My guest is Patrick Clark from Carolina Morning. Patrick has been researching and writing about design, nutrition, deep ecology, sleep, metabolism, minimalism and somatics for over 20 years. His unconventional approach to increasing wellness and energy through an integrated system uses nature, metabolism, and consciousness as the starting point of design. Patrick got into his eclectic line of work from a personal desire to heal from illness. He ‘brought himself back from the dead’ after experiencing two decades of declining health and trying diets and modalities that failed miserably. He found that diet alone was not the answer. The answer came in multiple parts: environment, nutrition, sleep, and exercise. Now, after ten years of putting together a unique protocol based on cutting edge research, he has invented a line of revolutionary ‘body friendly’ furniture as well as highly effective, nutrient dense, anti-oxidant rich recipes and wellness formulas. Patrick has a certificate in Permaculture Design as well as Outdoor Leadership from the Wilderness Education Association. We’ll talk about Patrick’s cutting edge viewpoint for health and how he translated what he learned into products we use every day. www.paleoalltheway.com/wool-sleeping-bag

 

 

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Body Friendly Natural Furniture

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Patrick Clark

Date of Broadcast: May 23, 2013

DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world. Even though there are many toxic chemicals around in the environment and in consumer products that we use every day, we don’t have to be exposed to them. We don’t have to get sick from them. We don’t have to not think clearly because of them.

We can live healthy happy productive lives because there are many, many things that are not toxic.

Today, we’re going to be talking about Body Friendly Natural Furniture made out of natural materials but also fitted particularly to the health of your body.

But before we do that, I want to tell you about a video I saw. It’s an incredible video. It’s about a man in the smoky mountains I think who, after many heart surgeries, gave up taking his drugs and spent his money for his prescription drugs for the many illnesses that he had, and spent the money instead on harmonicas which he distributed to local schools along with harmonica lessons because they didn’t have a music program as part of their budget I guess. I remember when I was a child, we had music programs but they got cut all over the place.

So, when after the first month, he didn’t die because he didn’t take his drugs. The next month, he spent the money he would’ve spent on prescription drugs on more harmonicas—and the next month, and the next month, and the next month.

And this video is about what happened. It just is incredibly wonderful. I mean, me being a musician, it particularly speaks to me. But it really shows that there are many things in life that we can do that are not toxic and are even actually beyond just looking at the material side of life that we can be doing all kinds of things to make the world a better place by giving of ourselves.

And the way to find those, I put it on my website. Just go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com. Across the top, there’s a link to the right where it says “Living as Nature.” And then scroll down that page, it’s number two right down. Click on the video and watch it. It will just make your day.

I particularly wanted to point this video out today because my guest, Patrick Clark from Carolina Morning, is very nature-oriented. And he really did take a look at how nature works and what’s going on with the natural laws of the planet and our bodies and everything in order to put together the product that he offers.

So welcome to the show Patrick.

PATRICK CLARK: Thank you, Debra. It’s wonderful to be here.

DEBRA: Thank you. And you’re there near Ashville, right?

PATRICK CLARK: Yes. It’s Ashville, North Carolina.

DEBRA: It’s so beautiful there, so beautiful.

PATRICK CLARK: Yes, it is, especially today.

DEBRA: I can imagine.

Now, to start, tell us your story about how you went from probably—well, maybe not, an average person to someone who has such a different view point than our industrial viewpoint and how that’s changed your life?

PATRICK CLARK: Yes. Well, I never was an average person. I started out in life wandering around the trails behind my house and the […] valley near the Great Smoky Mountains, just kind of playing with things. I built little shelters and would go around. I was out in nature.

It was really hard to put me into school. I rebelled like as much as anyone possibly could. I ended up going to a school. I came out of school—college and everything—and I still haven’t changed. I still liked what I liked and things still didn’t feel right to me about how we were being forced to live a certain life that was uncomfortable. It seem to be stifling something I might call ‘life energy’.

So I just ended up not even thinking what I was doing. But what I always did, I just kept doing. I just kept tinkering with my environment. I wasn’t working in office settings. I would stack things up a certain way, and prop things up different ways until I felt like it was right. I just kept doing that. Until eventually, it ended up in the concept of Body Friendly Furniture.

DEBRA: Well, tell us about—you told me that you brought yourself back from the dead after surrendering to decades of declining health. Tell us more about what you went through and what you found started to work.

