“If we don’t take care of our bodies, where will we live.?”
– Dan Millman.
What happens when we often feel too exhausted or too full of aches and pains to even get out of bed? What message have our bodies sent us up to this point that we have ignored? What if we can learn how to listen and interpret what our bodies tell and expect of us so that we can live a pain-free, productive life. Although we feel compelled to view health from a singular perspective, we should see optimal wellness as a result of several interrelated lifestyle practices. Living a long, productive life remains a possibility if we follow some basic principles of wellness first articulated by Mark Sisson in The Primal Blueprint.
PRINCIPAL # 1- EAT NUTRIENT DENSE PLANTS AND ANIMALS.
When scientists examined human remains samples dating back to 50,000 years, they found that our ancestors ate nutrient-dense plants and animals. This practice lies in sharp contrast to our modern diet of regimented meals wildly disproportionate in process carbohydrates and chemicals that our bodies still have not grown accustomed to consuming. Through selection pressure, we developed to use and prefer ingested dietary fats and stored body fats from animals and plants as our primary fuel source, especially when food became inconsistent and scarce during changing seasons and during times of famine. Our ancestor’s reliance on dietary fats contributed to optimizing their brain growth and function over time.
PRINCIPAL # 2- AVOID POISON
The chemically altered industrial seed and grain oils conventional in processed foods align more with our idea of poison because they undermine the healthy function of our bodies and brain on a cellular level. The deemphasis on simple, clean, organic foods in favor of modern processed and colorfully packaged foods can lead to weight gain, systemic inflammation, and constant brain fog. Eating these foods over a long period will lead to more severe diseases such as compromised digestion, immune, cardiovascular, and hormonal function, fatigue, burnout, and an elevated risk for modern killers of heart disease and diet-related cancers. Buying good organic fresh foods in their most recognizable unprocessed form will help us live healthier.
PRINCIPAL # 3- MOVE YOUR BODY FREQUENTLY
Our ancestors found joy in a diverse, active lifestyle that enhanced fat metabolism, cardiovascular function, brain development, stress management, and general health and longevity. They spent many hours hunting, gathering, walking, hiking, scouting, foraging, and generally staying active with a low level of intensity. We can serve our bodies best by standing, moving frequently, and finding ways to move throughout the day. After we engage in a consistent pattern of movement, we can undo all that effort by falling immediately into inactivity afterward, especially if we have long-distance commutes or long hours of sitting in an office working. On the other hand, chronically workout, too frequently at a slightly difficult pace and for too long a duration can fatigue and burn us out as well. Our bodies have adapted to live on brief, intense, intermittent stressors, but those stressors deplete when we introduce chronic workouts that reach a point of diminishing returns with exercise. Instead of supporting health, we compromise it when neglecting adequate rest and recovery. The key lies in the frequent movement at low intensity.
PRINCIPAL # 4- LIFT HEAVY THINGS OCCASIONALLY
We also need occasional intense sessions of weight-bearing functional body movements to optimize our body’s strengths and wellness. A pattern of brief, intense strength training workouts with and without weights, dispersed with adequate recovery time between sessions, will help us build lean tone muscles, enhance fat metabolism, and improve organ function. Periodic intense training runs counter to the convention of working out several days a week, going through different isolation exercises to build huge muscles. This over-practice often stimulates the prolonged release of stress hormones that break down the muscles instead of building them, especially without adequate time to rest and recover. A minimum of 20 to 30 minutes of strength training sessions a week in conjunction with frequent functional movements will give us the most benefit in less time.
PRINCIPAL # 5- RUN ONCE IN A WHILE AS IF YOUR LIFE DEPENDED ON IT.
Until recent human history, we lived based on how fast we could run from an intermediate danger. Our body harnesses its resources to deal with a perceived life or death request for peak performance by optimizing its energy production inside our cells, stimulates fat metabolism, and hormone regulations. We can mimic fight or flight response by doing a low impact all-out effort on the stationary bike to activate the to get our adaptive hormones into the bloodstream. It will also organize a muscle rebuilding effort to come back stronger as it anticipates repeat occurrence. A workout that will take us only a few minutes of intense, all-out attempts will continue to benefit our bodies by building muscles and burning fats hours and even days after the exercise session.
Although we feel compelled to view health from a singular perspective, we should see optimal wellness as a result of several interrelated lifestyle practices.
PRINCIPAL # 6- GET THE QUALITY SLEEP REST YOU MUST HAVE TO DO YOUR BEST.
At sunset, our bodies release a sleep agent called melatonin, which prompts sleepiness and transitions us into an optimum phase of sleep. When our eyes and skin cells sense light in the morning, our body prompt an increase of a mood-elevating hormone called serotonin, and a stress hormone called cortisol, as our melatonin declines for the new day. We feel refreshed and energized for a new day. In modern times, we have radically disrupted these natural circadian rhythms and hormone-releasing sequences by introducing artificial light and, more recently, increased our use of digital screens. These factors cause our bodies to send a request for additional energy to focus at sunset when our body systems should begin winding down for the evening.
