How to HACK YOUR PREHISTORIC BRAIN

Ever wondered why it’s so hard to walk past your favourite ice-cream parlour or resist an online sale? Human brains weren’t built for the 21st century. But there is a solution ...

- GENEVIEVE GANNON

Once upon a time, long before Uber Eats and microwaves, we humans hunted protein-rich food and gathered roots and berries. If they were sweet, we’d fill our stomachs. If they were sour, we’d keep away. We had finely-tuned survival instincts so we could bolt if we sensed a tiger snake nearby. We formed strong social bonds because isolation meant death. It wasn’t all strawberries and naps in the sun, but life was simpler.

Historian Yuval Noah Harari says it’s likely our prehistoric ancestors enjoyed a far easier and, arguably, happier existence. Yes, we had to worry about lions. But we only had to worry about lions. We “didn’t have to deal with automobile accidents or industrial pollution,” he writes in his book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. There were “no floors to polish, no nappies to change and no bills to pay”.

There was no need for sleeping pills, digital detoxes or deep-tissue massages. All our meals were organic, free-range and non-GMO. We lived in mobile tribes with few possessions and little pressure, far from skyscrapers, fast food, traffic and 24-hour news cycles. Our modern world “gives us more material resources and longer lives than those enjoyed by any previous generation, but it often makes us feel alienated, depressed and pressured,” Dr Harari explains.

Many behavioral psychologists who have spoken to The Weekly over the years about the malaise, insomnia, exhaustion and anxiety that plague our society agree: The gap between human nature and our contemporary environment is harming our mental and physical health.