What is
primal health?
Primal/ancestral health
Primal Health takes a look back at our early ancestors and looks at what made them thrive as a species, what they were exposed to and what behaviours allowed them to develop into the intelligent and healthy beings that set the foundation for our advanced modern society we know today.
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Contrary to popular belief, the average life span of our ancestors was very similar to us modern day humans, the numbers only look lower due to higher rates of childhood death from accidents and infections, starvation and the prevalence of infectious diseases, long before the introduction of modern medicine. Our ancestors were almost completely free of the main health complications that are extremely common in us modern humans.
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Our primal ancestors would live long and healthy lives, maintaining functional bodies and sharp minds ripe into old age, before a sudden decline in health only days before the end. This is called THRIVING.
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This is in great contrast to what we mostly see today.
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The difference between us and our ancestors is, that it has become normal for us modern humans to accept the that “old age” wreaks havoc on our mind and body and the concept of spending the last 20+ years of our lives hooked up to the health care system with rapidly declining health is widely accepted, we call this SURVIVING.
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Primal Health is a way for us to take note of what behaviours allowed our ancestors to THRIVE and apply them to our modern lifestyles in order to navigate our current SURVIVE mentality and allow us to living long, happy, healthy lives without relying heavily on the health care system, this is THIRVING.
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Now, by including Primal Health into my education and coaching methods, I am not suggesting that we go back to living like we did 10,000 years ago, however there are lessons to be learned from our past, with tools and methods available to us that our ancestors used as part of their natural daily lives which can reduce the impact modern life is having on our health and enable us to live healthy, move freely and think clearly well into old age.
how does Primal/Ancestral Health relate to us modern humans?
Wondering how Primal/Ancestral Health relates to us modern humans? Let me explain….
For all the amazing things that modern technology has given us, right in the palm of our hands, one thing that our modern lifestyle is doing at an alarming rate is taking from our health. A dramatic increase in processed food, excess sitting/lack of movement, less time spent outdoors, poor sleep quality, exposure to pollution, chemicals and artificial light along with living much more stressful and disconnected lives has meant that the occurrence of serious modern chronic diseases has skyrocketed, think Diabetes, Heart Disease, Cancer, Obesity, Anxiety and Depression
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Besides from these serious chronic diseases which tend to show up in later life, even from a young age modern humans are also plagued with issues such as joint pain, excessive tiredness, low energy, hormone imbalances, skin issues and digestive issues like bloating and IBS etc, not to mention the scary increase in rates of mental health struggles in people of all ages.
The health complications that are tearing through our society and overburdening our health care systems are aptly named “Modern Chronic Diseases” due to the fact that it has only been the last 100 years or so where they have cemented a hold in our lives. Prior to the 1900’s conditions such as Diabetes and Heart Disease were so uncommon, many doctors failed to believe they existed at all.
The average LIFE-span of a modern human is very similar to our primal ancestors, however our HEALTH-span is greatly reduced. We may live just as long but many of us spend the last few decades of our lives struggling with reduced mobility and hooked up to the medical system and its excessive use of medications. We may be SURVIVING but we surely aren’t THRIVING in old age.
So what went wrong? How did we survive over 500,000 years in our current form with an almost non-existent occurrence of chronic disease, to it becoming the Number 1 cause of illness and death in our modern society?
This is where Primal Health comes in, for most of our time on this planet, humans have consumed natural, unprocessed foods, been exposed to nature and natural light, engaged in movement/activity throughout the day, obtained good quality sleep, not exposed to harmful chemicals and pollutants, maintained close social connections and very small amounts of what we perceive as stress today.
Our bodies, our genes, our very DNA has come to expect all these things in order for us to maintain a healthy body and mind. The make-up of our Genes hasn't changed at all for around 10,000 years, So it makes no sense to me that we blame many of these modern chronic diseases on just being unlucky with ending up in a bad pool of familial genes. What has changed however, is the environment that we are subjecting these 10,000 year old genes to day and night. It's this enormous mismatch between what our 10,000 year old genes expect, and the modern environment that we are subjecting them to that I believe is the driving factor in why so many of us modern humans are plagued with some sort of modern health issues. So, can you see why the further we move away from what our bodies have come to expect over the last half a million years, the closer we get to sickness and disease?
We spend most of our days indoors, surrounded by artificial light, bathed in harmful chemicals and products, disconnected from nature and fuelled by a diet made up of ultra-processed foods which contain ingredients that didn’t even exist 100 years ago. Pair all this with the stresses of modern day life such as work pressures, traffic, money worries etc. and it’s a one way ticket to poor health and a greatly reduced quality of life in older age.
Almost all of these serious health complications begin up to 20 years before they start showing symptoms, by this point the body is in a heavily compromised state and the road to recovery is a much harder and much longer one. Fortunately for us, we now have the knowledge and skills to get out in front of this by acting sooner rather than later, being proactive rather than reactive.
Now, I am not here to suggest we go back to living in caves and avoiding modern life completely, however I do believe that the more we strive to live like our ancestors the healthier we will be.
This brings me to why I am here, I aim to use my Primal Health Coach training and thousands of hours of books and podcasts to deliver my main mission, which is to combine the brilliance of our modern capabilities with a primal way of living to guide people into taking control of their health now and secure themselves a long, healthy and happy life, dodging the bullet of these niggling health issues and modern chronic diseases in the process.
I will use the invaluable ancestral wisdom which allowed us to develop into the remarkable beings we are today and combine it with our access to modern technologies and information to help you achieve optimal health in a non-regimented, fun and engaging way.