We have lost interest in maintaining our good health and as a result we lack energy and are susceptible to illness and disease.
Is this a surprise in our modern, industrial world, when we rely upon someone else to take care of us?
Humankind dominates the planet but we are one of the weakest species, melon heads with no claws or fangs, we are the wimps in the neighbourhood. So, why have we developed into the dominant species?
Our brains are big (our heads have to be the size of melons as a result) because we ate lots of protein on a regular, almost daily basis. We were killing animals long before we had implements to assist in our killing. How did we manage to do this?
We started out as pack hunters, we ran as a pack and we ran our prey to death. We had little going for us in the strength department but we had a massive advantage over every other species: we had a fantastically efficient heat regulation system and we could breathe and run at the same time.
Prior to the agricultural revolution humankind were foragers, hunter gatherers. We were skilled at many things and we had great agility. It is said that we were at our most intelligent when we were foragers. Modern industrial methods have created a move away from us being individually very skilled, instead we have become very skilled in a very confined way, we have created a niche outside of which we have to rely upon the skills of someone else, meaning our survival is often in someone else’s hands.
We have lost our versatility meaning that we no longer have to keep a high level of fitness for our survival, because we don’t need to, as we can rely upon someone else for our survival. But when we succumb to illness and disease, whilst we might be saved by the latest vaccine or other medical treatment our body is weakened and we will not live as long as we might have expected.
We must regain our original approach to life. I am not suggesting here that we revert back to being hunter gatherers, the advantages we have worked hard to gain are too great to just throw away, but we must merge with our industrial way the foraging ways to create a more sustainable way of living, a more knowledgable way of living.
As a start we must identify the elements of our lives that we can improve, this will involve our sleep, what we eat and how we move.
Exercise has become a chore, we no longer enjoy something at which we are all naturally good.
We run a marathon and people are only interested in the time we take. Life is all about FKTs and PBs. We must move and exercise for enjoyment and ignore that we are
Our exercise regimes tend towards the anaerobic rather than the aerobic, pumping iron indoors and intense exercise regimes,
We focus on using carbohydrates for exercise which delivers immediate energy but also induces intense energy slumps. We quickly deplete the carbohydrates that our body has stored, we run out of fuel and we are unable to go on.
Aerobic exercise helps us build our endurance, it is our calming exercise routine performed at a lower heart rate which will encourage the use of our stored fat for energy, a more efficient energy source but one which the body is reluctant to use, due to its performance enhancing nature, so we have to train our bodies to use this fuel. The body stores fat so that it can be used in an emergency, we must learn to how to start using fat as our fuel.
When we breath we gasp for breath through our mouths, ignoring the massive advantage to our fitness when breathing through our nose. Breathing through our nose increases the uptake of oxygen and improves the volume of our lungs. It will sanitise the air we take in whilst warming it so that our body is more receptive. This is good for illness prevention and performance.
The progress of motorised transport has allowed us to become more transportable, working far from home and taking exotic holidays. This means that our lives may be more financially rewarding and our treats more exotic but this comes at a price: we have stopped moving naturally.
We have become lazy in the way in which we move.
When we sleep it is a chaotic situation. We treat sleep like it is optional but our brains are still working when we sleep to store and restore brain function, memory and experiences. Scientists have actually asked the question “Why do we wake up?” Sleep is that important.
We need eight hours sleep each day and every day. If this was an optional exercise the process of evolution would have done away with sleep. For young people longer sleep patterns are important, teenagers require nine hours or more.
Our food intake is based upon processed food. The benefits of processed food can be immense, they allow large numbers of people to be fed. Chemically driven farming has the same impact in that food production can become more assured. This comes at a price as both processed food and chemically driven farming will introduce toxins and additives into our lives that are both hidden and detrimental to our bodies. We need to balance our diet so that we have naturally produced food in meals that we prepare at home.
We have become lazy in our food preparation.
We have been lulled into lethargy with regard to maintaining our bodies.
We have allowed our bodies to deteriorate, forsaking the modern advances in health hygiene that create longevity of life. Life expectancy is now a declining number in our society. It needn’t be that way.