Month: December 2021

Christmas seems like a good time to write about the importance of social connection. 

In the interest of full disclosure, I am the least qualified person in the world to be talking about this! But, as a self-declared hermit, I am using this opportunity to remind myself of the importance of empathy and connection and to set myself some ‘social’ New Year resolutions. 

We are more connected than at any time in our human evolution, yet we are also unhappier than at any other point in time. The negative consequences of having thousands of shallow virtual connections delivered by distracting and additive platforms and fewer really meaningful and soul-nourishing face to face encounters is taking its toll. 

Our primal need for social contact is hard wired through millions of years of evolution. Sharing food and other resources, caring for infants and the elderly, coordinating hunting parties and sharing vital information about freshwater sources and shelter helped our ancestors meet the challenges of their hostile environment.

Over time, early humans began to gather at hearths and shelters to eat and socialise. As brains became larger and more complex, growing up took longer—requiring more parental care and the protective environment of a home. Eventually, expanding social networks led to the complex social lives of modern humans.1,2

This genetic legacy is essential; humans evolved to live in a tribe. Numerous studies highlight the benefits of social connection for mental health and well-being and offer tangible and measurable physiological advantages. 

Social connection is a pillar of lifestyle medicine. Humans are wired to connect, and this connection affects our health. From psychological theories to recent research, there is significant evidence that social support and feeling connected can help people maintain a healthy body mass index, control blood sugars, improve cancer survival, decrease cardiovascular mortality, decrease depressive symptoms, mitigate posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, and improve overall mental health. The opposite of connection, social isolation, has a negative effect on health and can increase depressive symptoms as well as mortality. 3

In his book Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect, UCLA professor Matthew Lieberman talks about humans having a social superpower – the ability to get inside the other person’s head and feel their pain, consider what they are thinking, and have empathy. The fact that we can do this gives us an unparalleled ability to cooperate and collaborate with others – which has been a large part of our success as a species.

According to neuroscientists, our ability to think socially (imagining other peoples’ thoughts and feelings about a situation) is so crucial that evolution created a separate brain system for social thinking than that dedicated to analytical thinking and logical reasoning. Using one of these brain systems temporarily quiets the other; if we think analytically, we find it hard to imagine peoples’ thoughts and feelings. But evolution prioritised social thinking above even critical thinking, so when we are not actively using logical reasoning, our predisposition is to be thinking socially. 

There is a good case for getting socially connected to help us become smarter, happier and more productive in the real world of meaningful personal contact and healthy, supportive communities. But in a digital world, this predisposition could leave us vulnerable to exploitation, creating cascading and compounding negative impacts. 4

As highlighted by the mind-blowing documentary, ‘the social dilemma’ powerful influencers control how we consume information and ensure we are plugged in 24/7, returning to our devices repeatedly like a dependent drug addict. As a result, what we think are rational and objective choices about what to read and how we act around our devices are, in fact, utterly manipulated and controlled.

The apparent connectedness of online social media takes us away from the actual physical, social connection. One study found that users spent an average of 5 ½ hours a day on their smartphones. 5

Digital distraction is well known to erode and undermine real-life personal connections. Still, studies show it could be lowering your IQ as well as negatively affecting your social, emotional and spiritual intelligence! 5

Psychologist Daniel Levitin and others have also pointed out that multitasking—the essential smartphone activity—lowers your IQ and then spreads that weakened thinking across as many areas of life as possible. In The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information, Levitin reported that “being in a situation where you are trying to concentrate on a task, [while] an e-mail is sitting unread in your inbox, can reduce your effective IQ by 10 points.”

That used to be a mental decline we suffered only while we sat at our desks. Now we choose to make that 10-point IQ loss a 24/7 thing.

Today our daily news is filled with dramatic and apocalyptic messages that make us concerned for ourselves and our loved ones. But is it possible that this way of consuming media is shutting down our ability to think critically and make rational judgments? We are so distracted and dumbed down by our devices that we haven’t noticed what we are consuming is more in the interest of powerful influencers than ourselves and our families?

Unlike our ancient ancestors, who benefited from collaboration and information exchange to become the most intelligent and evolved species, we may have reached a point where our tendency for being social has turned against us!