PATRICK CLARK: Yes. And that is like a slightly different subject. But since everything is really extremely connected, it’s good to talk about. I had I think what I call the dark night of the body.

DEBRA: I like that.

PATRICK CLARK: And I see that in people. It’s almost how we get to you, into your paradigm here, Debra. It’s like until it hits us and we get sick, we don’t really believe people.

DEBRA: Mm-hmmm…

PATRICK CLARK: That it’s just hard to believe that people are getting sick from things you can’t see. So, I ended up becoming toxic because of course no one even used that word back then. And there wasn’t even the concept of ‘green building’ and all those kinds of things. So I ended up toxic, and chronic fatigue and multiple chemical sensitivities.

I guess, in a way, that led up to part of some of my ideas about furniture because I needed to find some way of resting, being able to rest the body and recuperate and restore energy while I was working.

DEBRA: So what was the first thing that you tried when you wanted to get better? And what were some of the sentiments that you had?

PATRICK CLARK: It was being fatigued and just having brain fog.

DEBRA: Yes.

PATRICK CLARK: Yes, and just depleted where you get up and—I mean part of it was the acute part where I could not even get out of bed. And that’s…

DEBRA: I know what that’s like because I went through that too.

PATRICK CLARK: Yes, exactly. And then that led to eventually moving out of that place that was extremely toxic and then actually building a very tiny house because it was really impossible to find a clean place at that time.

DEBRA: Yes.

PATRICK CLARK: And part of the time was, like you, living in a tent outside for periods and things like that.

So, yeah, it ended up living I had this new environment of a tiny place, a tiny house, very tiny. And it was so tiny, there wasn’t room for furniture. And I started like re-thinking furniture in the terms of small space, multi-use body-friendly and Feng Shui.

DEBRA: I know what Feng Shui is. But I’m sure some of my listeners don’t. So explain what Feng Shui is.

PATRICK CLARK: Feng Shui is it’s the art of placement. It’s a Chinese art, Asian and ancient science art of placement, so that things are arranged the most auspiciously for energy-flow.

DEBRA: Give an example of what you will do to the entrance of the house for Feng Shui.

PATRICK CLARK: Well, for example like you wouldn’t have clutter. And you would make the entrance be extremely obvious that this is the entrance. Make it stand out as an entrance. Make it real obvious, so that let’s just say the word energy can flow through in and out easily.

DEBRA: Mm-hmmm…

PATRICK CLARK: And clutter is one of the things that Feng Shui is really down on. Western Culture is like a nightmare for Feng Shui. That’s why minimalism and small spaces are like already halfway there as far as Feng Shui because you can’t have clutter.

DEBRA: That’s right. And I think that’s really hard for people nevertheless.

PATRICK CLARK: Yes.

DEBRA: We need to take a break. We’ll be back after this message and talk more about Body Friendly Furniture. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. We’re talking with Patrick Clark from Carolina Morning. And you can go to his website at BodyFriendlyFurniture.com.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And we’re here with Patrick Clark from Carolina Morning talking about Body Friendly Natural Furniture.

Patrick, before we talk about your furniture, tell us about some of the toxic chemicals that may be encountered in furniture that would be making people sick. Why should they be interested in yours and not just go down to the local furniture store?

PATRICK CLARK: Because there are literally hundreds of chemicals in just about anything that you buy, touch, or look at right now in our environment—formaldehyde, PBDE’s, flame retardant chemicals, glues, adhesives, nylon itself is toxic—it’s just a chemical soup. And if you are going to do the first step to health, I would recommend doing a complete overhaul of your indoor environment.

DEBRA: I recommend that too. I’ve said on other shows that I got to a point where it just became clear to me that it was kind of your social study of chemicals, that what I needed to do was just make this quantum leave out of the industrial world.

PATRICK CLARK: Yes, exactly, because it’s overwhelming. It doesn’t matter. A poison is a poison at one point. You realize that.

DEBRA: Yes. And so I can see in your work that you’ve come to a similar realization that I didn’t see. You just need to look to nature and see what you find there.

So, tell us. When you looked at nature, what did you find? What are the materials that you used that are supportive to life?

PATRICK CLARK: Yes, that’s right. We look at nature because—I call it non-synthetic materials. What we ended up finding out that the available materials are cotton, buckwheat wholes, kapok (which is a seed from the kapok tree from the Amazon) and…

DEBRA: It’s very fluffy for those of you who don’t knw.

