I detail the five lifestyle laws of the Primal Blueprint: Law #6, Get Plenty of Sleep; Law #7, Play; Law #8, Get Plenty of Sunlight; Law #9, Avoid Stupid Mistakes; and Law #10, Use Your Brain. While Grok’s diet and exercise patterns were clearly major influences in shaping how his (and our) genes evolved, there were other environmental and behavioral forces that were no less important in perfecting the DNA recipe for a healthy, vibrant human being.
Law #6, Get Plenty of Sleep, delivers obvious benefits but is widely compromised today. Good sleep entails understanding the basic physiology of sleep cycles, establishing consistent habits, minimizing artificial light and digital stimulation after dark, taking advantage of the benefits of napping, and effectively prioritizing your time. Law #7, Play, is a widely neglected lifestyle law that can deliver widespread benefits and make you quantifiably more productive when balanced effectively with work. Law #8, Get Plenty of Sunlight, is an area where conventional wisdom has let us down, scaring us into avoiding the outdoors due to misinterpreted risks of skin cancer. Obtaining optimal levels of vitamin D, synthesized from sun exposure on your skin, is critical to cellular health and cancer prevention.
Law #9, Avoid Stupid Mistakes, explains how our obsessive desire to control or eliminate all sources of potential danger has made us lazy and inattentive. Cultivating the skills of vigilance and risk management is essential to avoid self-inflicted trauma and unnecessary suffering. Law #10, Use Your Brain, is about pursuing creative intellectual outlets unrelated to your core daily responsibilities and economic contribution. Finding more stuff to do with your brain may seem counterintuitive to many of us who feel our brain function and mental energy is maxed out each day. However, the unrelenting pace of modern life and intense pressure to achieve and consume strongly conflict with our genetic makeup and can lead to feelings of restlessness and discontent. Making time for hobbies and personal growth challenges will keep you feeling refreshed and excited about life.
—Woody Allen
For billions of years, nearly all life forms on Earth evolved to be biologically in sync with the consistent rising and setting of the sun. This circadian rhythm (from Latin: circa, meaning “around” and dia, meaning “day”) governs our sleeping and eating patterns, as well as the precise timing of important hormone secretions, brain wave patterns, and cellular repair and regeneration based on a 24-hour cycle. When we interfere with our circadian rhythm via excessive artificial light and digital stimulation after sunset, irregular bed and wake times, jetlag, graveyard shift work, and alarm clocks, we disrupt some of the very processes we depend upon to stay healthy, happy, productive, and focused.
Conventional wisdom usually recommends seven to eight hours of sleep per night, but optimizing sleep is not as simple as that. In Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival, authors T. S. Wiley (anthropologist and medical theorist) and Bent Formby, Ph.D. (biochemist, biophysicist, molecular biologist) emphasize the importance of syncing your sleep with your circadian rhythm; they recommend getting nine-and-a-half hours per night during the darker months of the year, with less sleep acceptable during the long daylight hours of summer. Obviously, the variation in your sleep duration by season will be more extreme the farther you live from the equator.
In addition to obtaining the requisite number of hours, your sleep must be of high quality—not hampered by a disruptive environment, objectionable medications or foods, or behaviors that elevate stress hormone production (vigorous exercise, digital screen use, or other high stimulation) in the hours before bed. Calm, quiet, dark evenings, and consistent bed and wake times, are critical factors for high-quality sleep.
Sleep was long thought to be a passive state, but we now understand sleep to be a dynamic process. The brain is active during sleep (but responding to internal stimuli, not external), and it drifts in and out of various sleep stages in a cyclical pattern. Our natural sleep cycle oscillates between stages of lighter sleep (Stage 1, the transition from wake to sleep; and rapid eye movement, or REM, when you experience vivid dreams and can be woken easily) and deeper sleep (Stage 2 and slow-wave sleep, together called non-REM sleep, when you are out like a light and experience maximum restorative hormone flow, rebalancing of brain chemicals, and cellular repair in muscles and organs). This cycling of non-REM into REM, back and forth, is repeated throughout the night, with each complete cycle lasting about 90 minutes.
If you divide your night’s sleep into three equal time periods, the highest percentage of non-REM sleep occurs in the first third, while the final third of your sleep time is characterized by a lengthening of the REM cycles and a shortening of the deep sleep cycles. The middle third is a balance between the first and the last. Waking up naturally involves letting the cycles play out until finally, after a period of exclusive REM sleep, you wake up effortlessly. REM sleep is characterized by increases in heart rate, respiration, and muscle and brain wave activity, making it easy to rise from this more alert state.
The sleep hormone melatonin presides over you falling asleep and going through the sleep cycles. Melatonin is manufactured in the pineal gland near the center of the brain. As light diminishes, the pineal starts to convert the feel-good hormone serotonin, which has kept your mood elevated all day (and which is why so many of us take SSRI meds—to avoid depleting serotonin), to increasing amounts of melatonin. This process is called dim light melatonin onset (DLMO), and its effects include relaxing brain waves and muscles, lowering your blood pressure, reducing your body temperature, slowing your heart rate and respiration, and ultimately coaxing you toward sleepiness. After sleep, with the morning light stimulating your central nervous system, melatonin production is suppressed and serotonin begins to increase, along with cortisol, to help you transition to a wakeful state. As the hormone balance shifts, you wake feeling mentally and physically refreshed and ready to face the day.
At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work. In our modern world, evenings of artificial light and digital stimulation wildly disrupt these light-sensitive hormones. When your retinas get blasted with artificial light after sunset, melatonin production is suppressed while stress hormone levels are elevated. This gives you that familiar second wind of energy and alertness to crank through your email inbox or Netflix queue. Right at the time when your body should be feeling sleepy, the influx of light-triggered stress hormones keeps you wired, prompts sugar cravings, and, hormonally, kicks you into fat storage mode.
The quality of light matters, too. Light bulbs, computers, televisions, smartphone screens, and other electronic gadgets all emit blue light—a vivid hue on the electromagnetic spectrum that can spike cortisol, suppress melatonin, increase insulin production, hamper leptin signaling, and spike ghrelin. Chronic blue light exposure after dark dramatically impacts your sleep quality and makes you more vulnerable to oxidative damage, accelerated aging, and fatigue. It can even increase your risk for certain cancers and degenerative eye disease.
We are all well aware that sleep is an indispensable component of proper immune and metabolic functioning, growth, and tissue and muscle repair; that it’s critical for cognitive and social functioning, memory, and emotional wellbeing; and that a good night’s sleep feels fantastic. Unfortunately, we are egregiously disregarding the importance of sleep in modern life. Study after study show that an increasing number of Americans are seriously sleep deficient. A 2013 Gallup poll found that American adults get an average of 6.8 hours of sleep nightly, compared to 7.9 hours in 1942, and 40 percent reported getting 6 or fewer hours per night. According to a 2011 survey from the National Sleep Foundation (NSF), over 60 percent of American adults believe they are not getting enough sleep, with about the same number reporting that they have problems sleeping “every night or almost every night.” Furthermore, the NSF recently reported that according to their parents, 29 percent of 12- to 14-year-olds and 56 percent of 15- to 17-year-olds get 7 hours of sleep or less per night—much less than their growing brains and bodies need. All in all, the numbers point to a serious sleep problem in this country.
Chronic sleep deficit may lead to weight gain by affecting how your body processes and stores carbohydrates and by altering hormones that affect your appetite and metabolism. It can negatively impact your mood, concentration, and memory retention during the day, making you less productive and more irritable and impatient. Insufficient sleep can also lead to hypertension, elevated stress hormone levels, irregular heartbeat, compromised immune function, and drastically increased risk for obesity and heart disease. Irregular sleep patterns are implicated in some cancers (for example, among night shift workers).
