How Civilization Broke Our Brains

As if to rub it in, some anthropologists tell us that thousands of years ago people had much more time available to them than their hunting, gathering and child-rearing required. Three or four hours of work a day paid the bills, so they had a lot of downtime. Then came agriculture, and eventually industrialization, and somehow these helpful develop... See more

Is the accelerated pace of modern life the work of our old friend (and nemesis) the neocortex? Is it just another unintended consequence? Do our minds override messages from the rest of the organism—stress, anxiety, uncertainty, ulcers, and heart attacks—so that we can whiz along with the world, hustling from meeting to meeting, checking our emails... See more

It’s not an accident that doing business today, and being in the workforce today, is more stressful than it used to be. Peter Whybrow, in his book American Mania: When More Is Not Enough, argues that many of the ills that we suffer from today have very little to do with the bad food we’re eating or the partially hydrogenated oils in our diet. Rathe

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