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

by Michael Easter

The first great change in human physicality began with the advent of farming about 13,000 years ago. Studies show that prehistoric farmers, for example, were fitter than their ancestors in some ways but not others. They had stronger upper bodies from grinding grain and tilling soil but relatively weak lower bodies because they covered long distances in search of food less often. But the data shows that early farmers were at least as active as early hunter-gatherers. Most of humanity rather quickly transitioned to farming, and at least 80 percent of civilized people were farmers until the next big shift. The second great change in human fitness began around 1850. It marked the start of the Industrial Revolution, and today just 13.7 percent of jobs require the same heavy work as our past days of farming. Roughly three-quarters of jobs are now sedentary, and we’re sitting more every year. Over the last decade, the average American added another hour of daily sitting. Adults now sit for six and a half hours, while kids sit more than eight (the removal of recess hasn’t helped, either). And we don’t sit like our ancestors, squatting and being forced to move around. We melt into plush chairs that require no muscle activation.