{"id":8925,"date":"2016-05-16T10:45:34","date_gmt":"2016-05-16T14:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alifeofproductivity.com\/?p=8925"},"modified":"2021-12-03T18:22:10","modified_gmt":"2021-12-03T18:22:10","slug":"living-like-a-caveman-for-a-month-experiment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chrisbailey.com\/living-like-a-caveman-for-a-month-experiment\/","title":{"rendered":"Here’s what I learned living like a caveman for a month"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\t\t\t
Takeaway:<\/b> Modern humans evolved from hunter-gatherers over the last 2.5 million years. Because of this, we thrive best when we adopt some of our ancestors\u2019 habits: getting enough physical activity, sunshine, social interaction, sleep, and nutrition. I wanted to find out how living the life my body was programmed for would affect my productivity. As an experiment, I lived like a caveman for the month of April\u2014eating like a caveman, sleeping on the floor, doubling the amount of sunlight I got each day, and walking and running 8 to 14.5 kilometers a day. While modern society values convenience over health, it’s worth adopting these ancient habits to improve our energy levels. As I found, they have a bigger impact on our health, happiness, and productivity than we realize.<\/span><\/p>\n

Estimated Reading Time:<\/strong> 15 minutes, 24s. It’s a longer one, but I promise it’s worth your time.<\/span><\/div><\/div>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t
This article is on the longer side, so I also put together a downloadable PDF<\/a> of it, in case that’s more convenient.<\/div><\/div>\n

\"cathedral-cove-1379171\"<\/p>\n

Why we’re built the way we are<\/strong><\/h1>\n

I find history boring.<\/strong> Back in high school, I always tried to avoid studying the subject, opting to take electives like economics and business instead. I usually gloss over the history of pretty much anything when I\u2019m reading a book or article. But there is one aspect of history that I find absolutely fascinating: evolution.<\/p>\n

Modern humans evolved from hunter-gatherers over the last 2.5 million years, so our bodies are custom-built to thrive in the wild. In fact, whenever we’re wondering why we have some weird trait on our body, we can almost always look back to our evolution for the answer. For example, we shiver\u00a0when we’re cold because rapidly contracting our muscles generates heat\u2014a helpful feature when we had to survive cold nights outdoors. Eyebrows may seem like superfluous decoration, but they whisk away sweat from our eyes\u2014a helpful feature when we were attacking prey or escaping from a saber-toothed tiger. We have fur<\/span> hair on our heads because most of our body heat escapes from there\u2014and because hair protected us from the desert sun.1<\/a><\/sup> Our bodies are a weird mishmash of features, but most of them serve a purpose, if only in some small way.<\/p>\n

\"bythenumbers\"Our brains and bodies, on the other hand, have barely evolved over the last hundred thousand years. All the while, our living environment has changed completely as we\u2019ve invented tools to improve our lives.2<\/a><\/sup> We may have started off rubbing sticks and flint together to make fire, but we very quickly created language, the wheel, surgical instruments, automobiles, contraceptives, telescopes, and transistors. Over the last 10,000 years\u2014especially since the agricultural revolution 9,000 years ago, and the industrial revolution last century\u2014we’ve molded a new world. But like a concrete statue, our bodies remain frozen in time. We’re stuck in a world full of light bulbs, fast food restaurants, and the internet, with bodies custom-built to hunt down prey, survive for days without food, and flee from saber-toothed tigers.<\/p>\n

Evolutionary psychologists refer to this as a “mismatch”\u2014a bodily feature that used to serve a purpose, but sets us back today; one that is “mismatched” to the living environment we’ve created for ourselves. This can make living life tough. For example, take:<\/p>\n