Consequently, we have untimely triggered cortisol, sugar cravings, compromise sleep, and diminish potential energy for the mornings. The process of recalibrating our hormones to align better with our circadian pattern will refresh our body and mind. Going to bed at or near sunset seems unrealistic for many. Luckily we have some hacks that can help. These include minimizing blue light emitted digital screen, wearing blue light blocking glasses after sunset, and powering down devices two hours before bed. Creating a simple, quiet, cool sleeping environment will allow us to rise and enjoy the high-energy mornings we need, awakening near sunrise, feeling refreshed. Given the modern-day work schedules for some, getting quality sleep remains a challenge, but we can always do something to move us towards an ideal pattern of practice for wellness sake.
PRINCIPAL # 7- PLAY SOCIALLY
Our ancestors relished leisure time more than we do in modern society. They spent the last six hours a day engaging in unstructured play and social bonding. Wellness experts found that play, whether solo or socially, serves to lower stress levels and unwind from everyday rigors from daily life. Also, play allows us to improve social bonding and helps us gaining valuable rehearsal skills applicable to actual life or death but under risk-free and pressure-free circumstances. Even more, periodic play increases work productivity by improving our ability to manage stress and elevate self-confidence, social competency, and creativity. Finally, play allows us to unplug from our regular work pattern to offset some of the confining forces in modern life spontaneously. The best form of the game happens outside with others in sorts of playful physical activity, which brings us to the vital principle of ‘getting plenty of sunlight.’
PRINCIPAL # 8- GET PLENTY OF SUNLIGHT
The sunlight facilitates our skin’s production of vitamin D, a substance recognized by our body as a precursor hormone that helps regulate growth in virtually all cells of your body and helps to prevent a variety of diseases. Our skin absorbs and stores away vitamin D in our fat cells for future use. By exposing a large surface area of our skin to moderate amounts to direct sunlight during the appropriate times of day and year, we reap the benefits of exposure as we achieve optimal vitamin D production. Unfortunately, our dominant indoor lifestyles have resulted in widespread vitamin D deficiency. This lack can significantly increase cancer risk by compromising the function of our genes responsible for regulating healthy cell division. Also, deficiency can cause cardiovascular illness, cognitive impairment, poor bone health, sex hormones deficiency, depression, and renal difficulties. To correct this, we need only a 20-30 minute sunbathing session on a bright summer day or around half the time it might take a fair-skinned person to get a sunburn to produce around 10,000 international units of vitamin D (I. U.). Vitamin D from sun exposure versus dietary or supplementary sources stays in the body reserves longer. The standard American diet (S.A.D) delivers only around 300 I. U. of vitamin D per day. We cannot overdose on vitamin D made from sunlight. If necessary during the winter month, we can supplement our diet with a small single capsule to provide a couple of thousands of I. U of vitamin D supplying more than S.A.D daily food intake alone. Nonetheless, most of us have ample time during the year when the sun intensifies enough to synthesize plenty of vitamin D.
PRINCIPAL # 9- AVOID MALADAPTION, i.e., STUPID MISTAKES
The modern environment has desensitized us to the dangers of distraction and overstimulation and lulled us into a false sense of security. Likewise, our failure to cultivate hypervigilance and risk management, we sometimes misplace our keys, bump our head on the doorway, slip on the floor, or lose necessary paperwork. Maladaptive mistakes can diminish our work productivity, social harmony, and the general peace of mind and daily life. Generally, we have to be careful of zoning out and losing focus because of distractions. Our ancestors had to remain aware of potential dangers and their immediate environment, whether from a predator or a poisonous plant. By staying careful, mindful, and slowing down, we can not only accomplish more, but we can also avoid a fatal accident. Not practicing social distancing or wearing masks at appropriate times during a pandemic or texting while driving exists as modern examples of doing something that can cost us our life or another person’s life. Ultimately focusing on a single peak performance task at a time instead of trying to ‘multitask’ will reward us with increased productivity with fewer mistakes.
PRINCIPAL # 10- EXPAND YOUR BRAIN CAPACITY BY LEARNING, STUDYING, AND CREATING NEW THINGS AND IDEAS.
Our ancient ancestor’s general lifestyle contrasts sharply with our current specialized roles. Even though we have made our economic contribution to this new high-tech modern life by specializing, we have lost some valuable skills for just basic survival. Nurturing our mental health and overall well-being means that we have to use our brains in much broader ways of engaging in stimulating, exciting, and intellectual diversions. To this end, if we play games that challenge our memory and coordination like chess, crosswords or sudoku; learn a new language or how to play an instrument; read challenging literature or write one; learn to juggle, dance, play tennis, etc.—then we can re-energize our mental energy, health, and cognitive productivity.
In sum, we need to eat well, move frequently, remain vigilant, get sun, rest, work, play, and create to enhance our lifestyle and increase our life chances. Now that we know several paths to wellness, we have a working map of what our bodies fundamentally expect of us to live a quality life of abundant health and wellness.
A better world starts with us cultivating our better selves – a self-aware agent of change guided by self-compassion, self-determination, empathy for others, and moral conscience. Join my mailing list for my free ebook: 3 Movements for Energy, Calm and Immunity
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