Our natural (or actually I should say, “learned”) inclination to be constantly entertained is difficult to balance with our need for adequate restoration. It’s not until we are truly exhausted that sleep moves up the hierarchy of wants and needs. It shouldn’t be that way. Sure, you can get away with some occasional departures from your routine with no ill effects. Just as with your dietary choices, if you are able to observe a consistent bedtime 80 percent of the time, the 20 percent of the time when you stay up late, wake up super early, or otherwise skimp on perfect rest won’t be as dangerously taxing on your body. On the other hand, if you consistently disrespect healthy sleep habits, you create momentum in the wrong direction and will struggle to achieve basic health and fitness goals, especially losing excess body fat.
In today’s hectic, overscheduled world, adults (and unfortunately children, too) sacrifice sleep to squeeze in one more activity, a few chores, another hour or two of work, or just one more TV episode. Sleep is easy to forgo because it feels less important in the moment than finishing up that work project, say, and because being tired the next day seems a small price to pay. Of course, the price of chronically skimping on sleep is much greater than that, as you now know. And on the flip side, getting sufficient high-quality sleep can help facilitate all the other things we want to do during the day by sharpening our cognitive faculties, allowing our body to build muscle and recover from illness and injury, and generally warding off the fatigue that makes it hard to get motivated to get going.
If you are not getting enough sleep, it is imperative that you find concrete ways to carve out more sleep time, whether that means signing out of your work email every evening at a certain time, shortening your early morning workouts, or dropping out of that late-night indoor soccer league. I know this is easier said than done for many, and it might mean making some hard choices, but it an absolutely crucial step if you want to take charge of your health. Now is the time to make steps in the right direction.
Here are some important measures you can take to get optimum amounts of high-quality sleep. Visit MarksDailyApple.com for more discussion on this topic, including some helpful tips to beat jetlag.
Minimize Artificial Light and Digital Stimulation after Dark: Limiting your nighttime exposure to bright, artificial lights and digital stimulation should be your first line of defense for improving sleep quality. Ideally, you should shut off blue-light emitting screens—like your smartphone, computer, TV, or tablet—two hours before bedtime (at the bare minimum, one hour). If you must work on a computer or check your email on your smartphone after sunset, download the free software program f.lux (available for all platforms at justgetflux.com) to adjust the color temperature of your electronic screens and synchronize with the ambient light of your environment. If you are an iPhone or iPad user, Apple has gotten wise to the problems of blue light at night and in March, 2016, added to its latest operating system a feature called “Night Shift,” which automatically changes the quality of the light emitted from your device at night to make it less disruptive to your circadian rhythm. Other devices have similar features. Activate this in your device settings (but still make an effort to power down your electronics well before bedtime).
As much as possible, favor candlelight or firelight soon after sundown, or switch out some of your harsh, regular light bulbs for orange “insect” bulbs (available at hardware/home supply stores) to create a similar effect. Consider getting a pair of yellow- or orange-tinted UV protection glasses to wear indoors at night, which will ensure the light reaching your eyes falls in the red-orange-yellow spectrum (which, unlike blue light, doesn’t interfere with melatonin production).
Screens are off in the final hour before bedtime, and I’ll wind down with a good book and some mellow yellow lenses before lights out.
Create an Ideal Sleeping Environment: It’s critical to make your bedroom an area of minimal stimulation and maximum relaxation. Your bedroom should be used only for sleeping (well, okay, that other stuff, too), with absolutely no computer, television, work desk, or clutter. Aim for complete darkness, and eliminate nightlights and LED screen emissions, and even small lights from power indicators and phone chargers. (You can keep a flashlight by the bed for the times you need to get up.) Keep the room temperature in the range of 60-68°F (16-20°C); we’re hardwired to sleep in colder temperatures. You should have a clear physical and psychological separation between your bedroom and other areas of the house where you do work or enjoy entertainment. Browse the Internet or page through design magazines to get a feeling for the beauty of contemporary, minimalist bedroom styles.
Follow Consistent Bed and Wake Times: Establish a consistent, circadian-rhythm-friendly routine to optimize hormone flows and ensure that you enjoy sufficient sleep cycles (which might mean gradually altering your bedtime and wake-time to align with the changing of seasons). Remember that melatonin floods your bloodstream on circadian cues triggered by darkness. For 2.5 million years, that meant sunset; today it means the time that you make it dark. You experience the highest percentage of deep sleep at the outset of your night. Sorry, but if you miss bedtime, sleeping in to reach your typical hourly total will not completely catch you up.
If you are a night owl, you can probably develop some level of tolerance for a consistent, artificial-light-induced late-night bedtime and an artificially darkened late-morning awakening. If circumstances such as shift work require that your sleep habits depart from the Earth’s natural light and dark cycles, make a strong effort to sleep with an eye mask (check mindfold.com for a total darkness sleep mask) in a completely darkened room, since all of your skin cells (not just your eyes) are sensitive and responsive to light.
Wind Down the Night and Ease into the Day: It’s important to wind down calmly in the hours preceding your bedtime. Minimize your central nervous system stimulation before going to bed so you can have a smooth, relaxing transition from your busy day to downtime. Take an evening stroll with the dog, enjoy some mellow hobbies like drawing or board games, or chat with loved ones. Reading is a time-tested popular method to wind down, but choose fiction or something light to promote maximum relaxation; stay far away from disturbing news or work-related documents.
It may also be helpful to decompress your busy brain by jotting down your thoughts before bed. Take 5 or 10 minutes to write out everything from your day—accomplishments, stresses, and concerns—as well as goals or to-dos for the following day. This is especially helpful if you are troubled by a problem. It’s easier to arrive at solutions if you don’t try consciously to force them. Get your worries down on paper, and then let your sleeping mind do the work for you. You’ll wake up feeling clearer and more positive.
No day is so bad it can’t be fixed with a nap.
—Carrie Snow
Stand-up comedian
In the morning, awaken gradually and naturally (which means ditching disruptive alarms as much as possible). Staying in bed for a few minutes to read or talk (“Again, your name was... ?”), or starting your day with some light breathing and stretching exercises, is preferable to springing up after a blaring alarm and rushing into action. Resist the urge to check your phone or email first thing in the morning, as exposure to news or personal communication can trigger a stress response and throw you into a reactive, overstimulated mode. A brief warm shower can help stimulate your central nervous system naturally and get blood circulating—a particularly good idea if you are going to exercise soon after awakening. Enjoying a cup of herbal tea, taking the dog out for a walk, stepping outside for some fresh air, stretching in the morning sunlight, or engaging in another calming ritual can help you welcome the day in a more pleasant way. Hard-core Grok disciples can even try a cold-water plunge upon awakening in the summer months—beats a high-carb breakfast any day as a morning energizer!
Eat and Drink the Right Stuff: Eat your last meal a couple hours or more before bed so digestion does not interfere with your sleep process. Forget the popular magazine blather about dosing with carbs before bed (insulin hampers melatonin release) or eating tryptophan rich foods like nuts or turkey to facilitate sleep. The best sleep aid is to have your digestive system relaxed in the hours before bed. This is especially true for alcohol consumption. Even casual drinkers might unknowingly suffer from compromised sleep cycles due to the delayed effects of metabolizing alcohol consumed earlier in the evening. Consider an abstention experiment (I detailed my own at MarksDailyApple.com) and see if you sleep more soundly. If you have trouble falling asleep or enjoy a bedtime ritual involving tea, chamomile in particular is touted for its mild sedative effect.
Historically, many cultures across the world have long had a great appreciation for naptime, especially in warm-weather countries in Latin America, Asia, the Mediterranean, North Africa, and the Middle East. Unfortunately, it seems the fast pace of modern life (combined, perhaps, with some weird puritanical guilt factors) prevents napping from being a culturally acceptable lifestyle habit in many places today. Developing a habit of taking downtime when you need it can help you stay happy, productive, and stress-balanced throughout the day. If you have obstacles that hamper your evening sleep, napping can become essential to preserve your health. Even if you have minimal complaints about your nighttime sleep, a routine afternoon nap can help give you a significant productivity boost that you may not even realize you need and deserve.
