Do you advocate discomfort?
I have found that in the current context and in the West, where the world has been designed to be comfortable, we need to face uncomfortable things in the short term to find well-being and health in the long term.
Comfort is addictive.
We are disconnected from the things that make us feel happy and alive, such as nature, physical effort, perseverance, and emotional bonds.
You went to be hungry and cold in the interior of Alaska.
Experience is the greatest teacher, I wanted to experience many of the forms of discomfort that humans have lived in for most of their history, because that is essentially who we are.
What have you discovered?
I acquired new skills and had no choice but to live in the present without the need for Buddhist mantras or incense.
Constant news for the senses.
Yes, it forces us to pay attention and interrupts the routine that makes us live without rhyme or reason. Getting out of comfort and learning useful skills that involve the mind and body changes our brain structure.
Tell me.
Learning improves myelination. Brains with more myelin perform better.
What else did the Arctic teach you?
It was very quiet and it hadn't even occurred to me to think about the volume of noise around us.
Linked to many health problems.
It has been shown that two hours of silence at home, with noise-canceling earplugs or headphones, increases the production of neurons in an area of the brain that combats depression. Calming more than listening to Mozart.
¡…!
Improving your life involves short-term discomfort: exercising, eating less, introspecting, all of that is good in the long run, a key part of the architecture of well-being.
Shouldn't we look for uncomfortable challenges?
There are indications that break all the schemes and suggest that humans reach their maximum physical, mental and emotional splendor after experiencing the vicissitudes that we suffered in prehistory.
I doubt we would survive.
Some vulnerabilities inoculate us against problems such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, anxiety and depression.
Well, we will never lack problems.
According to a Harvard study, humans experience fewer and fewer problems and what we do is lower the threshold of what we consider a problem: it is called prevalence-induced concept change.
It doesn't matter, we're looking for problems.
Yes, as the world has improved for us, we unknowingly ask for problems, which turns into a lack of satisfaction even though we live in a better world.
Comfort is something very new.
For millennia, comfort was a bonfire, now it is incredible sofas and giant TVs. We need outdoor challenges. Scientists from the United Kingdom and New Zealand analyzed a hundred studies on the psychological impact of outdoor challenges.
What was your conclusion?
Getting away from our sterilized modern world to expose ourselves to new sources of stress with a certain degree of risk and fear is beneficial for personality, psychological resistance and self-esteem.
We adapt with pleasure to the sofa.
Today's chairs, sofas and beds are soft to the extreme, they actually do the work of our muscles, and if a muscle is not used, it atrophies. Ten days of not using it and it is weakened and reduced.
Better standing than sitting?
Better to squat, this way almost all the muscles in the body are activated so as not to lose balance. And sleeping on the floor is also beneficial.
What study has surprised you?
According to Dr. McGill, an expert in lumbar health, people who sit all day and then go to the gym to work out have more back problems than a TV addict.
You have met hermits, adventurers, monks and scientists.
When I asked Master Khenpo Phuntsho Tashi what we were wrong about, he told me: “You behave as if you had to cross things off a list: a good partner, a good job, a good house, a good car... but you never settle. ”.
Existential dissatisfaction?
Researchers at San Francisco State University found the paradox: excess materialism leads to unhappiness.