In his superb TED talk, Johan Hari highlights research that shows humans are the loneliest we have ever been. He talks about the many mechanisms for depression and focuses on the often-overlooked phycological needs that lead to us becoming depressed and anxious. For example, not feeling like you belong, a lack of meaning and purpose, and feel like you are not seen or valued in your community are often the real root cause of depression and anxiety.

What if, as a society, rather than offer anti-depressants, we invested time and money into developing decentralised supportive community networks where we could come together and learn and grow, share and collaborate? We could potentially address loneliness, depression, and anxiety and a whole host of other issues such as health, childcare, resilient food sourcing, and education.   

So this Christmas. Put down your phones, unplug from the internet, turn off the news and take some time to reconnect with family and friends in a meaningful and fully present way. 

Next year perhaps one of your New Year resolutions could be to join or create a community group focused on promoting health from the soil up – a way of humans and our planet growing well together. 

I know what I will be committing to – developing our Primal Web network to help facilitate this process.  

Happy Christmas.

It’s interesting to me that currently, the idea that kindness is the ‘master’ virtue is at an all-time high. As protection is synonymous with kindness it’s not hard to see how we believe that protecting people from all harm should be the ultimate aim of modern society. 

But is this true? 

What about the forgotten virtues of resilience, courage, temperance, honesty, tenacity, creativity and self-responsibility? When did these get downgraded?

Protection and kindness come with a shadow side too, the consequences of which are far harder to spot. The subtle, pervasive and delayed consequences of over nurturing and loss of resilience are easy to ignore in the face of the immediate and obvious benefits of keeping people and animals safe and comfortable. 

But is being alive and safe enough? Or is the very nature of being human to value the quality as well as the quantity of life? Is animal welfare enough? Or is the static protection of animals detracting from the genetic blueprint that leads to true health and high welfare?

‘’Seek not to cover the world in leather – just wear shoes’’

Shantideva

There’s no quality of life without some risk and for my family, there’s simply no contest. I would absolutely rather take the risk of injury and death so I can live fully in nature walking, climbing, wild swimming, drinking wild water, eating foraged foods, being exposed to microbes and getting an occasional sunburn than simply exist in a protected and sterile environment. 

I was brought up in and around farming. In farming, we are face to face with birth, life, disease, injury and death on a daily basis. We bring our livestock into the world, we do our best to prevent them from getting sick and we end their life when either they are injured, old or if the time has come to harvest their meat. 

This is a far cry from what the majority of modern Western society are exposed to and how they view life and death. In many circumstances, children are exposed to more Disney films than functional ecosystems and we are mostly insulated from death because our elderly are more likely to be in a nursing home than being looked after in the family home. 

This makes it easy for modern society to be drip-fed a dangerous lie. That we can avoid death, and that protecting ourselves from potential harm should be, and is everyone’s highest aim.

In my regenerative agriculture work, the consequences of focusing on protection and specific production traits can be very obvious. Regenerative agriculture is a whole system approach where rather than treating the symptoms we consider why the modern farming system has created these issues in the first place – the root cause of the problem.  

If working with a beef farmer who has continental cattle reared in a shed on grain feeds it would be totally true that if we tried to get these farmers to switch to a grass-based outwintered system it would not go well! The cattle would lose condition and then stand at the gate poaching up the soil into a mud bath until the farmer gives in and lets them back in the shed. 

In the so-called ‘green revolution’ fueled by the availability of cheap artificial fertilisers, we could suddenly produce tons of grain feed at a ridiculously low financial cost. This led to the development of farming systems geared to the availability of cheap high energy and protein grains. It soon became apparent that the little hairy coos weren’t suiting this system too well and breeding of production cattle went down the continental route. 

These continental cattle such as Charolais, Limousin, Belgian Blue and Simmental are fabulous at turning grain into muscle and meat instead of having a deep chest and gut suitable for converting low-quality forage into nutrient-dense meat. 

The byproduct of the grain industry – staw – meant that indoor rearing was completely sensible and many of the diseases seen in the housed cattle could be treated by the pharmacopoeia of modern medicine that seemingly solved every problem. 

The cost of meat went down and we started to get used to spending a lot less on food generally. 