Develop the awareness and the discipline to go down for 20 minutes and perhaps up to 90 minutes when you experience daytime sleepiness.
The reality is, we are all hard-wired to nap! You have undoubtedly experienced that post-lunch dip in energy levels where you feel sleepy and it’s hard to focus on your work. This doesn’t happen just because you ate too much; it is a natural part of your circadian rhythm. We all experience a lull somewhere around 2:00 P.M. (We experience a similar dip around 2:00 A.M., but hopefully you don’t notice because you are asleep.) In fact, scientists call the period of the early afternoon, between 1:00 and 3:00, the “nap zone,” and some cite this as evidence that we are biologically programmed to be biphasic sleepers (to sleep in two distinct periods—a long sleep at night and a nap during the day).
In addition to the circadian rhythm, the sleep-wake cycle is governed by a process called the homeostatic sleep drive, or sleep pressure. Scientists believe that sleep pressure is specifically linked to slow-wave sleep—the deep, most restorative sleep. If you are deficient in slow-wave sleep, either because you have not slept well at night or because you have been awake and cranking away on your busy day for many hours, you will experience a lot of sleep pressure urging you to nod off. This could be another reason we desire a nap, especially in the afternoon, as sleep pressure builds throughout the day.
Many experts recommend a nap period of approximately 20 minutes in order to recharge and wake feeling rejuvenated. This is ideal for increasing alertness and improving motor functioning. However, naps of up to 90 minutes can be beneficial, especially if you are running behind on nighttime sleep. That’s a wide range, so it really should be left to personal preference how long your nap lasts. Ideally, you can set aside time for whatever duration nap you might need and awaken naturally when the time is right. Obviously, if your evening sleep habits are optimal, you will probably only need occasional 20-minute naps to get an “A” in sleep. If you are perennially exhibiting poor nighttime sleep habits, you may require frequent hour-long power sessions to get your brain, body, and immune system functioning optimally.
If your naps last up to an hour or beyond, chances are you will awaken to that familiar post-nap grogginess, officially called sleep inertia. The sensation can be unpleasant, especially as you might be eager to get up and going with your busy day after a nap. People often use sleep inertia as an excuse to skip naps, falsely believing that it can compromise your ability to fall asleep later in the evening. The truth is that sleep inertia isn’t bad—it just means you woke up from slow-wave sleep. If you just ride out that groggy feeling you will feel refreshed and ready to go in a matter of minutes. If you are worried about the folklore that suggests napping will interfere with your ability to fall asleep at night, fear not. Naps, even those fog-inducing deep sleep beauties, are unlikely to compromise your ability to fall asleep successfully.
If you plan correctly, you can actually nap strategically to reap specific benefits, according to Dr. Sara Mednick, one of the world’s leading sleep experts, a Harvard-trained psychologist currently a professor at UC Riverside, and author of Take a Nap—Change Your Life. Dr. Mednick explains that morning naps will contain proportionately more REM sleep than afternoon naps, which will contain more slow-wave sleep. For that reason, morning naps will be better for recharging creative thinking skills and solidifying emotional memories, while afternoon naps are better for reinforcing learning and improving cognitive function. If you time your nap to fall in the perfect “nap zone” and nap for a sufficient duration, you will get the best of both worlds.
Develop the awareness and the discipline to go down for 20 minutes and perhaps up to 90 minutes, any time you experience daytime sleepiness. Even better, prioritize a block of nap time in your daily schedule to improve productivity, alertness, and mental clarity. Even if you are not practiced in napping and feel like you are not able to fall asleep easily, routinely getting away from your normal high-stimulatory environment for a 20-minute rest period in a cool, quiet, dark setting can provide excellent restorative benefits. With practice, you will likely find yourself increasingly able to relax on demand and eventually become a pro at actually nodding off during your nap time. Consequently, you will join other luminaries throughout history known for their ability to unplug: Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Napoleon, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, and all five Kardashian sisters.
Art is older than production [making things for practical use] for us, and play older than work. Man was shaped less by what he had to do than by what he did in playful moments. It is the child in man that is the source of his uniqueness and creativeness.
—Eric Hoffer
American writer and philosopher (1902-1983)
Most people pay lip service to the fact that play—activities done just for the enjoyment they bring—is important for happiness and wellbeing, yet compliance with this primal law, even among health-minded people, is low. We have been so heavily socialized into regimented, technological, industrialized life that scheduling time for play (now there’s an oxymoron!) is a big challenge. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think the word playdate existed when I was a kid. Oh, we had play dates in my neighborhood, all right—365 of them, to be exact. They lasted from the final school bell till the dinner bell and were not deterred by mud, rain, sleet, or snow (no kidding, I’m from Maine!). We didn’t need our moms making transportation arrangements via e-mail or cell phone. We just needed air in our lungs, bike tires, and basketballs.
As the challenges and responsibilities of making a living or managing a family accumulate in our adult years, we collectively adopt the belief that play is for youth. The truth is that play is for everyone, and those absorbed in the incredible complexity and breakneck pace of modern life probably need it most of all. Regularly taking time away from work and domestic duties, school, and other grown-up responsibilities to express the childlike elements of your basic nature through play helps quench your thirst for adventure and challenge (physical and mental), improves health, relieves stress, strengthens your connection with friends and community, and simply enhances your enjoyment of life.
Learning disability specialist Dr. Lorraine Peniston enumerates many research-proven psychological benefits of play, including:
• Perceived sense of freedom, independence, and autonomy
• Enhanced self-competence through improved sense of self-worth, self-reliance, and self-confidence
• Better ability to socialize with others, including greater tolerance and understanding
• Enriched capabilities for team membership
• Heightened creative ability
• Improved expressions of and reflection on personal spiritual ideals
• Greater adaptability and resiliency
• Better sense of humor
• Enhanced perceived quality of life
• More balanced competitiveness and a more positive outlook on life
There is plenty of evidence attesting to the fact that we can be more productive when we carve out time for play in our busy schedules. A New Zealand study reported that following a vacation, people were 82 percent more productive and enjoyed enhanced quality of sleep—but 43 percent of Americans had no vacation plans in 2007 due to work pressures (and it’s probably worse now). A 2006 study described in the Sunday Times (England) noted that the percentage of married couples citing lack of quality time due to overwork as the basis for divorce had more than tripled in recent years, while the traditional leading reasons, such as violence and infidelity, dropped sharply. Australian research suggests that frequent breaks from a sedentary workday produce numerous health benefits, including weight control and favorable blood levels of triglycerides and glucose. There is also ample evidence that positive experiences such as enjoyable play boost your immune function, perhaps in part because they relieve stress, which is known to suppress the immune system and increase susceptibility to illness. For example, in one study published in Health Psychology, researchers found that positive leisure activities were associated with increased immune response, and the effects lasted several days. (On the flip side, negative experiences had the expected immunosuppressive effects, but they lasted only about a day.)
For the majority of us who move far less than we are genetically programmed to, busting loose outdoors, in fresh air and sunlight, for some relatively unstructured physical fun will produce the best physical and psychological benefits. If you are one of the few who have a physically demanding job, mellower pursuits (drawing trees in the park, skipping rocks in the pond) might indeed be the ticket.
We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
—George Bernard Shaw
Irish playwright and political activist (1856-1950)
My favorite activity of the week is a regular Sunday afternoon pick-up Ultimate Frisbee game with other hard-core Malibu locals. Ultimate is a great sport, requiring diverse athletic and strategic skills, and is fun for players of all ages and ability levels. I’d say it’s a safe sport, too, except for my freak accident that resulted in a serious knee injury in 2007—possibly attributed to a still-17-year-old brain directing a 54-year-old body to get some big air for a circus catch! Most important, my enjoyment of play time has prompted me to reframe my main reason for exercising: I train primally so I can play hard at whatever I want whenever I choose, whether it’s Ultimate, snowboarding, soccer, stand up paddling, or golf.