PATRICK CLARK: Fluffy, it’s a downing material, yeah.

DEBRA: Kapok, it’s really downing and fluffy. And it doesn’t compress like cotton.

PATRICK CLARK: Exactly! And wool. So combining with those four things, that’s what we found made the best combination.

DEBRA: Good! And then you also use wood, solid wood.

PATRICK CLARK: Yes. We have solid wood for our bed frame system. That’s popular from the Eastern United States right near us. And then we have some of our furniture (not the bedding, but the desk and chairs) made from—it’s called Madex M-A-D-E-X. And it is a Forest Stewardship Council certified non-toxic medium density fiber cord.

DEBRA: And do you know what’s in Madex?

PATRICK CLARK: It is from 100% recycled like saw-dust and some kind of adhesive that’s non-formaldehyde. That’s non-toxic.

DEBRA: Yes. I’m familiar with Madex. And it’s a pretty non-toxic thing.

PATRICK CLARK: Yes.

DEBRA: Yes. Okay. So could you…

PATRICK CLARK: I would…

DEBRA: Go ahead.

PATRICK CLARK: I think I’ll just throw in about the finish. We have a really nice finish too that is a whey-based Vermont Natural Coatings and…

DEBRA: I love Vermont Natural Coating!

PATRICK CLARK: Oh cool. Yehey!

And the other thing about it is we add another dimension to it. It’s a magic element that adds some health enhancing qualities that’s called EM—it’s an EM ceramic powder. I’ll talk about that later, but it’s a really nice material.

DEBRA: I didn’t know that you could mix it with—well, I’m slightly familiar with it. But that’s interesting that you could mix it with the finish. And we can talk about that later.

So, I know that you’ve put different modalities together so that you have a basic philosophy that you’re working throughout from. So could you just explain that so that we know what your viewpoint is?

PATRICK CLARK: Yes. It started with kind of an instinctual feeling like “something’s wrong here.” And as I went to work wherever, in different settings, it was always like, “Something’s wrong here. I just don’t feel alive. I don’t really want to be here.” And as I did research, there’s some definite physical problems issues with sedentary lifestyle. And they had not been solved.

In fact, they had barely been even mentioned at the time I started the research. And a sedentary lifestyle, it also has another name (or maybe several). One of them is called ‘office illness’ and ‘metabolic syndrome.’ And it has a lot of—mostly with metabolism and alignment and circulation and breathing. It crunches our body into a shape that it’s not supposed to be in. It reduces the amount of oxygen that you can bring into your lungs. It also causes chronic back pain and leading to serious back issues.

And just to show you what a scale we’re talking about, the back pain (an undefinable back pain) is the second leading cause of people missing work.

DEBRA: I didn’t know that, but I’m not surprised.

PATRICK CLARK: And the only other thing is the common cold. And there’s $4 billion spent on the back pain industry, and I don’t even think they include the chiropractor and massage that they may not be associating with a sedentary lifestyle.

DEBRA: Yes. Well, I can see that you’re looking at like if we were not in an industrial world, we would be out in nature walking around all the time. We would probably be walking from place to place instead of riding in a car. We would be gathering our food, and we would be hunting. We would be carrying logs for fire, all these things would be an extremely physical kind of life.

PATRICK CLARK: Yes.

DEBRA: And now we have a very sedentary life where we’re sitting all day, and then we go pay for a gym membership and drive to an air-conditioned building where we have machines exercise for us.

PATRICK CLARK: Yes, exactly.

DEBRA: That does not make sense.

PATRICK CLARK: It’s not a good design, is it?

DEBRA: It’s not a good design. Well, we’re going to take another break. And we’ll be back with Patrick Clark from Carolina Morning after this. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and you’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And we’re here with Patrick Clark from Carolina Morning. His website is BodyFriendlyFurniture.com. He’s going to tell us—what is Body Friendly Furniture, Patrick?

PATRICK CLARK: Yes. Good question. It is furniture that encourages movement. It gets you to move and it alternates active positions where you’re actually exercising with passive positions where you’re resting and restoring your energy.

DEBRA: Well, I’m not sure what that looks like. Let me see an example of how that would be.

PATRICK CLARK: Good question.

DEBRA: I can’t imagine sitting in a chair exercising.

PATRICK CLARK: Yes. It’s a new concept. Well, active sitting is actually exercise. So active sitting, you probably know—I mean you may not know what that is.

