USING EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY TO OPTIMIZE FOR MULTIPLE VARIABLES: CONNECTING WHILE PROTECTING YOUR FEET

Humans are a lot like trees. Our legs, feet and lower body are like roots. Our arms like branches. Our torso is like a trunk. Our head is like the crown.

Even if we don’t know much about trees, there are a few simple things that are obvious for keeping them healthy. We know the roots need to be firmly grounded in healthy soil, connected to earth and that the soil needs to have moisture and not be too cold, more than seasonally appropriate.

We are the same.

Keeping our feet warm is crucial for supporting the immune system. When our feet sense cold, they retract and protect, stunting blood flow and sends a signal to the rest of our body that we’re in a hostile environment.

At the same time, it’s important that we connect to Earth.

Connecting to the Earth allows us to have an outlet for free radicals that we generate when burning fuel for energy. It’s not that different from having a grounding prong on an appliance to prevent static build up.

As always, we want to understand the evolutionary context in which we evolved, the environment that we are optimized for, and then reverse engineer our environment to make it as similar as possible while allowing us to function in our life.

Of course, our daily routines may need to change somewhat, since usually our current one is adapted to us being ill. We can do better than that.

But we can balance trade offs so that we can thrive when we make simple tweaks to our routines, rhythms and environment.