Are We Just *Modern Zoo Animals*? The Ancestral Mismatch (Part 1)

Hey, it's Ben Greenfield. Every week I release a quick podcast with some meaningful thoughts that hopefully make your life better. And this is it. If you would like these thoughts delivered straight into your email inbox, go to bengreenfieldlife.com/newsletter. And when you do that, you can also get access to leave comments, leave thoughts, leave your feedback, because I love to hear what you think. Alright, let's dive in. Over the past several videos, I've given you my perspective on the biohacking and longevity scene. I've noted the emptiness and time wasting that can result from a vain pursuit of immortality, a pursuit you often see in the advanced health optimization world. So, does that mean that you and I should just basically walk away from the notion of, say, stem cells and red light therapy and hyperbaric oxygen, peptides, or other so-called anti-aging modalities or biohacking modalities? Well, not necessarily, but it does mean that we should focus on what gives us the most bang for our buck from a health standpoint. Namely, the biohacking and health optimization industry doesn't really like the term I'm about to use. I'll use it anyway. The basics. Yes, the basics. Don't please stop paying attention because you suspect I'm now about to tell you to start eating fewer Twinkies and Debbie's snack cakes, and to hit the gym occasionally. I want to instead tell you about a few basic concepts that are slightly lesser known than don't eat junk and move more. Concepts that are founded upon the idea of an ancestral mismatch. So what's an ancestral mismatch? Well, think about it this way. We live in a comfy, post-industrial, technology-infused era that looks and operates nothing like the environment our ancestors lived in for most of history. And yet our biology is still remarkably similar to our ancestors. Um, for example, rather than experiencing the pressure involved with hunting and foraging and farming and gardening, most of us don't have to burn significant calories to find, make, or grow calories. Instead, we have 24/7 access to hyperpalatable foods. Yet we retain these robust calorie conservation mechanisms that in previous eras might have bestowed us with extra storage fat for surviving a time of famine but now just make us overweight or obese or inflamed. Um, rather than experiencing the beneficial thermal stress of working outdoors in the winter, sweating outdoors in the summer, we largely live and work and sleep and drive and fly in comfortable temperature-controlled boxes. Uh, rather than hauling rocks and building fences and planting crops and chasing prey, we now mostly Zoom and thumb type. Rather than eating seasonally with significant plant-based dietary diversity, we now eat iceberg lettuce salads with tomatoes and mini carrots drowned in ranch dressing that we didn't even have to personally ranch. Uh, now don't get me wrong, I don't think a time machine reversion to some pre-industrial, pre-agricultural, or pre-technological living is a palatable idea. Um, ancient humans probably would have drooled at the prospect of having the world's entire library of information on their desktop, a thousand digital servants in a small black pocket rectangle, and ceaseless access to a pint of Chunky Monkey. In the nearby freezer. Um, but in our privileged first-world existence, we've traded the acute struggles of the caveman, like wild animals and famine and pestilence and Viking invaders, with the chronic diseases of modernity, like obesity and diabetes and heart disease and microplastic invaders. So in that respect, we're a little bit like zoo animals. So zoo animals die of an entirely different set of diseases, like metabolic disorders and depression and cardiovascular complications, compared to their wild counterparts. And we humans are not much different. So now that you know you're surrounded by a mismatch of ample overprocessed calories, and unless you're lucky enough to have a side job in construction or painting or farming, probably not engaged in a lifestyle for which you're adequately loading your joints, stressing your bones, or moving your muscles in a primal fashion, how do you fight the uphill battle against the biological entropy that contributes to frailty and chronic disease? We could start by understanding that comfort gradually kills, or as my friend Gary Brecka says, aging is the aggressive pursuit of comfort. And based on that, choose to embrace short, consistent, strategically timed bouts of discomfort. These bouts, also known as hormetic stressors, are based on the idea that what would harm or kill you in large amounts induces some cellular resilience in small amounts. For example, after you lift heavy things repeatedly, your muscles look a little bit like World War II inside. And too much of that intense damage, like 3 hours of the gym, can cause organ stress and excess soreness. But small bouts of it can induce muscle growth and bone density. Cardiovascular stress in excess strains your heart and stiffens your arteries, but in consistent moderate doses induces a stronger heart and better blood flow. Your body handles a single 30-mile run far differently than, say, 10 3-mile runs adequately spaced out. Getting too hot for too long could cause electrolyte depletion and damage brain cells, but short, frequent bouts of sauna have been shown to reduce all-cause risk of mortality. That's reduced risk of dying from anything except maybe your sauna collapsing in on you. Treading water in a frigid river in December or hiking Mount Everest in your underwear could cause hypothermia and nervous system strain, but short, frequent bouts of cold exposure may improve your metabolism and burn fat and maintain cognitive sharpness. Massive doses of UVA and UVB radiation from too much sunlight could cause skin cancer, but regular reasonable sunlight exposure is one of the best things you can do for cellular energy production. Here's another one. Unlike animals, plants don't have hooves or teeth or nails or claws or antlers, so they defend themselves with toxic compounds like gluten or lectin or soap-like irritants called saponins that, if consumed in high amounts, could cause a mammal like you to poop out the plant seeds elsewhere or or at least not return to that plant and eat it out of oblivion. Uh, you know this if you've ever witnessed undigested corn kernels and kale shreds and potato skins or quinoa in your toilet bowl. But those same toxins consumed in small amounts can make your immune system more resilient and your gut bacteria more diverse. Uh, if you fast with no food for days or weeks on end, you'll get weak, you'll experience muscle atrophy, you'll run out of energy to accomplish anything meaningful, And yet going for 10 to 16 hours without food on a regular basis, like implementing a daily dinner to breakfast 12-hour fast, can give your gut a much-needed rest and accelerate your body's own cellular cleanup processes. So once you understand this concept of hormesis, it becomes simple to weave small bouts of hormetic stress into your average day. Lift heavy stuff sometimes. Get breathless each day by tackling the stairs instead of the elevator or walking a hill. Don't stuff Your face 24/7. Sweat regularly. Finish the last 30 seconds of your shower with cold water, or do the whole thing cold. Eat a wide variety of plants. Get outside in the sunlight, even on a cloudy day, for an hour or two. In summary, end every day having subjected yourself to mild amounts of discomfort throughout. But battling the ancestral mismatch doesn't stop there. So in my next video, I'll explain how to tweak specific environmental variables to build your own kind of blue zone of health and longevity in your own home and office. Uh, in the meantime, leave your questions, your comments, your feedback right here where you're watching this video. Subscribe if you like it, helps to support the channel. Um, let me know what you think about this whole idea of an ancestral mismatch. I'm Ben Greenfield. Thanks for watching.