If you can take the spirit of this message to heart, you can make something happen that will change your life. Let’s be clear that I’m not advocating selling the shop and becoming a surf bum. All work and no play makes for a dull boy, but all play and no work makes for a foreclosure. Balance is important in all areas of life, and it’s up to you to define your level of work-play balance. It might help to keep this popular sentiment in mind: “No one ever said, ‘I wish I’d spent more time at work’ on their deathbed.”
REMEMBERING HOW TO PLAY
Perhaps adults don’t play more because they think they don’t know how. In childhood, play is natural and easy; children don’t overthink it. As adults, we are often uncertain how to proceed. At its essence, play is simply any activity you undertake purely because it is pleasurable. As you can imagine with such a broad definition, innumerable activities can qualify as play, and how you define it for yourself is highly individual. Play activities can be imaginative, creative, and spontaneous, or highly structured and planned. They can involve a lot of physical movement or very little. You can play indoors or outdoors, alone or with others. Play might or might not involve competition and/or cooperation. There are no rules here besides acknowledging that most of us lead largely indoor, sedentary, highly structured lives and might best balance our predictable daily routines with unstructured outdoor physical fun.
Most important of all is to discover what it is that you enjoy. Here are some ideas to get you started:
Follow the leader: If you have kids (or nieces, nephews, grandchildren, friends’ kids), take them outside or to the park and just do what they do. Swing, do the monkey bars, draw with chalk, blow bubbles, climb a tree, pretend you’re a dinosaur, whatever. Let go of any self-consciousness and release your inner child.
Play a game: There are a million ways to do this. You can start by revisiting simple games from your childhood, like tag or hide-and-go-seek (great fun in the woods!).
Be a groupie: Recreational sports teams, pick-up games, and training clubs (e.g., for cycling or running) are common in most areas, but there are many other kinds of teams and groups, too Join—or organize!—a local hiking club, or find a nature photography meet-up. Participate in Gishwhes, a massive international team scavenger hunt. Thanks to the Internet, it is easy to find others with similar interests and join a group either locally or virtually.
Just go outside and move: Walk. Run. Pedal. Skip. Wade. Swim. Play fetch with your dog. Splash in puddles. Dig in sand. Find a trail If you are in a big city, search online for walking tours of your area and play tourist for a day.
Unplug: Go out in nature with no electronics, just for a day or even better for several days. If you’re in a city, find a park. If you can, go camping. Even just being in your yard will do. Without your electronics to distract you, your innate ability to create your own fun will kick in.
Take it up a notch: Try something you’ve never done before, especially if it takes you out of your comfort zone. Perhaps check out one of my favorites, like slacklining or stand up paddle boarding Try snowshoeing, belly dancing, indoor rock climbing, or aerial yoga. Make it a social event by enlisting adventurous friends to join you.
While the dangers of excessive sun exposure are well recognized and heavily promoted by today’s medical community, it’s important to challenge conventional wisdom’s blanket statement to avoid the sun, or lather up with tons of sunscreen. Exposing large skin surface areas to sunlight enables your body to manufacture vitamin D, which helps regulate growth in virtually every cell of our bodies and prevent a variety of diseases. Vitamin D—which is technically a hormone rather than a vitamin—is essential for healthy teeth, nails, and bones, working in conjunction with other fat-soluble vitamins to promote skeletal development. It assists in the absorption of other key nutrients, such as calcium and vitamins A and C, and is a major player in proper immune function. It supports healthy pregnancies and fertility, triggers genes that produce mood-elevating beta-endorphins, stimulates serotonin and the regulation of circadian rhythms, and even improves fat metabolism. Vitamin D has also been shown to play a role in the prevention of breast, prostate, ovarian, pancreatic, and colorectal cancers, multiple sclerosis, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, dementia, hypertension, and inflammatory conditions, such as arthritis.
Intriguing new research suggests that vitamin D plays a role in regulating the expression of the p53 gene in skin cells. This is noteworthy because p53 acts as a spell-checker during each of the hundreds of millions of cell replications that occur each day, informing the cell when something has gone awry and instructing it to make necessary changes. Many scientists believe p53 is an important first line of defense against the kinds of mutations that can develop into cancers. The vitamin D regulatory network likely works alongside and in conjunction with p53, and together the two systems protect against cancer, including skin cancer, by suppressing tumor growth and defending against oxidative damage caused by ultraviolet radiation. That’s right, that means healthy sun exposure can prevent cancer, including malignant melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer. By contrast, fears about the less serious carcinoma (driven by overexposure of sensitive areas like the face) can be managed by habitually covering up or using a healthy sunscreen.
The bottom line is that generously exposing large skin surface areas of your body to direct sunlight during the times of day and year of peak solar intensity in your area is essential for health. Early humans spent hundreds of thousands of years absorbing powerful equatorial rays over their entire bodies every day. When we first migrated a significant distance away from the equator around 50,000 years ago (leaving the Levant—the present day Middle East—to venture into Europe), we evolved lighter skin pigmentation and hair over a relatively short evolutionary time period. This genetic adaptation enabling more vitamin D production under less intense sunlight was a matter of life or death for our ancestors—and it still is today.
Just as we’ve suffered devastating health consequences from the relatively recent shift in the human diet away from hunter-gatherer to grain-based, the same dynamic holds for our sun exposure—except this lifestyle alteration has been even more abrupt. Only in the last couple of centuries of industrialization have millions of people in the developed world gone for long periods of time with little to no direct sun exposure. And with an increasing tendency (especially among our younger generations) to stay inside fiddling on digital media instead of romping, frolicking, and otherwise exploring the great outdoors, our already dismal level of sun exposure is declining even further.
The problem is further compounded by the fact that when we do go outdoors, many of us take great pains to “protect” ourselves with high-SPF sunscreens (which are themselves laden with dubious chemicals), and by staying in the shade or covering most of our skin with clothing. It’s no surprise, then, that a 2009 study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found insufficient vitamin D levels in a full 77 percent of American participants—and similar figures are estimated for other sun-challenged urban population centers around the world.
Consequently, there has been an alarming increase in health problems related to vitamin D deficiency. The symptoms of vitamin D deficiency are not as overt as the disturbing image of scurvy-stricken sailors staggering around lacking vitamin C (which was, interestingly, partly a result of their high grain consumption), but the health consequences are devastating nonetheless. The risk increases for those with confined lifestyles (spent in the home, office, or auto—a la Ken Korg), those with dark skin living distant from the equator, children with vitamin-D-deficient mothers, the elderly, or people who are house- or hospital-bound. Recent research suggests that vitamin D levels also tend to be low in those with obesity and Metabolic Syndrome.
Dr. Joseph Mercola, Internet health advisor (mercola.com) and author of The No-Grain Diet, states:
The dangers of sun exposure have been greatly exaggerated and the benefits highly underestimated. Excess sun exposure is not the major reason people develop skin cancer (many believe poor diet, exposure to other environmental toxins such as swimming pool chlorine, and insufficient sun are more significant risk factors). [A study from the Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego suggested that] 600,000 cases of cancer could be prevented every year by just increasing your levels of vitamin D.
Granted, the “fell asleep slathered in baby oil at the beach” burn-and-peel ordeals are indeed bad news. Medical experts suggest that even a few severe sunburn episodes in your early years (who hasn’t fallen asleep on the beach or poolside as a teenager?!) can generate sufficient ultraviolet radiation damage to potentially lead to the development of carcinoma (less serious growths that are easily removed from skin surface) or melanoma (a more serious form of cancer) in later decades. But there is a happy medium between too much sun and too little.
Regular exposure of large skin surface areas to sunlight remains the primary way to obtain an ample amount of vitamin D.
