If we assume that our genetics have not changed much in the last 40,000 years and our genes were selected to thrive in a world 40,000 years old, it is easy to understand why we are plagued by many “life-style” diseases which no medical cure exists. We are living slightly longer but living sicker.
The cure or remedy for many of heart disease, obesity, diabetes, asthma, and digestive related ills is life-style modification. We need to live a life-style more similar to our ancestors. I do not mean that we should pack and live in the wild and collect fruit and hunt. We should simplify our foods, exercise routines, and living habits. Many who proactively make room to be healthy live a highly structured life and approach wellness in the same vain. Our ancestors were healthy and lived long lives, save early death from exposure, trauma, starvation and infection, and they lived a more random life.
Wellness is about the journey of continually widening our ability to adapt to an ever larger range of circumstances. We should be able to thrive in many worlds. Our bodies quickly adapt to a routine and a long kept routine blunts our ability to adapt to changes.
A wellness life-style should be like our prehistoric ancestor’s lifestyle, constantly changing. This is difficult to accomplish in a modern city but not impossible. Plan your wellness randomness life-style.
Skip an occasional meal or even fast for a day
- Try new fruit, vegetables, fish, meat, or poultry
- Skip an occasional night sleep
- Exercise with intensity (run, jump, skip, sprint, play a sport)
- Mix aerobic exercise with anaerobic exercise
- Walk at different paces
- Walk barefoot and wear many types of shoes
- Scream
- Find different ways to connect with people and emote
- LIVE a varied life
Planned randomness keeps life fresh, fun, and exciting. Mix life up, our ancestors did and they survived and thrived.