DEBRA: I have no idea what active sitting is.

PATRICK CLARK: Okay, alright! Well, that is…

DEBRA: All of this is new. You’ve invented this new thing.

PATRICK CLARK: Yes. We will start there. Okay, so…

DEBRA: We have no memories to draw upon.

PATRICK CLARK: Okay. So you know the idea is you mentioned about the hunter/gatherer type lifestyle where we kind of have this movement, constant movement, resting movement, hunting or whatever. THe idea is to create a lifestyle, something like that.

And the lifestyle is more important than the actual furniture. But you need furniture that can support that kind of lifestyle. So standing is actually an option. If you can somehow work while you stand, then you can do same thing while you’re standing than you can sitting on a desk.

DEBRA: You know, let’s just stop right there. Because that is I think a revolutionary concept. I sit at my desk all day long.

And I can’t imagine standing up all day long.

PATRICK CLARK: Yes.

DEBRA: And maybe it’s because my body is too weak from all these sitting.

PATRICK CLARK: Yes. No, I mean it is a process. And that’s one of the first things people see that they say, “Wait a minute.

I don’t know about standing—maybe for a little while. But all day? I don’t know.”

Well, that’s the whole point. The whole point is movement.

You’re right. If you stood all day, it wouldn’t probably be a good idea. So my furniture puts you from active type positions into passive positions, so that you can get some circulation and oxygen into your lungs and energy flowing. And then, when you have had enough of that, you can go into the passive position and then you restore your energy. But you need to do it in a way that your body is in alignment.

DEBRA: Oh!

DEBRA: I think I’m starting to get it. I sit in a chair all day long that is just a regular upright chair with a pedal on it. It’s a solid wood chair with a pedal on it (and a wooden desk). I think it’s at the right height. I can just put my arms comfortably bent on the desk and sit here and type.

And I think that the listeners should go to your website, BodyFriendlyFurniture.com and look at the pictures. You have a girl sitting in a reclining position with pedals all around, typing on her laptop. Now, I have a big 27-inch screen on my computer, so it needs to have a base. But I can imagine, if I start thinking about all the tasks that I do during the day, when I’m sitting for example needing to be upright when I’m typing, that’s one position. But when I’m speaking with somebody on the phone—like even the other day, what I wanted to do was go in the other room and lie down while I was talking to somebody on the phone. And I was trying to figure out how I could do that with all the things that I needed to write with and everything. Could I do that?

And so I could see that you could have a set-up whereby just being in one place, you could be able to be in a more active role (say when you’re typing on a computer), and then you could be resting while you’re talking on the phone.

PATRICK CLARK: Yes, exactly. And the floor is one of those places, to have space on the floor. And yes, you need to have props like sort of planned ahead that you’ve figured out where your screen needs to be, where keyboard needs to be, where you’re going to sit or stay, where your body’s going to be. And you have little props that are set up for different activities.

And that is what my line, Body Friendly Furniture, is.

DEBRA: So that you could figure it out in advance and make sure those spaces are there when you need them.

PATRICK CLARK: Exactly.

DEBRA: I really like the sound of that because my mind is just going a mile a minute about re-figuring this out and how I’m in my space in a completely different way than what you’re talking about. What I was just thinking was how I arrange the space in my office for optimum work production, not for optimum body comfort or what the energy level would be of my body after sitting here for a few hours or how my health would be.

I considered having toxic things, but I didn’t consider how the environment and the desk and the chair would actually support my body. It’s all arranged by what’s the workflow like.

PATRICK CLARK: Yes. That would be the right order though. Get the toxins out first. And then think about the next step of vitality, health and energy.

And the idea is that it’s to make it fun. I mean, it’s like you just sit there at the desk and that’s it. You don’t know. I mean the whole idea, this is productivity, this is creativity. It’s proven scientifically this increases the power of your brain. Movement makes your brain work more efficiently. So this actually becomes of extremely powerful way to work.

DEBRA: So even if we don’t have the perfect furniture, there is probably a lot of things we can do to be moving in our sedentary lifestyle in a different way. One of the things that I thought is that my massage therapist gave me a little roller thing for my feet. And so it feels so good as I’m sitting here to just roll my foot on this little thing.

PATRICK CLARK: Yes.

