Better to lie down than to be comfortable?

Recently, I found a new Internet term that has quickly become popular in various media and social circles, which is "lying flat."

"Lie flat", this popular internet term, means that no matter how the other party reacts, you will not have any reaction or resistance, which shows a submissive mentality. In addition, in some contexts, it means: collapse to the ground, no longer excited and eager for success.

There is another internet buzzword similar to the hot word "lying flat", that is "Buddhist", whose main meaning is a life attitude of having no desires, being neither sad nor happy, and pursuing inner peace.

"Lying flat" and "Buddha-style" are different, but both have negative connotations of muddling through, taking things as they come, aimless, and lacking fighting spirit. Especially in today's society where competition is fierce and "involution" is crazy, "lying flat" and "Buddha-style" have become the excuses and pretexts of many "eating people" - instead of "involution", it is better to "lie flat" in a "Buddha-style" way! As the saying goes: Nothing is more comfortable than lying down, and nothing is more delicious than dumplings.

Therefore, the wonderful life these people yearn for should be: eating dumplings while lying down - be careful not to spill vinegar all over yourself!

Lying down is indeed comfortable! Don't believe it? Let's analyze it from the perspective of biomechanics. Figure 1 shows that different body postures cause different pressures on the lumbar spine. If the pressure when standing is 100 as a reference standard, then "lying down" is the posture with the least pressure. Sure enough, lying down is comfortable.

Figure 1 Different postures cause different pressures on the lumbar spine (with the pressure when standing as 100 as the reference standard).

So, why haven't humans, during their evolution, limited various exercise and work postures to the comfortable lying position?

The negative impact of lying down on your physical health completely offsets the level of comfort.

In ancient times, the book "Lüshi Chunqiu·Jinshu" said: running water does not rot, and door hinges do not rot; today, the French thinker Voltaire said: life lies in movement. I would like to add: movement gives you a competitive advantage in survival.

On the African savannah, every morning, the first thing that the antelope thinks when it opens its eyes is: I must run faster than the fastest lion, otherwise I will be eaten by the lion. At the same time, the lion wakes up from sleep, and the first thought that flashes in its mind is: I must run faster than the fastest antelope, otherwise I will starve to death. So, almost at the same time, the antelope and the lion jump up and run towards the rising sun. The pressure of survival makes the antelope a runner and the lion a hunter.

Only proper exercise can maintain the normal physiological functions of various tissues, organs and systems of the human body and increase the competitiveness of survival. Lying in bed for a long time will lead to a variety of complications: folliculitis, dermatitis, bedsores, urinary tract infection, deep vein thrombosis of the lower limbs, aspiration pneumonia... Among them, deep vein thrombosis of the lower limbs and aspiration pneumonia are particularly harmful, seriously affecting the cardiopulmonary function, and are detonators and explosives that accelerate death - they can be detonated at any time!

If you lie still for a long time, your organs may suffer from disuse degeneration, i.e. degenerative diseases. From the perspective of biomechanics, structure and function go hand in hand. If the function is no longer needed, the structure will atrophy, degenerate, fail, and disappear. If this continues, the whole person will become useless!

The easy way to ruin a man is to let him lie down comfortably.

Good health is achieved through persistent exercise, and competitive strength is honed through proactive progress.

Whether it is "involution" or "exvolution", both rely on strength to fight for survival and development space. The huge competitive pressure does make it not as comfortable to not "lie down" as to "lie down". However, if you choose to "lie down", the foreseeable consequence is to wait for death. If you don't fight and struggle, you won't even have the chance to dream ("lying down" can dream, but it's also a "daydream"); ​​if you choose not to "lie down", you may not wait for the day when your dream comes true (Figure 2), but only by striving to break through can you have the day when the phoenix nirvana is reborn from the ashes.

Figure 2 Choose to "lie down" or not to "lie down"

Young people, stand up! Look, snails are running hard on the track (Figure 3), do you still have any reason to "lie down" comfortably? Whether it is "involution", "exvolution" or "flower involution", step on them all, attack from all directions, break through the shackles, and find more development opportunities. The dream belongs to you!

Figure 3: Snail running wildly

For more popular science articles about biomechanics around us, please follow my WeChat public account “Medical Biomechanics” (Medical_biomechanics).

It's better to lie down