Regular exposure of large skin surface areas (torso, arms, and legs) to sunlight during the months and times of day of peak solar intensity at your latitude remains the primary way to obtain an ample amount of vitamin D. For most lighter-skinned people, maintaining a slight tan indicates that you are obtaining optimal sun exposure, while a burn is, of course, unhealthy.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, even the healthiest diets provide inconsequential amounts of vitamin D compared to sun exposure. Vitamin D experts recommend you obtain around 4,000 International Units (I.U.) per day, but the SAD provides only around 300 I.U. per day, and the vaunted glass of milk provides only around 100 I.U. By contrast, 20 minutes of direct summer sunlight onto large skin surface areas can produce around 10,000 I.U. of vitamin D, which can easily be stored in your cells for future use.
In the winter months, when the sun’s rays are not intense enough to generate sufficient vitamin D production (this is the case for three to five months per year for locations in North America—you’ll know it’s downtime for D when you can’t get a tan even with prolonged sun exposure), supplements and safe-designated artificial tanning implements can be useful or even essential if you are at high risk for deficiency.
If you have an indoor-dominant lifestyle or even a hint of other aforementioned risk factors, you should regularly test your blood for vitamin D. (Make sure it’s for “25-vitamin D” or “serum 25(OH)D”.) You can order this test directly from an online provider like directlabs.com. Or, if you are getting a routine checkup, insist they include vitamin D in your blood panels. (Unfortunately, it’s often not included.)
Depending on whom you consult, you will arrive at somewhat different recommendations for what constitutes a normal or appropriate range for 25(OH)D. Recommendations from assorted vitamin D advocates range between 40-80 ng/mL, with the Vitamin D Council recommending 60 ng/mL for cancer prevention. Nora Gegaudas, CNS, CNT, author of Primal Body, Primal Mind and leading functional medicine practitioner in the paleo community, suggests that shooting to land between 60-80 ng/mL is sensible for most people, with greater values recommended for people with autoimmune conditions. These numbers are higher than what a mainstream physician might recommend—generally anything over 30 ng/mL is seen as “fine.”
Recently, the “more is better” message has been tempered a bit. While much less likely than a vitamin D deficiency, it’s possible to develop problems with excessive vitamin D levels, especially if you are deficient in vitamin A. Furthermore, there is believed to be some variation in optimal vitamin D levels based on ethnicity, with those of non-White ancestry able to thrive in lower ranges than light-skinned folks.
Chris Kresser, leading expert on ancestral and paleo health and nutrition and author of Your Personal Paleo Code, argues that there is no good evidence that levels above 50 ng/mL deliver any health benefits, citing a review of over 1,000 studies conducted by the Institute of Medicine. However, Kresser agrees that levels up to 60 ng/mL are still healthy for most people. Toxicity concerns start to arise if you are in the 100-150 ng/mL range.
There are some important caveats to these general recommendations. If you are of non-White ancestry and have levels of 50 ng/mL, you might be borderline high, based on analyses of non-Caucasian and traditional hunter-gatherer populations. If you are below 30 ng/mL, you should consider aggressive action to get more sunlight and/or supplement. To determine your vitamin D health, you should also consider your levels of other agents such as vitamin A and parathyroid hormone (PTH), which I will explain in the next section.
To optimize vitamin D production, strive to expose the large surface areas of your skin (arms, legs, torso) to direct sunlight for about half the amount of time it takes to sustain a slight burn. This is a pretty low-risk endeavor that allows for plenty of individual flexibility for factors like time of day, time of year, skin tone, and reflectiveness of the ground surface. (Water and sand intensify the sun’s rays and shorten your timelines for optimal exposure.) Exposing large skin surface areas is the key. If you are worried about wrinkling and cancer risk on the skin areas that are most at risk of overexposure and are most visible and sensitive—face, neck, and hands—go ahead and cover them with clothing or sunscreen routinely. They represent an extremely minimal amount of your vitamin D potential anyway. If you diligently bag enough rays during the summer months, enough to maintain a slight tan, you will store enough vitamin D to sustain you through the winter.
The benefits of sun exposure for overall health are much too numerous to list here, and while vitamin D is certainly a prominent reason to get plenty of sunlight, it is not the only one. Another reason to make sure you are soaking up the sun’s rays is that sunlight plays a critical role in entraining (regulating) your circadian rhythm. Exposing yourself to sunlight, especially first thing in the morning, will help you sleep better at night. If that isn’t enough, sun exposure boosts serotonin production; low serotonin levels are implicated in Seasonal Affective Disorder and negative mood states. Sunlight is also thought to have a direct positive effect on the immune system and is sometimes recommended to help treat various autoimmune and skin disorders, such as vitiligo, eczema, and psoriasis. Sun exposure also lowers blood pressure, which in turn reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke.
Research suggests that children who spend more time outside in natural light are less likely to develop nearsightedness. What’s more, if you are outside getting sunlight, you are enjoying the benefits of fresh air (charged with energy-boosting negative ions and countering the stale, fatiguing indoor air we spent too much time breathing); you are activating distance vision, giving your eyes a much-needed balance to excessive focusing on close-up screens; you are potentially getting the “earthing” benefits from direct connection with natural ground surfaces (search MarksDailyApple.com for interesting commentary on the topic; there are anti-inflammatory and hormonal benefits associated with bare feet and ground contact); and you are generally calming your nervous system to balance the commonly overstimulating and cramped indoor spaces in which we operate.
So, in the name of vitamin D and the many fringe benefits, counter the momentum of our indoor-dominant lifestyles and conventional wisdom’s irresponsible fearmongering about sun exposure by making a concerted effort to regularly spend time relaxing outdoors. And if it’s the opportune time of day and year in your area, make sure to safely expose large skin surface areas to direct sunlight in pursuit of a slight tan. While it’s possible to get some of the health and vitamin D benefits from tanning beds and UV lamps when used correctly, it’s much better to get the real thing when you can and reap the many other benefits of being outside in the fresh air and in nature.
While there is much attention given to the dangers of too little vitamin D, and deservedly so, it is also possible to have excessive levels of vitamin D in your body. Vitamin D toxicity is most likely to result from taking too many supplements over a long period of time. It’s impossible to become vitamin D toxic from sun exposure, since the body automatically regulates vitamin D production by tanning the skin (and consequently shutting down further vitamin D production) when you’ve had enough. Regarding diet, even a deliberately high-vitamin-D diet won’t provide nearly enough to put you into the excess zone. The concentrated dose that supplements provide make it necessary to exercise some caution against indiscriminate pill popping. The best idea is to get your levels tested before beginning a supplementation program, and then retest frequently.
Even if you are a diligent tester, it is not enough to simply monitor your vitamin D intake and blood serum levels. Vitamin D works in concert with other compounds in your body and must be balanced with them in order to maintain health. Of utmost importance is the synergistic relationship between vitamin D and vitamin A. Having too little vitamin A increases the risk of vitamin D toxicity at otherwise lower levels. Potassium and vitamin K also work synergistically with vitamin D. If you are making an effort to increase your sun exposure and/or are taking vitamin D supplements, it is imperative that you also take steps to ensure your vitamin A, vitamin K, and potassium levels are adequate.
If you are eating primally with plenty of vegetables, seasonal fruits, and Big Ass salads, you are likely getting enough potassium and vitamin K. However, vitamin A is derived predominantly from animal sources, especially liver. Your body can also derive vitamin A from beta carotene in vegetables, but this process is neither efficient nor sufficient to supply adequate vitamin A.
Evidence from modern hunter-gatherers shows that their diets, which tend to be rich in animal products and organ meats, contain high levels of vitamin A to balance out their frequent sun exposure. The same is not true for most modern humans. This is why many experts now recommend adding cod liver oil to your diet, which is the easiest way to boost vitamin A consumption. (Cod liver oil also contains a nice dose of vitamin D.) The Weston A. Price Foundation website lists recommended brands available in the U.S. and abroad. Adding a teaspoon a day should be enough for most adults. Gedgaudas suggests taking a little more after prolonged periods of sun exposure, since sun actually depletes vitamin A. Kresser recommends also taking a magnesium supplement because magnesium might protect against excess vitamin D and is difficult to get through diet alone.
