Do you advocate for discomfort?
I have found that in today's context and in the West, where the world has been designed to be comfortable, we need to face uncomfortable things in the short term in order to find well-being and health in the long term.
Convenience 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 best teacher, I wanted to experience many of the discomforts that humans have lived with 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 novelties for the senses.
Yes, it forces us to pay attention and interrupts the routine that makes us live without letting go. Getting out of comfort and learning useful skills that involve mind and body changes our brain structure.
explain it to me
Learning improves myelination. Brains with more myelin perform better.
What else did the Arctic teach you?
There was a lot of silence and it hadn't even occurred to me to think about the volume of noise around us.
Linked to many health problems.
Two hours of silence at home, with earplugs or noise-canceling headphones, has been shown to increase the production of neurons in an area of the brain that fights depression. More calming than listening to Mozart.
...!
Improving your life involves short-term discomfort: exercising, eating less, doing introspection are all 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 point to the fact that humans reach their maximum physical, mental and spiritual splendor after experiencing the vicissitudes we suffered in prehistoric times.
I doubt we would survive.
Certain vulnerabilities inoculate us against problems such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, anxiety and depression.
Well, we will never be short of 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's called prevalence-induced concept change.
Never mind, we're looking for trouble.
Yes, as the world has been getting better for us, without being aware of it, we look for trouble, which turns into a lack of satisfaction even though we live in a better world.
The comfort is very new.
For millennia comfort was a bonfire, both in prehistoric times and in homes; for many centuries the whole family slept around the fire; now comfort is incredible sofas and giant televisions. 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 some degree of risk and fear is beneficial for personality, psychological resilience and self-esteem.
We happily adapted to the couch.
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.
Are rights worth more than sitting?
It is better to squat, this way you activate almost all the muscles of the body so as not to lose your balance. And sleeping on the floor is also beneficial.
Which study surprised you?
According to Dr. McGill, an expert in lumbar health, people who spend the day sitting and then go to the gym to exhaust themselves have more back problems than a TV addict.
You have interviewed hermits, adventurers, monks and scientists.
When I asked Master Khenpo Phuntsho Tashi, one of Bhutan's great Buddhist thinkers, what we were doing wrong, he said: “You behave as if you have to cross things off a list: a good partner, a good job, a good house, a nice car... but never settle”.
Existential dissatisfaction?
Researchers at San Francisco State University found the paradox: excessive materialism leads to unhappiness.