DEBRA: It’s got ridges on it. And I could see that it stimulates the blood flow in my feet, and it would stimulate the oxygen instead of just having the foot sit there just stationary. I could see that—now that I’m sitting here thinking about it, I could see that I could be moving my arms. I could be wriggling my shoulders. I could get up and do something instead of having everything at arm’s reach. I could place things to force me to get up out of my chair. All of these things are a whole different way of thinking.

I want to tell you that fact […] for a minute because one other thing that is so important about toxics is moving your lymph system. And I’m sure you know all about this, that the heart has a pump for our blood, but the lymp system is this whole system in our body that carries out the waste from yourself. It also carries out the toxic chemicals that come in. And if your lymph doesn’t move, then you continue to store those toxic chemicals.

So even whether you’re doing heavy lifting or going to the gym or whatever, even any kind of movement as you’re sitting at your desk all day is going to move your lymph system to some degree.

PATRICK CLARK: Exactly. That’s the whole idea behind the Body Friendly lifestyle. I think you’re getting it, Debra.

DEBRA: Oh, I’m so glad. Okay. We need to take a break. In fact, we’re past time with the break. So I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. And we’ll be back in a moment.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and we’re here with Patrick Clark from Carolina Morning. He’s up there in the beautiful Smoky Mountain—in a very non-toxic environment, I’m sure.

Patrick, tell us about your more innovative things like your Quantum Calming Mat and the Little Magic Desk and all those interesting things you have.

PATRICK CLARK: Yes. Sure. Well, there are problems with electro-magnetic fields in cellphone radiation and some things out there that aren’t so good for us. And so one solution is called EM ceramic powder. It comes from Japan from Dr. Kiruthika. And it’s been around for about 20 years.

Basically, this material, we put it in our bedding and our quantum calming mat and our finish, the finish in all of our furniture.

And what it does is it emits a frequency called infrared radiation. And that is a healing frequency to the human body. And our cells entrain to that frequency while you’re exposed to within three inches of it.

DEBRA: Hmmm…

PATRICK CLARK: That is one of the nice things we have in it. It reportedly calms you down. It actually does some detoxing of your blood and things like that.

DEBRA: Well, you know, I think that most people aren’t aware that the earth itself has its own vibratory frequency and that the wires that run through the walls and all the EMFs and the WI-FI and everything, that’s a different frequency.

But if our bodies, actually, if all these man-made frequencies weren’t here, our bodies actually line up with the frequency of the earth. I think that you would agree that part of the problem that’s going on is that we no longer have that frequency connection.

PATRICK CLARK: Yeah, exactly. If we can get out somewhat during the day in nature, that’s one of the best things.

Everyone’s talking about it now.

DEBRA: Yes.

PATRICK CLARK: But we are so missing that. We live in an artificial environment. We have not just chemical toxins, but the toxicity of electro-magnetic fields and artificial light is in itself a toxin that throws off our circadian rhythms.

And basically, what we’re trying to do with our business, our products, is provide the ways for people to go back closer to the nature to all of the things that you would be having if you weren’t in this artificial toxic environment.

DEBRA: Yes. Even doing things like going out—not necessarily lying in the sun if you’re concerned about sunburns or things like that. But even I find that if I failed to stress or everything, I just need to take a break.

One of the best things that I can do is just go out in the backyard and I just put a wool blanket down on the grass. I just lie down for 20 minutes and just neutralize. That’s probably the best word I could think of.

PATRICK CLARK: Yes. That’s…

DERBA: And again going back to that nature is a model kind of thing, our bodies are accustomed to having things like sunlight, connection to the earth where our bodies are actually on the earth. We’re used to walking barefoot, so that whatever earth energies there are can actually come into our bodies.

And so, in addition to the toxic chemicals being a detriment, we’re not getting our nourishment from nature. It goes way beyond food. And I think that’s a big element that’s missing in health as well.

PATRICK CLARK: Yes. I agree. And the dilemma is what do you do about when you’re in in an artificial environment…

DEBRA: Yes.

PATRICK CLARK: There’s a few ideas about—maybe you might call it “bio-remediation.” And EM or effective micro-organism is like a huge and inexpensive solution to a lot of this toxic problem—not just what we incorporate into our products, but you can actually put it in your paint and paint your house with it and use it for healthful cleaning. There’s a whole lot of range of things that you can do to create this more harmonious field around you.

DEBRA: Yes. Because we do need to have that. I know, for me, I’m a bit of a purist, and so I always want to tell people, “Just go out with nature.”

