Someone posted an article yesterday to our FB group about the human’s tendency to be ‘lazy’.
Same day, another person posted a concern about about her teenager, who was suffering from anxiety..
and it got us thinking….
Both issues are about the way that we are hard-wired (rather than learned behaviour)
Lazy and anxious don’t sound like very helpful ways to be – but actually they come from a good place.
A place that is trying to protect you
A place that is trying to help you stay alive
– and these responses are as old as humans themselves –
The research (by the Simon Fraser University) found that during walking experiments participants NATURALLY modified their normal walking patterns to use the least amount of energy
automatically. And they were really, really good at it.
The journalist summed this up as ‘Humans are naturally lazy”
What the research ACTUALLY did was highlight the subconscious nervous system’s ability to fine tune activities to keep energy output to a minimum –
to optimize energy
(and not waste precious calories when we don’t need to)
Humans are hard-wired to be EFFICIENT.
(now that sounds much helpful than ‘lazy’)
The same theory applies to the feelings of anxiety
When faced with something new or difficult your body and mind go on HIGH ALERT
Your brain is hard wired to watch out for threats
Like a smoke alarm
It doesn’t know the difference between overdone toast…or the house burning down.
It goes off all the same…just in case.
The problem with the hard wiring is not with its intention – it means well
But just that the patterns were formed in the deepest, most ancient part of the brain
They come from a time when our danger radar was for looking for Sabre-Toothed tigers and cave-bears
and
from an environment when food was scarce – needing scavenging on a daily basis
you really couldn’t eat too much.
Everyone had to eat as much as they could in case there was no food the next day.
Catapult forward from prehistoric times to now…
Super-markets; jobs, road rage, snotty receptionists interviews, public speaking, traffic jams,
The things that put us on high alert now are not going to eat you for lunch, or rip your leg off.
But the response that you have to these situations is going to prepare your body just as it would back then:
in the deepest, most ancient areas of your brain the fight or flight response
Wrestle the tiger – or leg it as fast as you can increased heartbeat, sweating, over breathing, needing a poo, inability to concentrate on anything else
… all made you able to deal with the emergency NOW
Not the best response for job interviews and presentations, first dates and shopping trips.
The leaning towards ‘lazy’ (or efficient) is the same if you don’t know where your next meal is going to come from
Your limbic brain doesn’t know that there will be food in Tesco tomorrow so you don’t have to eat ALL the food, today.
And that it is OK to burn calories off – you will get more…
this is the instinct that tells you that although you BOUGHT the Davina DVD… it still hasn’t been out of its box and you would rather sit and watch Bake-Off instead
and that makes you pick up the bar of Galaxy and packet of Walkers that you ultimately will wish you didn’t.
It’s not that you’re lazy, or stupid
It’s instinct.
And it can be overcome.
It’s just hard to do it by yourself.
But not so helpful if you are trying to get active and do more to burn off the over indulgences.
Why are we even telling you this?
Well simply being aware of the way that you are wired gives you the opportunity to be vigilant
To become more aware
To notice the thought on your run to ‘cut off a corner or two’
To notice if you are avoiding or finding excuses for the thing that you fear doing
To be able to give the cave dwelling folk the nod that ‘you’ve got this one ‘
Just a bit of a heads up…..
There are no magic mountain goji berries that will make you eat healthily
There is no way to make feelings of fear disappear completely
The magic formula is a very simple and mundane one
Get to know yourself; feelings and thoughts that you have. Identify what it is that you need to do. Then crack on.
That’s it.
‘Feel the fear or discomfort and do it anyway’ –
cliché but true
Want to get fit… move your body as much as you can.
Want to be slimmer..eat healthy food
Want to deal with anxiety…pay attention to the way that you feel, see if you can name it and then work out where it comes from.
And then do the work
Or stay stuck there feeling anxious and lazy..like an overweight cavewoman arguing about a broken screen in the Apple Store.
Our instincts can’t change but you can build habits that change how you deal with them.
Once you know what you’re dealing with.
It can be done.
It’s what we do in The Project every day.
Click the logo for more information
Have a great week
xx