Nutrition expert Dr. Chris Masterjohn argues that vitamin D levels on the low end of normal are not problematic if you also have low levels of parathyroid hormone (PTH), which can also be determined with a blood test. This is because PTH regulates the conversion of 25(OH)D into a more active form of vitamin D in the body. If PTH is high, above 30 pg/mL according to Dr. Masterjohn, and vitamin D is low, that suggests that there is not enough vitamin D available in the body, and supplementation and sun exposure are recommended. On the other hand, if vitamin D is borderline low (25 to 30 ng/mL), but PTH is also low, that probably reflects a functioning vitamin D regulatory system and is not cause for concern.
Granted, it’s starting to get a bit more confusing than “Hey, spend more time in the sun!” What’s most important to understand is that insufficient sun exposure is a serious health risk; you should identify your risk factors in this area, expose yourself sensibly to the sun during the times of year and day of peak solar intensity in your area, and test your levels frequently—particularly if you are in a high-risk category. Based on the current evidence, 60 ng/mL is a sensible recommendation for most people. This might be on the high end of normal for dark-skinned individuals but probably does not represent a toxicity risk unless paired with low levels of vitamin A. Lighter-skinned individuals can probably aim a bit higher and still be okay, as long as they are getting their vitamin A. Individuals with autoimmune illnesses should work closely with their doctors to determine their individual needs. They should be especially mindful when considering supplementation, which might alleviate symptoms in the short term but potentially cause imbalances in the long term. And remember, the best way to boost your vitamin D levels is through safe sun exposure. If you do, your body’s natural vitamin D regulatory system should ensure that you are getting just the amount you need and never too much.
HOW TO SCREEN YOUR OPPONENT
If you do find yourself spending enough time in the sun to encounter a burning risk, you should have a protection plan. Unfortunately, conventional wisdom lets us down again by touting sunscreen as a fail-safe method. Credible research has shown that, historically, most sunscreens have not blocked the UVA rays that can cause melanoma, instead blocking the UVB rays that cause burning. This creates a tremendous problem, of course, because without burning as a deterrent, people spend more time in the sun bagging UVA rays and, hence, increasing their cancer risk. Bad news!
Furthermore, many of the popular agents used in sunblock products may have toxic properties, especially when you consider the standard recommendation to reapply these synthetic chemicals frequently to your porous skin. On sunscreen, Nora Gegaudas says, “The only people genuinely benefitting from sunscreens in this world are those who sell them. Most SPF sunscreens use a base of omega-6 oil (likely rancid), and then tend to be formulated with many toxic and carcinogenic chemicals for the ultimate effect of blocking not only sunlight but vitamin D production as well.”
Nevertheless, worries about skin cancer are valid, particularly for those with fair skin, red or blond hair, and light eyes, or those with numerous moles; these folks are six times more likely to develop melanoma than those with darker features.
If you must be out in the sun for extended periods of time, it is far preferable to use clothing, especially technical fabrics designed to provide extra sun protection, to minimize your exposure to harmful UVA rays and to prevent burning There are numerous apparel brands touting enhanced SPF (sun protection factor) effectiveness available online or in high-quality specialty sports stores. If you are partial to good ol’ cotton, realize that it too will offer significant SPF effects.
Examining your skin after a day in the sun will reveal just how well your clothing protects you As a backup to protection via clothing, use a premium sunscreen that protects against UVA, UVB, and the newly described UVC rays Check the Environmental Working Group website (ewg.org) for updated ratings on quality sunscreens Opt for mineral sunscreens that protect against the sun’s rays by forming a physical barrier on the skin, preferably one with zinc oxide as its active ingredient; avoid chemical sunscreens (with active ingredients such as oxybenzone or octinoxate) that are absorbed into the skin and can disrupt hormone function and may have other toxic properties.
Beyond exposing yourself sensibly and being careful to always use protection (can you believe I slipped that line past my editors?!), a diet high in antioxidants and free of offensive pro-inflammatory foods like sugars, grains, and chemically altered trans fats and refined high polyunsaturated vegetable/seed oils can go a long, long way toward reducing or eliminating any damage caused by sun exposure. In fact, one of the more common testimonials from people who have adopted a Primal Blueprint eating strategy is, “I can stay out in the sun longer without burning.” On the flip side, a bad diet could be an even more profound risk factor than excessive sun exposure for skin cancer. Excess consumption of refined high polyunsaturated vegetable oils has been known to exacerbate the growth of tumors and other inflammation-related health conditions.
My ebook, The Primal Blueprint Definitive Guide to Sun Exposure and Vitamin D Health (available at primalblueprint.com/sun-exposure), can help you formulate a customized sun exposure plan. You can also search MarksDailyApple.com for “sun exposure” and “vitamin D” for numerous detailed posts. For now, I want you to second-guess conventional wisdom’s knee-jerk, fear-based reaction to skin cancer dangers and the view that the sun is evil.
Despite common Fred Flintstone-like depictions, early man was far from a numbskull. Grok was most certainly attuned to his surroundings and was skillful at avoiding mistakes or getting into situations likely to endanger his health. It is a common—but faulty—assumption that our hunter-gatherer ancestors lived “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” lives. This was the description advanced by 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes when he argued for the need to have government structure in civilization, instead of living off the land hunter-gatherer style.
Actually, research suggests that Grok and his family were generally healthy (robust is the apropos term), productive, and so appreciative of their lives that they felt the need to express themselves through art. While some hunter-gatherers certainly died young, evidence suggests that many also lived to a ripe old age. In fact, there likely was a selective benefit within tribal units for grandparents, meaning that getting older may have actually had an evolutionary advantage. Clan elders benefited the group by providing services such as babysitting and by transferring important knowledge and history.
But, if they were so robust, and if our genes truly evolved to allow us to live long lives, then why was the average life span relatively short? I had always assumed that it was due to events like death from childbirth, infections, accidental poisoning, or even tribal warfare. But then I got a real-life taste of what might have affected life span more than anything else. Far from nasty and brutish, it was the mundane lapses in judgment, even minor ones, that likely spelled doom for many primal humans.
My unusually bad dive during an Ultimate Frisbee match in September, 2007, resulted in a torn quadriceps muscle, displaced kneecap, ruptured prepatellar bursa, and smashed nerve. An X-ray revealed no other tendon or ligament damage, and my orthopedist said the soft-tissue injury would heal in 8 to 12 weeks. He advised me to use pain as my guide and come back slowly. Because I had no pain at all (smashed nerve, remember?), I felt like I was recovering fairly quickly—to the point of even resuming my beach sprints in early December, followed by a snow-boarding trip over Christmas break. But despite wrapping the knee every day and taking it fairly easy (wink, wink—and again no pain), I came home with a very swollen, black-and-blue knee. By the end of the week, I was unable to bend it more than a few degrees.
An MRI revealed a large organized hematoma over the quad and kneecap; it needed to be removed surgically, otherwise I would carry it with me forever. During surgery, my surgeon discovered that the original torn quad muscle had never repaired itself and was leaking blood into the space, causing the hematoma, so she removed the hematoma and stitched the quad back to the patellar tendon.
Here I was, 54 years old, looking forward to living well past 100, but I was effectively incapacitated for more than four months by an injury caused by a random fall. (Truth be told, I had second thoughts as soon as I jumped.) Of course, I had the luxury of modern surgical procedures to repair the damage and eventually recovered fully. Had this happened 10,000 years ago, my inability to run away from a predator might well have spelled the end for me—all because of a momentary lapse of judgment. Even today, a small accident that active younger folks barely sneeze at (e.g., a fall from a ladder while hanging the holiday lights, or turning an ankle on a staircase) can mean something entirely different for someone elderly and sedentary.
I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.
—Stephen Wright
Stand-up comedian
As society continues to modernize exponentially, we are arguably exhibiting less and less common sense in avoiding stupid mistakes. I believe part of the reason is that deep down, we know we can afford to make them. Our intricate system of safety nets has compromised our capacity to take responsibility for our role in the “accidents” that occur and are chronicled by the news media daily.
