The Lifestyle

The ancestral lifestyle has seen rising popularity as an effective route to health and happiness, partly because of its grounding in the logic and science of human evolution. It's a movement that has spread organically by a decentralized yet loosely cohesive bunch of health nuts who value the truth of evolution and seek to understand why it matters.

The lifestyle's real power is in the results people get. Their success, almost always across the board, and often in unexpected areas, spur them to pass the word along, as I do. That's how we've come to where we are today: a community of bloggers, professionals, academics, and laymen who fuel the fires, an official organization, an academic journal, and more.

So what is this lifestyle? Well, that's a big question, but here's a quick summary:

DIET: Eat real food. Particularly, food that is appropriate for our species given what we know about human evolution. Vegetables, quality meats, tubers/roots, fruits, some nuts and seeds. Avoid man-made foods like inflammatory vegetable oils, processed grains, and sugar of all kinds.

EXERCISE: Move naturally and play. Human biomechanics are evolved according to the dictates of the natural environment. Barefooting in safe environments is beneficial to lower leg development. Stick to complex movement patterns that drive musculoskeletal adaptation safely, but, mostly, just have fun.

SLEEP: 8-10 hours in total darkness. Our ancestors slept according to day-night cycles; our biochemical cascades are now known to be light-sensitive and dependent on these rhythms.

STRESS: Practice stress reduction. Our biological stress mechanisms evolved in different circumstances and don't fit modern society very well, with its long work hours and demanding life pressures.

SOCIALIZE: Nurture positive relationships. We are social animals after all, and we don't value time with close friends or positive interactions with acquaintances nearly enough.

This may seem like a short list, because it is. The world of human well-being is much bigger than this summary allows. Hell, my book is 77,000 words and ten chapters with 300 academic references. As we explore new areas of evolutionary interpretation, we learn more and more about what it means to be healthy, what it means to be happy, and what it means to be human.

Explore this blog for more information and follow it to stay up-to-date.

Viva la evolución.