The future is here: self-driving cars, virtual assistants, and groundbreaking medical technologies—along with stubbornly high and growing rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, autoimmune disorders, allergies, asthma …
We’re living in a time of incredible innovation and advancement, yet we’re sicker and more overweight than ever before. Chronic disease has reached epidemic levels, and modern medicine can’t seem to halt its progression.
Our disease has essentially moved from outside of us – infectious diseases, to now coming from inside – chronic disease and it’s killing more of us than every before.
By following the blueprint for healthy living that our hunter–gatherer ancestors laid out for us so long ago, we can help stave off the long list of uniquely modern chronic conditions, stay naturally lean and fit, and age gracefully.
Chronic disease may be our “new normal,” but it definitely isn’t our “normal normal.”
Paleontological and archaeological findings have gathered much evidence about our ancient’s health, but perhaps the best argument for us being mindful of this health is the fact that remaining hunter–gatherer societies—who live as closely as possible to the way our Paleolithic ancestors did hundreds of thousands of years ago—don’t generally suffer from the most common chronic conditions. For instance Type 2 diabetes is so rare among these and other contemporary hunter–gatherer populations that few reports looking into its prevalence even exist.
Mismatch: Why our Health Is so Different from our Ancestors’ Health
So what happened? How did the majority of us go from being naturally inclined toward health to being seemingly guaranteed at least one debilitating diagnosis in a lifetime?
In a word: mismatch—between our blueprint for living – our genes, physiology and biology on the one hand and the modern environment we’re living in on the other.
All organisms are adapted to survive and thrive in a particular environment. When that environment changes faster than the organism can adapt, mismatch occurs.
Our environment is almost unrecognizable from that of our ancestors, and we aren’t eating, moving, or resting like the hunter–gatherers that we still are, biologically. We know from hard evidence that this mismatch—pitting environment against biology—is the primary driver of chronic disease.
Some of the starkest examples of this include studies and observations of existing 21st century hunter–gatherers reporting that when they leave their villages and trade their traditional ways for a Western lifestyle, they develop diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular complications.
Our hunter–gatherer ancestors provided us with a blueprint for healthy living.
Eat Real, Nourishing, High-Quality Foods
The fastest way to recover your natural health is to return to a way of eating and living that more closely matches what your genes and biology are designed for. We know, without a doubt, that hunter–gatherers did not consume refined sugar, flour, and seed oils, (or what is referred to as “the three horsemen of the apocalypse”) because they promote overeating and inflammation, which is at the root of all modern disease. The introduction of industrial food processing has had the most detrimental effect on our health of any other factor in the last few hundred years—and possibly in the entire history of humankind.
Move
Movement played a major role in daily life for hunter–gatherers. After all, they spent the majority of their time, well, hunting and gathering. They had to exert themselves, and often quite strenuously, to survive: our ancestors sprinted, jogged, climbed, carried, and jumped intermittently throughout the day, on top of walking an average of six miles and running one-half to one mile per day.
In other words, they didn’t sit all day like so many of us do. We spend endless hours working at computers, watching TV, and commuting by car. In fact, the typical city dweller is now sedentary for about 60 percent of his or her waking life and sits for an average of six or seven hours every day. Sitting has been called the new smoking, and for good reason: it’s linked to heart disease, insulin resistance, cancer, and the list goes on. What’s more, research has found these same negative health outcomes in those who exercise but still spend the majority of their day seated.
Sleep More
Conjure up an image of a hunter–gatherer, is he or she lounging lazily on a sofa? Although they were almost always on the move, these people relaxed, too. Our ancestors alternated strenuous and demanding days of physical activity with days of rest, an instinctual response that protected them from injury and fatigue.
Our modern lifestyle is a stark mismatch in this regard. We live in a culture that values productivity and activity above all else and is almost scornful of rest and relaxation. “Resting” for many people means browsing the internet or engaging with some other kind of sleep-sapping, artificial light-emitting electronic device that is anything but restful for the brain and the body. We’ve not only forgotten the value of rest—we’ve forgotten how to do it.
Sleep soundly, and for seven to eight hours a night. You can’t be healthy without adequate sleep.
Stress Less
Our ancestors experienced stress when fleeing a predator or out on a hunt. But, they punctuated these stressful times with moments of calm. We simply aren’t built for chronic stress, as evidenced by the immense amount of research illustrating that it wreaks total havoc on our bodies.
