Your Biology is Inescapable

Feb 18

4 Ideas on our Biology:

1) No matter how philosophical or intellectual or calculated you may consider yourself, your biology has an immediacy on your decisions that is unrivaled. Considering things this way reveals one of the (many) truly devastating effects of food insecurity.

2) The furthest that I’ve ever run has almost always been in the company of others. Having company completely shifts my focus and provides a natural boost. There’s somebody else right there with you, going through the same thing. Even the simple act of conversation can take my mind off of my own physical discomfort. There’s plenty of evidence out there to show that we’ve evolved to run long distances, together. (I recommend Born to Run in my reading list on my website).

3) My performance in every imaginable task is affected by the quality and quantity of my sleep. Put another way, if you want to boost your performance, do the opposite of everybody else and focus more on the sleep that you’re getting.

4) Good things are always welcome, but bad things (evolutionarily speaking) can kill you, and that’s why we have a psychological bias to remember them better. Nature cares little about our obsession with happiness, and more about our ability to survive and reproduce. That sounds dark, but interestingly, just being mindful of that has helped me quite a bit: essentially, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you when you feel negative emotions.