In 1960 apprximately 40% of our wage was spent on food whereas now we spend less than 8%.

The negative impacts of any of these decisions were hard to immediately spot. We didn’t really understand at the time that ruminants don’t do that well on grains, nor do cows belong indoors. Every decision made total sense in the context of the era.

Zoom forward to today and see fertiliser prices are rocketing to the sky; the price of grain is bound to follow. This high input high output model is making less and less sense for farmers. Perhaps this is why we have seen a recent surge of interest in regenerative agriculture where we aim to produce high-quality meat and milk from little more than the rainfall and sunshine that falls on our healthy soil and functional ecosystems – it is the ultimate resilient model of food production. 

I see many different farming systems in my work and something has become very clear to me. What we commonly assume is high ‘animal welfare’ is not necessarily reflecting the full picture of what an animal may need to be healthy. 

All livestock are bred from wild animals; cattle from aurochs, and sheep probably from the mouflon, pigs from wild boar. 

So would a pig, cow or sheep prefer to be well protected by being enclosed in a shed – protected from predators, fed unlimited grain feeds with access to clean water and able to sleep on a lovely straw bed. Or would they prefer to graze a wildflower meadow with the sun on their back, ruminating under a tree with the full protection of the herd all around them?

I see so many cattle with glazed eyes and no sparkle mindlessly chewing through silage (preserved grass) and grains in cattle sheds. 

Selective breeding has promoted traits such as the ability to gain weight over having a natural birth, medical interventions have removed the natural selection of the most disease-resistant animals and a guaranteed and unlimited source of food and shelter offers comfort as an alternative to resilience and survival.

We talk about animal cruelty in the sense of ‘not being looked after’ but totally ignore that these animals basic genetic program is to be reared outside on diverse pastures all year round – insect bites and cold nights included.  

I was recently talking to some dog trainer friends who told me it’s not uncommon for vets to prescribe antidepressants for dogs! We are giving our pets every possible comfort but they too sense some deeply buried yet primal need is not being met and it’s making them depressed. 

We are genetically wired to be in nature, smell the soil, hunt wild beasts, harvest wild plants, lie in the sun, wash in cold streams, move our bodies and sit around a fire telling stories with our close family. 

Have we humans also lost our sparkle? Have we forgotten that we were once wild creatures? 

I think so.

I think we have become over domesticated livestock trapped in a factory farm system being offered hollowed out alternatives to meaningful living. We are placated by the con of convenience in the forms of unlimited cheap ‘stuff’ and basically everything we could possibly want or need on-demand; fast food, fast delivery, fast dating, unlimited TV and social contact available 24/7. 

But it’s just not hitting the spot.

“The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered “Man! Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

The promise of technology, convenience and comfort has not been delivered and I feel an upswell of others are awakening to this lie too. 

We are now being offered a future of technology where we will hardly need to think for ourselves let alone have to drive ourselves or worry about inconvenient concepts like staying fit and healthy or developing a resilient mindset – we will be monitored, medicated and protected – It’s for our own good you know! 

Should we keep backing away from the scary and dangerous world full of stressful situations, people voicing opinions that might hurt our feelings and having to eat well and stay strong so we don’t get sick? 

Well, I say; thanks but no thanks. I’ll take the hard road and painful life lessons that are the road to wholeness. 

From 2005-15, cases of depressive illness increased by nearly a fifth. People born after 1945 are 10 times more likely to have depression.

The Guardian

It’s in the strain, pain and discomfort; the hard work and extreme challenges; the grief and despair that humans actualise their potential. 

There’s a reason the best cup of tea with cake is after a hard day in the mountains. Why do we get a feeling of true satisfaction and genuine happiness after landing a deal that required months of skilled negotiations? Why seeing the bluebells in spring after a dark winter can lift your spirits so much. It’s the contrast – the yin and yang, the dark and light. 

Without hardship the pleasures are meaningless. 

So let’s learn from the hairy hardy cattle who live outdoors through the winter on regenerative farms. They are hardy and resilient and thrive on natural forage, their deep guts and thick coats keep them warm and dry. They know where to shelter in the woods and find the nutritious plants they need for optimal health. They feel a part of the herd and know their role. They are relaxed but alert. 

They are thriving, not just comfortable and surviving.