The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self

by Michael Easter

But food enjoyment is context dependent. Research shows that the exact same dish can taste better or worse depending on a variety of factors.

Treating back pain with powerful painkillers was, in fact, a key driver of the opioid epidemic, according to the research.

Harvard anthropologist Christina Warriner points out that there are more bacteria in the gut than stars in the galaxy. And scientists estimate that fewer than 100 of these species could hurt your health.

Food allergies disproportionately affect people in the most sanitary nations.

The more time a person spends outside getting down and dirty in it, the better.

In winter, the scientists recommend people lower their thermostats by three to four degrees each week. This slowly pushes our comfort zone, allowing us to adapt without unnecessary suffering. Then we can stop once we’re living in 64 degrees.

As another Icelander explained to me, “In winter the sun comes up to say, ‘Fuck you,’ and then drops back down.”

Men from Norway and Ireland live roughly 79 years. Icelanders are now living anywhere from two to four years longer than the men of the countries from which the first Icelanders came.

The result is that Icelanders may have buried within their genetic code a harder-to-kill gene, one that explains their longevity. If Stefansson can isolate this theoretical gene or set of genes, perhaps he and his team can figure out a way to bring it to the masses.