Why being healthy is a bit challenging these days? PART – 1
One of my school teachers said, “Keep your body fit, and your mind becomes fit”. Is it true?
As per Evolutionary Psychology, the Prefrontal cortex is the last developed part of the human brain. It is the main part that is responsible for the decision making in humans. The evolution of the most used parts keeps happening at a faster pace, whereas the evolution of the less used parts happens at a slower pace. It is the truth that all of us know.
Thus we are growing more intellectually strong with the brain but growing weaker at the fitness of the human body. The mind is the DECISION-MAKING part of the human, and the body is the EXECUTOR of the decisions. So the purpose of the body is to execute the ideas of the mind.
In the evolutionary process, when humans were hunter-gatherers, they just needed to take care of the food for the body & safety of their territory. As a result, they either died of animal attacks or natural deaths. They never knew about OBESITY & DIABETES.
When they didn’t get enough food or their territory got occupied, they only knew how to run for food or fight for the territory. So their body was fit, and thus their brain was fit. They could think clearly. This is what happens when our brain is fed with KETONES during a fasting state. It gives clarity to the mind. Thus they could hunt well in the jungle. We have been living like this for ages, millions of years. So our body still follows the old principles.
Now that we have acquired the modern lifestyle in the recent 1000 years, we have created an illusion that our life is under threat if we don’t have enough resources like power, knowledge, or money. Thus we started restricting ourselves to Indoors to accumulate the above resources though we have survived without some of these resources for many years. But, the matter of fact is, our bodies are designed to move and stay outdoors.
As per human physiology, all our human organ systems work efficiently, living in natural spaces as our grandfathers lived. All human hormones work based on Sunlight & connectedness with the external natural world like light, temperature, sound. Thus pushing ourselves into a stressful mode is Chronic, which was just momentary for a few hours or days for our ancestors.
What happens now?
The Sympathetic Nervous System gets activated under Chronic stress, spikes the Cortisol, the stress hormone. Our ancestors were under stress when they didn’t have food to eat or when their territory got occupied, for which they hunted or fought. After the hunt, they take good night sleep as the body gets tired, giving enough rest to the body. Thus ending the story.
Now we think we make stress as Chronic stress, and instead of moving our body more, we are moving it less. Our bodies, when they don’t move, loses their balance, do not get tired. This disturbs the sleep pattern, which pushes the body and mind into further stressful mode. Thus the body goes into Chronic stress mode.
Cortisol spikes blood sugar levels & they continuously remain high, raising the insulin levels, thus causing Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes.
Now, what do we do?
We think these resources, power, and money can solve our problems as our brain loses clarity & Prefrontal Cortex shuts down in stress, then we make poor decisions. So instead of moving our body a bit more, we move it a little less than needed, which is against the laws of nature.
Our bodies are designed to move, staying outdoors & brains are designed to take risks. Thus as we tend to move the body a bit less, we are putting our health at risk. When we are not taking risks with our brains, we are not using it up to the potential.
Thus, our bodies gradually gain around 0.5 – 1 kg every year, visible only after 5-6 years.
Also, due to overthinking, our brain entertains over 50,000 thoughts per day as per research, which depletes our ATTENTION and creates a monkey mind that cannot focus on any thought and keeps jumping. This creates a phenomenon called ATTENTION FRAGMENTATION—this leads to poor DECISION MAKING.
This may be the main reason for an unhealthy body leading to an unbalanced mind.
How to deal with this?
You may start working with your mind when your body is under stress and work with your body when the mind is under stress.
E.g. If I am gaining weight, rather than working out, it’s better to get enough sleep, take a rest, trying to understand the root cause, as weight gain is just the effect, not the cause.
If I am mentally stressed out, start working with my body & sweating out releases Dopamine, Serotonin.
Thus improves my sleep and stabilizes my mind.
What do you say?
We’ll discuss in detail about How to be healthy in the next article.
References:
The Paleo Manifesto – John Durant
The Obesity Code – Jason Fung
Perfect Health Diet – Paul Jaminet
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