There’s no way to completely remove stress from your life, but you can avoid unnecessary stress by learning to say no to projects or commitments you can’t handle, staying away from people who get your blood boiling, and turning off the news (or at least limiting your exposure to it), as examples. To mitigate the harmful effects of the stressors you can’t avoid, try relaxation practices and techniques such as walking in nature, yoga, and calm breathing.
Prioritise pleasure. Dance, sing, listen to music. Be social, play with your pets, laugh with friends, love your family and spend time outdoors. Eat local and sleep.
With tech we’re like kids in a SWEET SHOP. We know deep down so much of it is bad for us, but we like the stuff and taking it away would be horrible! We’re at a stage where we think tech is the big solution – and we’re not that wrong – but we need to take stock and understand how to combine our digital delights effectively with our lifestyles in order to not get sick.
understand we labeled Junk – Bigger Mistake! And up until recently we were increasingly we taking our arrogant ill-informed wisdom out on the SUN – it’s evil was the guideline for doctors! That is until very recently when the Nobel prize in science and medicine highlighted the importance of circadian biology. The rhythm of day and night. The sun has got bad press. But it’s one of the keys to our health and wellbeing.
Our Circadian Nobel prize winners discovered what the ancients long knew about the sun. That is’s vital. Delving deeper into science it turns out, that our eyes do not just do the job of seeing but they run the supercomputer – in not just us but the whole planet – in every single living thing on it. Even in blind people – they still have the receptors to set our software in motion to set our master-clock.
like you’re staring at the midday sun! Your body thinks it’s high noon – all day and into the night. This excess light time also disrupts our other clocks. A fundamental one is our digestive clock – it seems as long as our eyes are open our mouth is open too! So not only is our sleep – our reparation time – disrupted so too is our eating cycle – we’re now averaging a span of about 15 hours of light time and eating time. We’ve got a biological mismatch of cogs and clocks.
the way the world eventually agreed to a common clock that GMT is 00:00 meaning we can get flights, launch satellites and use servers globally. But without which we have costly confusions like with the States who have all their dates backwards and have had to rework space programmes because they were using out of date measuring systems when everyone else is in metric. Having a master clock makes things work .. like clockwork.
go forward. It’s no secret that doctors are overwhelmed and left behind – medicine is not helping as it did and for many it’s now even harming. Coupled with that in this digital age, we’ve also got the age of information, people have taken things into their own hands – it’s called Optimal living or Biohacking or if you don’t buy into the computer analogy it comes down to the same thing. How to live in Harmony with tech.
First it’s the power of the dark that ultimately brings light into our life. If you’re on your laptop close to bed time or staring at your phone until your turn off your LED light. Well you’ve just told your melatonin that it’s mid day. So it goes away till much later. Or perhaps you ate close to bed time so your body has to work, not repair. Basically what’s happening in these instances is that you’re just getting fat and sick at night. Hack wise, bedrooms must be dark and ideally have red lights only or salt lamps. Think sexy. For that a midnight wee – ideally a night red light in the bathroom.
charging your head and stopping your hormone system working optimally. You’re mismatching the code into the supercomputer. It has to work overtime, you wake up tired.
I lived the dream. Wide open beaches, hanging with my family and friends watching the sunset. I went for three months – came back after 7 years! On returning, most people didn’t focus on why I went away or what it was like. It was always why did you come back?
you sit on a sand dune with the Mediterranean to one side and the Atlantic gazing out across the strait – knowing that in times past there happened the world’s most amazing waterfall, bursting the banks of the ocean to create the sea. It’s then you know without words there’s a whole ton of stuff that’s so much bigger than you are. It shifts you. You actually realise what the word ‘awesome’ is and it’s a million miles from describing the latest Marvel comic release. It’s something you feel.
Perhaps it was social media, again not really the answer and eventually I realised it was because they were disconnected from life. There was a wire disconnected in their plugged in world. With a fundamental missing they were working with only half the power. Resilience was missing, emotional intelligence neglected over academic pursuit, eating shit food, Netflicking their nights and weekends away but still being tired … and never ever going for a walk. A simply but fundamental to living well. Or to coin the phrase that is now so often used, but so little understood – wellbeing.