Look no further than YouTube or the Jackass movies and television shows to confirm that we are actively inviting unnecessary struggle and suffering into our lives, all in the name of expressing the youthful sense of adventure that has been stifled by the constraints and predictability of the modern world. The Darwin Awards satirical book and website annually bestow special distinction on those who “improve the gene pool by removing themselves from it” with particular brilliance. Here are some of my favorite winners from recent years:
Hot Rod: A Texas motorist spilled a gas can in the back of his car. While searching for the can at night, he flicked on a cigarette lighter to get a better view, igniting the vehicle.
Nacho Libre: A Pennsylvania man was critically injured when, distracted by a plate of nachos on his lap, he crashed his motorcycle into a telephone pole.
CSI—Alternate Ending: A police officer in Illinois was trying to show another patrolman how their fellow officer had accidentally killed himself. While reenacting the shooting incident from the previous week, he forgot to unload his gun and shot himself in the stomach. While driving himself to the hospital to seek treatment, he was killed in an auto accident.
Up, Up, and Away: A Catholic priest in Brazil attached a lawn chair to dozens of helium balloons and launched his homemade craft. Winds picked up and he drifted out to sea. Well prepared for this potential adversity, he fired up his satellite phone to call for help but could not figure out how to operate his GPS unit to provide an accurate location for rescuers. Rescuers were unable to locate him—ever... although bits of balloon were found later on mountains and beaches.
Off the Falls: A man attempted to pilot a rocket-boosted jet ski off the side of Niagara Falls. The idea was for the rocket to launch the jet ski beyond the danger of the falls and then deploy a parachute and float to safety. The damp air caused both the rocket and parachute to fail as he rode off the edge of the falls. Miraculously, he survived the 160-foot drop but drowned because he didn’t know how to swim and was not wearing a life jacket.
Each of us must admit that we have brought various levels of misfortune and trauma into our lives from lapses in concentration or critical thinking. As we attempt to reflect on these stupid mistakes, often we default to blaming bad luck instead of reenacting the chain of events with a deep, honest assessment of our accountability. In fact, the concept of taking responsibility seems to have all but disappeared from modern life. If we truly deconstruct those times when we have been the victim of circumstances, it’s quite likely we can discover that exact moment when we were distracted, made a poor choice, or ignored the clear warning signs that might have helped us to avoid the entire incident.
Each of us possesses the genetically-hardwired skills of vigilance and risk management. Like any other skills—or muscles—we have to use and develop them or they will atrophy. Unfortunately, the obsessive effort society makes to diffuse all forms of risk and danger suppresses the use of these natural instincts: endless warning signs on roads and in public venues, safety hazard labels on every consumer product, and sensationalized news reports about the dangers of toxic playground bark or pajamas catching fire. Furthermore, continued technological innovations in the name of comfort and convenience collectively push us toward running on autopilot, often to our detriment, through various mundane elements of daily life.
Drive through Europe, and you’ll notice very few warnings or safety precautions on the roadways—even high in the Alps they don’t bother with guardrails. Take a spin through the canyons near my home, and you will see miles upon miles of safety barriers, guardrails, runaway truck ramps, and diamond-shaped yellow signs with admonitions and icons warning you of assorted dangers that lurk around every corner. Nevertheless, every year tragedy strikes our local community with fatal accidents (typically induced by alcohol and/or speeding) on these obsessively protected roads.
Meanwhile, the traffic fatality rates in France, Germany, Great Britain, Switzerland, and Scandinavia—per capita and per vehicle miles driven—are significantly lower than those of the United States. Interestingly, some progressive traffic engineers, in the U.S. and abroad, are popularizing the concept of shared space as a tool to reduce accident rates. The concept relies on human instincts, such as eye contact, in favor of traditional traffic signals and signs. For example, the removal of bike lane striping on a roadway may actually make cycling safer by increasing driver vigilance. This seemingly counterintuitive concept speaks to the power of nurturing our natural instincts to navigate potentially hazardous situations effectively when we are not pacified by excessive safety measures.
As we strive to succeed in modern life, we must be willing to take personal responsibility for our actions instead of defaulting to speed-dialing a personal injury attorney whenever we come to misfortune. If you get hit by a motorist running a red light, it most certainly is his fault, but you may fare better if you remember to fasten your seat belt and look for oncoming traffic despite the color of the traffic light. I can’t remember if an errant throw or overly aggressive defensive play was involved in my Ultimate accident, as I prefer to focus on the fact that I hurled myself through the air irresponsibly and then tried to come back into action too quickly afterward. When I take responsibility for my actions, my misfortune becomes a growth experience—an appealing alternative to feeling like a victim or placing any importance on the notion of bad luck.
Similarly, whenever I honk and mumble “asshole” to someone who has just cut me off on the road, I reflect that I might have cause to say it to myself, too—for being in a rush, being too aggressive or impatient, or diverting my focus from the road momentarily. Maybe the motorists who incur my wrath truly do deserve a little choice feedback, but I can honestly reflect and pin some of the blame for the situation on myself almost every time.
This theme also applies to dietary habits. You can blame lousy food options in airports, the limitations of your budget, or your distressing family genetic predisposition to store excess body fat, but you may be better served to accept some personal responsibility when you make poor food choices or find yourself facing a serious diet-related health issue. Take the extra time to pack healthy snacks for your travel. Take a deeper look at your lifestyle priorities, make some compromises, and stretch your food budget a bit to make the best possible choices. View your family history as a catalyst to cultivate vigilance and risk-management skills instead of as a curse. In this way you can turn negatives into positives and create excellent leverage to be the best you can be, regardless of “bad luck” or excuses.
12 WAYS TO AVOID THE BLACK SWAN
Dr. Doug McGuff, a primal-friendly emergency room physician in South Carolina, co-author of The Primal Prescription, and expert consultant in high-intensity training and fitness medicine, offers up his advice on the stupid mistakes topic with his list of “12 Ways to Avoid the Black Swan.” The list is inspired by his experience treating emergency room patients every day, so it represents some of the most important things you can do to not end up there!
1. Humm along the road: Drive the biggest vehicle you can afford to drive, or get an old heavy-duty truck if you can’t afford a Hummer. (Hummer haters will be pleased to know that car companies are making progress with eco-friendly oversized vehicles.) Your greatest risk of death in daily life comes from a motor vehicle accident, and a larger car always fares better (Force=Mass × Acceleration) Also, if your midlife crisis plans include a motorcycle or sports car, realize that you might resolve your midlife crisis by avoiding old age all together. Oh, and never text while driving. Texting and driving increases your risk of a traffic fatality by a factor of 23.
2. Quad-riplegic: Never get on a four-wheeler ATV as they have produced more quadriplegics than anything else I have seen.
3. Stationary bikes rule!: Do not road cycle or jog on public roads/roadsides. To do so is to put your life in the hands of a text-messaging 17-year-old. [My note: My cycling friends counter with data showing that routine cycling is statistically pretty safe Indeed, I think most cycling accidents skew toward rider error/brazenness instead of inherent risk If you insist on road riding, ride with a rearview mirror mounted to your helmet, and ride single file—save the chit-chat for the coffee shop after. ]
4. Stay grounded: Do not fly a plane or helicopter unless you are a full-time professional pilot If you are a doctor, lawyer, actor, athlete, stockbroker, or other well-to-do professional, do not get a pilot’s license. Expertise in one area of life does not transfer to piloting, often with fatal consequences.
5. Run from trouble: If you are walking down a sidewalk and are approaching a group of loud and apparently intoxicated males, cross to the other side of the street immediately If anyone tries to start a fight with you, the first step should be “choke them with heel dust.”
6. Microwave anyone?: If your gas grill won’t start... walk away. Never throw gas (or other accelerant) on a fire.
7. Plunge feet first into adventure: Never dive into a pool or body of water (except in a pool diving area marked nine feet or deeper after you have checked it out feet-first).
