As a child, Josh Patner became accustomed to stepping over his mom, who used to lie down in the kitchen whenever her mother-in-law would call.
“My grandmother would talk her ear off,” Mr. Patner, 61, recalled. To cope, his mother would “lie on the floor and hold the phone away from her head.” Mr. Patner’s father, also a fan of the floor, took a 20-minute nap under the family’s piano each night after work.
So it is unsurprising, perhaps, that Mr. Patner enjoys floor time at his home in Brooklyn or even at his friend’s places — in part to stretch and soothe his back (he has scoliosis), but also, he says, because it feels calming.
“If I know you well enough to sit on your couch, I know you well enough to lie on your floor,” he said.
While this is nothing new to Mr. Patner, others are just now catching on to the practice: Posts with the hashtag #floortime have garnered millions of views on TikTok.
Lily Bishop, a graduate student in Chicago, made a video showing herself prone on her beige carpet, silently staring at the ceiling, arms spread wide. “I am a floor person to my core,” read the words emblazoned over the clip. “Meeting just ended? Floor. Home from the gym? Floor. Want to take a nap? Floor.”