my opinion" is probably at least 20% of academics.

lou1306 3y ago
I can't possibly imagine sleeping posture being such a a pristine research area that there is no prior work on the topic
- roenxi 3y ago
  There is a search bar right above this article if you want to look that research up. This is some physiotherapist recording his opinion; based on field experience. I'm going out on a limb and saying none of the other researchers in the field have been writing about his experience so there isn't anything to cite.
lazyasciiart 3y ago
Primary research does not include simply stating “this is my opinion” - and this article also does not consist of someone stating their opinion, it is someone claiming to describe widespread behaviors and explanations for them.
sowhat389 3y ago
Journals publish articles beyond primary research: https://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-authors/article-types https://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-authors/article-type...

looping8 3y ago

It also feels a little strange in writing. Examples: "Figure Figure11 shows a mountain gorilla lying on the ground on his side without a pillow" - Of course it is without a pillow, it's a mountain gorilla! What is this clarification? "To start with, some Westerners have to hold on to a doorframe." - Would it not be better to say "you may have to hold on" or "newbies"? It is not like Westerners have some special physiological feature that makes them do it, it's about lack of practice.

kijin 3y ago
A pillow doesn't need to be a factory-made product that you buy at a store. Plenty of humans make pillows out of natural objects when sleeping outdoors. I can totally imagine a mountain gorilla using a chunk of wood, or even a body part of another gorilla, as a "pillow" if it makes them feel more comfortable.
- helboi4 3y ago
  Yeah im sure there are many tribespeople with pillows. It feels wierdly racist that this guy is acting like people in societies like this just live instinctually like gorillas and don't actually have the universal human trait of creating and relying on manmade tools.
  - chillingeffect 3y ago
    He's viewing humans and gorillas as primates, not viewing tribespeople as gorillas. Tribes people don't live instinctually. They have culture, like us. The critique here is our culture could benefit from observing how their culture does it.
  - throwway120385 3y ago
    The thing that makes it not racist for me is that he's clearly trying to point out that, as primates, in non-Western surroundings and when not socialized to prefer soft beds with fluffy pillows we tend to adopt similar sleeping positions as other primates do. It would be very racist if he had adopted a sneering "look at the lowly primitives" tone, but he's trying to show that these sleeping positions have helped him immensely and he's suggesting that we might research sleep positioning more as there seem to be differences in the two populations under comparison. You can look at the COVID pandemic for an example of how body positioning has helped change how well people can breathe. Proning of severely sick patients substantially improved outcomes. That's literally just rolling the patient from their back to their stomach. So there might be something interesting there that we can learn if we pay attention. And he's trying to say "we can learn something from these people if only we pay attention."

NalNezumi 3y ago

I don't think it's fair to outright dismiss it because it is not a systematic/empirical study (and the author explicitly mention that). In the case of posture, stretching & training I think there's several exercises out there that doesn't have a rigorous empirical study to back it up, yet can be explained to be good/bad from our anatomical understanding of the human body.

lazyasciiart 3y ago
Well, unfortunately in this article there are claims that can be explained to be completely false from our anatomical understanding of the human body - such as the idea that it is impossible to snore with your mouth closed.
- ricardobeat 3y ago
  I thought the 'impossible to snore' note was because of the downwards spine position, where the soft palate cannot collapse. Not because the mouth is closed.
RamblingCTO 3y ago
> I don't think it's fair to outright dismiss it because it is not a systematic/empirical study That's how science works. Show sources/data/experiments or gtfo
- roenxi 3y ago
  Science requires a level of common sense and intuition. Famously: https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094 https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094 It is fine, indeed should be encouraged, to put some papers in the system that don't have formal data but do record common-sense observations. If people don't like them, then they can trump opinion with data in the scientific process.
- 0xEF 3y ago
  Don't forget the "repeat" part. Sources and data are great, but if they can't be replicated by others, the it's not verifiable.

begueradj 3y ago

As a North African, I instinctively understand and firmly believe everything mentioned in this article about sleeping is true. From my perspective, the way I see your comment is this: give me scientific evidence that walking is beneficial to my health. We lose our identity when we disconnect from Nature. I even read a post recently here in HN where it was said that "Urban humans have lost much of their ability to digest plants": https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/03/human-gut-bacteria-that-can-digest-plant-matter-probably-came-from-cows/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/03/human-gut-bacteria-t... That's where we are.

jawns 3y ago
> I instinctively understand and firmly believe everything mentioned in this article about sleeping is true. Well, yes, but that's a standard quality of B.S. It's plausible, and intuitive. When you actually start trying to prove it out, though, you discover it's wrong. True, there is a category of "no duh" scientific findings, like walking is beneficial to one's health, that do align with our intuition. But where science really shines is when the evidence points to something counterintuitive.
- GuB-42 3y ago
  Even the "walking is beneficial" part is not just "duh". I mean, what is "walking". What distance? What pace? There are negative health effects from walking too much. The general idea is that moderate exercise is the best, too little is bad, too much is also bad. But where is the peak? It seems that walking is beneficial to the average city dweller, which aligns with our intuition, but what about foot soldiers? And where does the intuition that walking is beneficial comes from? Walking is tiring, it is not something we do naturally if we can avoid it, not very "intuitive". That's the problem by the way, because we can avoid it in modern society. I think the intuition comes from the fact that we get told over and over than walking is beneficial, so much that we made these thought our own, i.e. that's conditioning. And the reason we are told that is because it is backed by observation and science.
- navane 3y ago
  Freakonomics!

spaceman_2020 3y ago

The poor people in my country squat when they're resting. I was taught early on as a kid that I shouldn't sit like that because that's what "poor people do". I really regret listening to that piece of advice. As I observe my baby daughter, I realize how natural that squatting position is, and how much knee and hip mobility we really have.

fredrikholm 3y ago
Often the limiting factor is ankle mobility, as not being able to drive the knee in front of the toes means falling backwards as the center of mass never reaches mid foot. It's why weightlifters have elevated heels, and why great squatters tend to have short femurs (and/or be short in general).
- polishdude20 3y ago
  A lot of it also depends on getting the knees spread out and letting your stomach come forward in between. This keeps your center of gravity forward.
lukan 3y ago
Same with walking barefeet. Now it is somewhat hip again in some areas, but not where I live. "Mum, why does this man wear no shoes?" I hear so often. Now walking barefeet in the city is not recommended because of glass and dogshit everywhere, but through a path in the forest and over rocks it is much more fun (and healthy for my joints) without shoes. That is, if you relearned how to do it. You cannot walk barefeet, like you do with shoes. Also, if you started walking barefeet over 20, your skeleton and muscles in the feet will never really adopt again, like they would if you do it as a child. So if you have childs, let them go barefeet wherever and whenever possible (also in the snow for a short time).

whalabi 3y ago

Yeah I had the same response. He makes lots of anecdotal claims about tribespeople's back trouble but where's the data? It's mildly interesting nonetheless.

IncreasePosts 3y ago

There's also so much talk about penis protection, I would love to know if women use different sleeping positions at different rates than men

sandspar 3y ago

I'm not saying it's an either/or choice, but I'd rather trust articles written by obsessed old dude experts rather than articles written by "publish or perish" academics citing 100 other p-hacked "publish or perish" articles.