8. Do it yourself... not: Never get on a ladder to clean your gutters, or on your roof to hang Christmas lights Do not cut down trees with a chainsaw I have seen too many middle age males (with a bug up their ass to get something done) die from these activities In general, any house or lawn work that you can hire for an amount equal to or less than your own hourly wage is money well spent.
9. Stay put: If you are retirement age and plan on moving to a new home. think twice The stress pushes many seniors over the edge If you do, buy a fully functional existing house I have lost count of the number of retirees that have died of heart attacks while going through the stress of custom-building their retirement dream home.
10. Kick and scratch: If anyone tries to force you into your car or car trunk at gunpoint, don’t cooperate Fight and scream all you can even if you risk getting shot in the parking lot If you get in the car, you will almost certainly die (but after considerable torture and suffering).
11. Cut ties: If you are in any personal or professional relationship that exhausts you or otherwise causes your recurrent distress, then end the relationship immediately.
12. Lotto-notto: Don’t play the lottery... you might win. Any unearned wealth, or wealth that is disproportionate to the objective value you provide will destroy you. Lottery winners and sports/movie stars share a common bond of disproportionate rates of depression, addiction, and suicide.
Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.
—Gertrude Stein
American author and art patron (1874-1946)
Art De Vany, Ph.D., author of The New Evolution Diet, draws a compelling link between exercising our minds and our genetic nature as free, independent, adventurous human beings. He argues:
Modern life is cognitively deprived. Imagine the information processing capabilities that were exploited by an ancestor foraging for food alone, or with a small band on open Savanna. Alert to every clue that indicates the presence of game, plants, and predators, aware of self, wind direction, the habits of animals, and with intimate knowledge of the land, trusting and depending on long-evolved instincts and other members of the band, adapting to rapidly changing circumstances, a foraging human in the Paleolithic would appear to us to have extrasensory perception. This is the setting for which your mind is evolved.
Modern life leaves our minds restless and under utilized because we are confined, inactive, and comfortable.
Modern life leaves our minds restless and under utilized because we are confined, inactive, and comfortable.
—Art De Vany, Ph.D.
Author of The New Evolution Diet
At first glance, few might agree that our minds are restless and underutilized. Many of end us our days running on fumes, feeling like our minds will explode if we send or receive any more e-mail. But while the modern world features plenty of complex thought and a constant and rapid progression in human innovation—technological and otherwise—our overstimulated lifestyles compromise our ability to use our brains with maximum effectiveness. In the workplace, the mismanagement of information overload from email, text, instant chat, and the like—all available on mobile devices to boot—can stifle creativity and innovation, not to mention diminish our energy levels, motivation, and health. Consequently, many of us operate in a reactive mode, constantly—and often futilely—trying to keep pace with the information with which we are bombarded.
In the book The Dumbest Generation, Mark Bauerlein blames digital technology for compromising the intellectual development of young people. “When we were 17 years old, social life stopped at the front door. Now [via Facebook, texting, Snapchat, Instagram, etc.] peer-to-peer contact... has no limitation in space or time,” he observes. Hence, time to read, daydream, free-associate, or gain an adequate understanding of current events, history, and other mainstays of cultural sophistication goes by the wayside.
If we back up and examine the true definition of stress as “stimulus,” it is clear that we require a certain amount of daily stress to thrive, prosper, and be happy. Yet, in today’s world our minds are overstressed, but technically underutilized, because we lack the balance that creative intellectual outlets, play, healthy diet, exercise, sleep, and other winning behaviors promote. Eight hours of brainpower is probably a sensible limit to devote to your daily work efforts. However, engaging your mind with things that stimulate your creativity in other ways and for which you have a passion is critical to mental health and overall wellbeing. Here are few suggestions to model Primal Blueprint Law #10—Use Your Brain:
Pursue New Hobbies: Learn a foreign language or musical instrument, take dancing lessons, tackle a jigsaw or crossword puzzle, write a fiction short story—or anything else you can imagine that sounds interesting and challenging.
Discipline Your Brain Use: Pay close attention to balancing your daily intellectual stimulation with time to rest, relax, and mellow out. Integrate behaviors that are truly calming instead of spending your leisure time in front of a screen delivering more stimulation. Instead, spend time in quiet reflection or engaging with nature. Realize that multitasking is a stressful, unproductive mode, and guard against the constant potential for distraction. Instead, focus on a single peak performance task at a time.
Exercise the Muscle: Instead of outsourcing as much brain function as possible to technology, make a habit of challenging your brain during your routine daily endeavors. Replay your favorite song and try to memorize the lyrics, bust out your school yearbook and try to recall the names of your long-lost classmates, or add up numbers in your head instead of always relying on a calculator. Search for Sheppard Software’s “Place the States Game” online, and see how close you can come to dropping individual states into their correct spot on a blank U.S.A. map. There are endless opportunities to keep the brain fresh throughout your day.
1. Get Plenty of Sleep: Despite being a critical component of good health and stress management, sleep is regularly compromised in modern life due to the pull of technology and hectic schedules. Insufficient sleep can lead to numerous health problems and declines in cognitive function. Try to align your sleep habits as closely as possible with the rising and setting of the sun. Pay special attention to minimizing artificial light and digital stimulation after dark. Create a calm, dark, relaxing sleeping environment, observe gradual transitions into and out of sleep, and observe consistent bed and wake times. Naps can produce many health benefits, including recharging creative thinking skills, solidifying emotional memories, reinforcing learning, improving cognitive function, and helping you automatically catch up on the type of nighttime sleep in which you are deficient.
2. Play: The regimented nature of modern life leaves many adults—and even kids—deficient in play. The profound psychological benefits of play are integral to healthy cultures, communities, and individuals, including a direct relationship to work productivity. Engage in some unstructured outdoor physical exertion each day to counter the negative effects of a sedentary, technological existence.
3. Get Plenty of Sunlight: An optimal amount of daily sun exposure (depends upon many personal variables, including skin pigmentation and environmental conditions) can produce numerous health benefits and alleviate many health risks because it enables your body to synthesize optimal levels of vitamin D. The dangers of sun exposure are overdramatized, and many suffer from vitamin D deficiency today due to insufficient sun exposure. Risks of skin cancer are greatly minimized if you avoid sunburns and cover or screen the most vulnerable areas (face, neck, and hands).
Strategically expose the large surface areas of your skin (arms, legs, torso) to direct sunlight for about half the amount of time it takes to sustain a slight burn. Dietary sources of vitamin D are vastly inferior to sun exposure. Vitamin D supplements can be useful in the winter months when sunlight is of insufficient intensity to allow for vitamin D production. Make sure you balance vitamin D levels with adequate vitamin A (cod liver oil is the best source), vitamin K, potassium, and magnesium. When you’ve had enough sun, clothing is the best protection, as sunscreens have some health objections and may be less effective than advertised.
4. Avoid Stupid Mistakes: Avoiding stupid mistakes was a critical survival factor for Grok, because margin for error was much lower in his time. Today, modern life attempts to shield us from all manner of danger, yet—possibly because we are desensitized by all these protection mechanisms—we still seem to find a way to invite trauma and tragedy into our lives by making stupid mistakes. You must practice your hardwired, evolution-perfected skills of vigilance and risk management to navigate successfully through even the mundane elements of daily life. This will prevent unnecessary suffering and promote longevity.
5. Use Your Brain: Technological innovation and overstimulation have compromised our ability to use our brains to maximum effectiveness. You must exert great discipline to leverage technology to your advantage instead of falling victim to it by spacing out, burning out, or otherwise misusing your greatest human gift: complex thought. Pursue new challenges, such as music, language, hobbies, or adventures that stimulate your brain and allow you to depart from your daily routine. Balance peak cognitive tasks with sufficient time for relaxation. Be vigilant against the constant potential for distraction and the perils of multitasking. Instead, focus on a single peak performance task at a time. Beware of outsourcing brain function to technology and keep sharp by throwing little cognitive challenges into your daily routine.
