The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort To Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self

But over the years, my path began to turn in some surprising ways. As I looked deeper into the human experience, I came to realize that health is far bigger than I had supposed. Far more than a matter of diet and exercise, it’s about continuity with larger life processes of tribe, nature, and culture.

When I run, I’m alive, physically and biologically, doing what I was programmed to do: pushing my body to its maximum physical potential. It’s objective and observable, and it can easily be measured by the tools of science.

The human body, so we are told by men of science (who spend most of their time sitting down), is a machine that thrives on use. When left idle, muscles atrophy, and other working parts of the system deteriorate more rapidly than they would if subjected to regular exercise. The urban solution is the jog and the gym. A more primitive alternative is t

Be barefoot as often as possible. Calluses are nature’s shoes, and they do a far better job of transmitting tactile information to your brain than do shoes.