PATRICK CLARK: Yes.

DEBRA: Except that not everybody can do that the way that things are arranged today. And I could see that, particularly with the population (the density in Japan), that they would come up with something like this, so that the indoor-built environment can be healthier. There’s so much that needs to be undone in the world today.

Tell us about your mats. I forgot what it’s called.

PATRICK CLARK: Photon or quantum calming mat?

DEBRA: Your quantum calming mat, yes.

PATRICK CLARK: Quantum calming mat. Okay, yeah. The idea is if you could take a piece of earth and put it in your bedroom and sleep on the earth in your bedroom—you know, something like that—it would be calming and grounding.

You’re literally grounding as far as your electricity, pulling static electricity off your body. So that’s the idea behind this. It is basically a piece of organic fabric that’s coated with the EM ceramic powder which emits infrared frequency.

And another thing which is a gem stone, amethyst powder. And the amethyst powder has some healing qualities in itself and it actually amplifies the infrared by ten times.

DEBRA: Well, I didn’t know that. I love amethysts. And I’ve been thinking a lot about frequencies because I sing and play the piano. I sing in a choir and we’ve been talking about what is music and what is sound. Every sound has its own frequency as well. And frequencies, it seems like everything comes down to energy frequencies and yet that’s something that we’re so unaware of in our industrial culture.

But nature, don’t you think nature is fascinating?

PATRICK CLARK: I do. I do and I like that harmony and beauty and adding that into our lives.

DEBRA: Yes. I do too.

PATRICK CLARK: And everything with quantum physics. Everything really boils down to light and frequencies.

DEBRA: Yes. It does. Well, we only just have a few minutes left. Is there something that you’d like to say that you haven’t said?

PATRICK CLARK: Yes. I would like to read a little thing from a customer if that’s okay.

DEBRA: Yes.

PATRICK CLARK: Okay. “I have lived with chronic back pain for 25 years. This pain has awakened me every night since its inception when I was 19 years old, now 44. I’ve used inversion tables, physical therapy, stretching, etc.”

“Within two hours of my first usage of the tilt chair and peace bench, I noticed a gradual relief in the constant strange feeling in my lower back.”

“By the time the first two hours were up, I reported 80% to 90% relief of all back pains, soreness, shoulders, dizziness and soreness, and 80% relief of neck soreness, aching and stiffness.”

And then, it goes on to say that, “They’re not advertised as miracle furnishings. But to me, they are. I never expected anything like this.”

DEBRA: Wow! So tell us more about those two pieces of furniture.

PATRICK CLARK: Yes. So it’s active sitting. That was that thing I described as active sitting where you’re basically sitting without leaning back into something?

DEBRA: Yes.

PATRICK CLARK: And what it does is it’s as if you’re toning, you’re actually aligning your body vertically so you’re toning the front and back of your core while you’re sitting doing sedentary work and stuff like that.

DEBRA: I’m starting to get this idea as you’re describing it as I’m sitting here. It’s hard to say because it’s not words that you are accustomed to having for a concept. But I’m really getting it, that I could be sitting here holding my body up. That’s it, I’m holding my body up with my muscles in an active way, so that I have to tighten my muscles to sit in that position versus slouching or having no support. That would make my body stronger.

PATRICK CLARK: Exactly! And it’s almost impossible to do in the normal chair. What you normally need is a tilt, a front-sloping, tilted seat because you need to tilt your pelvis to keep your back in the proper alignment.

DEBRA: Yes.

PATRICK CLARK: So it’s harder if…

DEBRA: I’m sitting here touching my pelvis while you’re talking.

PATRICK CLARK: Okay. You got it. So yes. Some people think it’s impossible because they haven’t quite figure it out that you have to have the right type of a surface to sit on.

DEBRA: Wow! This is amazing. This changed completely the way I think about things.

Well, Patrick, our time is up.

PATRICK CLARK: Okay. So…

DEBRA: I’m sorry to say that, but this has been fascinating. I’m so glad that you’re our guest today. This has been Patrick Clark from Carolina Morning. He’s at BodyFriendlyFurniture.com. I hope you will go take a look and see all the different things that he has.

I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. And I will be back tomorrow. You can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com.

If you enjoyed the show, tell your friends. You can listen to all the shows. They’re archived at ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com (including this one with Patrick). And so if you missed something or you wanted to hear to it again, just go listen to it. Tell your friends. And I’ll be back tomorrow.