Health

The Missing Links in Today's Society

It can seem like a daunting task knowing exactly what to eat how long to sleep what kind of training to do. Then you compound this with a plethora of biohacking techniques that have emerged over the past decade and have gotten ever more popular in the past few years. It can be an absolute minefield to navigate through all the opinions and different ideas behind every trick, tip, or technique. I myself have certain modalities from all of these that I use. I base it on research and experimentation. If something isn't feeling right after several months of doing it, I drop it. But it must be given a fair shake. This article is more of an opinion piece. I truly do believe that stress and lack of quality community are the Two biggest factors when looking at human health. All the special bio hacks we try, healthy as the they may be, in my opinion cannot hold a candle to the power that limiting stress and having a quality community with plenty of social interaction, can do for your health.

America was built on the backs of men who smoked cigarettes, drove without seatbelts, and had bacon for breakfast. If you miss your biohacking routine this morning - you’re gonna be okay. - Alex Hormozi

However, as great as all of these things are, whether that is ice baths, Peter Attia inspired cardio routines, grounding, Saladino’s carnivore diet and or one of the many other biohacking techniques that exist out there. Nothing compares to being able to deal with stress in a healthy way. I personally haven't the proof to back that statement up. It's hard to find studies that illustrate the impact of stress on longevity. However, we all have relatives from the “old country” who smoked and drank all their lives and outlived all their relatives who immigrated. There is something to be said about the power of not necessarily living a stress free life, for life will always have stresses. But knowing how to deal with that stress in a healthy way, now that is the key. To see stress for what it is and to let it idly pass you by instead of allowing it to consume you.

Another major factor in the health of people, is community. I swear I cannot stress the significance of having a healthy amount of social contact with people who share the same values as you. People who live close to eachother, who have a chance to see eachother regularly. A sense of community and belonging is incredibly invaluable to the soul and psyche of a human. This is why people in smaller towns and villages, have a semblance of belonging. People tend towards generosity when they live in a tight knit community. There's a certain number of people above which we humans can no longer connect with properly. “Dunbar's number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships—relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person”. And it makes sense. My father, a man I admire very much, always said, if you have 2 or 3 good friends, you are wealthy. In large cities we seem to treat people as liabilities, whereas in villages, everyone is an asset, because you can trust them, at least more than in a city. This heightened level of stress from living in large population centres, has detrimental effects on humans, as we are more often in a fight and flight state. Bring able to wave high to familiar faces as you walk through town, stopping to have genuine conversations. This is what I'm talking about. I know the feeling when I go back to my home country, I cannot explain how nice it is to have these simple interactions. And this is all before the work day is even done. There's a good chance you'll end up at a café at night with a couple of colleagues, friends to simply unwind. This isn't even including the likely scenario that you'll be having dinner with your family as well.

We all know the feeling, when we arrive for our vacation in Europe. When we finish with the capital cities, and head to the countryside. Dotted with small villages and greenery. We get off the train platform or step out of the rental car. We are immediately hit with the feeling of “I could see myself living here”. Why is that? We are attracted to that feeling of a slower pace. We all know that person who says they couldn't live in a smaller town, “im a city kid at heart”. I call BS. Just like when an alcoholic is detoxing, his body revolts and the symptoms of detox will feel/seem worse than his constant state of inebriation. Until one day when it is finally out of his system and his body has finally returned to equilibrium, he feels better again. Well the same thing goes for those people who feel a sense of anxiety without all the stimulation of a big city. They are in a way experiencing the same captor symptoms as that alcoholic, only with the overstimulation of the city, and the stress response that comes with it.

I could go on about this for many a stanza. The point being. If we simply limit stress by removing many unnecessary things from our lives. Learn how to respond to stress. And finally focus on building a good community, with which we have genuine social interaction. I strongly believe that we can change our physiology and can trigger one of the strongest positive vectors in our health. Not everything is measureable. Not everything can be quantified. This is what people stuck in the dogma of scientific study have a hard time wrapping their bonces around. I understand the desire to quantify, and boy would it be cool if we could graph it. But is it really necessary? We all know and are inherently drawn to the two simple concepts of lowering stress and increasing quality community. It's a gut instinct that feels right.

Our ancestors wrote very little about anxiety, depression, obesity, and suicide. They left little in the way of works in which these were even mentioned. They had much more demanding lives physically, and war was an ever prevalent theme in the day to day. Life was more “dangerous”. When we've all moved on, there will be such a repository of work on the aforementioned ailments, it will pop up everywhere. But why? Surely our lives are better, more stable, of higher quality than our “unsophisticated” and backwards ancestors. I think it simply boils down to the fact that they didn't have overstimulation. They didn't absorb nearly as much information, and definitely not as much needless information.

Information scientists have quantified all this: In 2011, Americans took in five times as much information every day as they did in 1986—the equivalent of 174 newspapers. - Telegraph UK

This is just a change from 1986 to 2011. Imagine the change from 1900 to 2023 present day. We are obscenely over stimulated with complete nonsense and are in withdrawal every time we distance our selves from it. How often do you catch yourself scrolling aimlessly in bed before sleep, and keep convincing yourself that the next reel or the next YouTube clip will be the one to satisfy your need for dopamine. But it never comes.

Our ancestors also had a genuine sense of community and belonging. They had a solid sense of what it means to be part of a collective of people who at least to some extent cared about them. Of course you had the occasional jealous neighbour, but everyone knew eachother. In large cities you can and do go days without seeing anyone familiar. It is not conducive to a healthy life.

A fantastic example of this concept is the film “Happy People” by Werner Herzog. The film depicts the everyday life of a group of people who live in the isolated village of Bakhta located in the Eastern Siberian Taiga. It places a focus on Russian trappers, who hunt for animals such as sable and fish mainly for the furs and protein they provide. The movie places and emphasis on these people's day-to-day life and how they are self-reliant. The village has a total of 300 residents in its harsh subarctic climate. When one watches this movie they quickly begin to understand that the movie inevitably is about the happiness of simplicity. From my observations it is actually a documentary about how challenges foster content. The harder the life and the less muddied with over complications and intricacies, the happier we become.

An interesting analysis, called “Rat Park” by Dr Bruce Alexander, highlights the importance of community in ones pursuit of true happiness. The study highlights the understanding that addiction is about far more than any drug. That a person, or animal in his studies, is an active ingredient in their interaction with a drug. To put this hypothesis to the test he placed rats in what he dubbed “rat parks”, where they were free to roam, play, and to socialize with other rats. One of the parks had none of the above socialization methods. Both of the parks had drug laced bottles placed in them. The miraculous findings of this were that when rats were able to socialize and enjoy the company of other rats, they preferred the plain water as opposed to the drug laced water. This is to say that when we have a sense of community and belonging we become less self-destructive.

The answer then it seems, is to downsize. Now I'm not talking about some hippie idea of minimalist living. But I like to be objective in my observations of ideas and give them a fair shake. And truth be told, they aren't completely ridiculous. Downsizing the amount of stimulation you have in a day is a great step in lowering stress. Building resilience to stress by practicing non reactionary methods is also key and should accompany the downsizing. Cut out the podcast during every moment of silence you observe. Be present in the silence and relax. Also, limiting your circle of friends to those who you truly bond with, is highly beneficial. Not all of us can just pick up and leave the city, but having that as a longer term goal isn't a bad idea. Lastly, having a purpose is one of the keys to true happiness. For it is not the destination, but the journey and many of us have our sites fixed on some glorious and goal that will solve all of our problems.

Welcome weary traveller. The road I take it, was long and fraught with peril. Here you may rest your head. - Project Lazarus