“ Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure..... so ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air.”
Day 13 Morning Scorecard and Nature Self-Reflection:
Evolutionary Psychology: The Tribe We Live In
It may seem a bit strange to think about but we share about 97% of our genetic code with chimpanzees. Although humans love to believe we are fully separate from our ancestors, the truth is much more complex. The hard truth is that along the evolutionary trail from caveman to our current homo sapien selves we still hold onto a number of our old ways. Our technology may have developed at a rapid pace due to information sharing, but overall what we wanted 10,000 years ago is still what we want today. Plainly stated, millions of years of genetic influence doesn't go away that quickly. This may seem like bad news, but ultimately it helps us understand ourselves better and allows us to explain why we do what we do. The field that has made the most strides in this area of study is called evolutionary psychology and has only been around for the past 30 years or so. The basic premise of evolutionary psychology is that if we look back and study what motivated humans long ago then we will better be able to understand ourselves today.
FACT: Research has shown that human brains have remained the same size for the last 10,000 years, possibly even slightly decreasing in size overall.
TAKEAWAY: We don’t live under the same circumstances as our caveman relatives but our brain still thinks that we do. Brain development happens very slowly over time and our technological advancements are outpacing our brains' ability to cope.
Body Scan
In order to maintain homeostasis, it is essential to know yourself, "inside" and out. As humans, we tend to search for answers outside ourselves for problems that originated inside of ourselves. There is a great story that describes this human tendency quite clearly. The story describes a man who lost his keys inside his house after the power went out. The man searched relentlessly but couldn’t find them. Discourage he looked outside and saw the streetlamp illuminating the sidewalk and decided to search out there. A passerby then approached the man and helped him in the search. After an hour, the stranger asked the man where he had last seen his keys. The man answered: “well inside my house of course.”
This story illustrates how easy it is to look in the wrong spot for solutions. We look to alcohol, smartphones, or other people to help us solve internal symptoms that are making us uncomfortable. Instead of going towards where the problem started, we run in the opposite direction at full speed. Body scans are a great way to start “exploring” your inside world to see where the tension lies and where your body holds stress. Many great online videos will run you through a body scan meditation, but the essential part is just to check in and witness what is going on from the bottom of your feet to the top of your head. This may not solve the problem fully, but it may help you understand that your internal interpretation of the outside world is causing you to stress not the outside world itself.
FACT: People with a larger insula are better at guessing heart rate, better at describing emotions, and better at calming themselves down.
TAKEAWAY: If you check in with your body regularly you will get better at hearing what your body needs.
“It is not the strongest of a species that survives, nor the most intelligent. But the one that is the most adaptable to change.”