How nature programmed us for poor psychological well-being
Miscellaneous / / April 15, 2023
From an evolutionary point of view, people do not have to be happy.
Profile of the Swedish psychiatrist Anders Hansen - brain research. In his book Why I'm Feeling Bad When Everything Seems Good, he explains how the brain cares about survival and why it makes people feel negative emotions. With the permission of the MIF publishing house, we publish an excerpt from his work.
Let's do a thought experiment: rewind the tape 250,000 years ago and go to East Africa. There we will meet a woman - we will call her Eve. In general, she looks like you and me, lives with a hundred other people and spends her days in search of food: she collects edible plants and hunts wild animals. Eve will have seven children. Four of them will die: one son at birth, a daughter from a severe infection, another daughter will fall off a cliff, and a teenage son will be killed during the conflict. Three of Eva's children will live to adulthood and have children of their own. Thus, Eve will have eight grandchildren and granddaughters. Of these, four will grow up and have children of their own.
Repeat this for another 10,000 generations and you will meet Eve's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren. Who are they? That's right, you and me. We are the descendants of those few who did not die at birth and in childhood, who coped with infections, did not bled out from wounds, did not die of hunger, who were not killed by enemies and not eaten by wild animals.
You and I are the last link in a continuous chain of people who survived when the smoke cleared over the battlefields, famine or epidemics ended.
When you think about it, it becomes clear: none of our forefathers and foremothers died before giving birth to offspring. But the consequences of this are not so obvious. The descendants of Eve, who reacted vigilantly to dangers and listened especially sensitively to the rustling in the bushes (where, probably, a lion), there was more chance of survival. Since we are the descendants of the survivors, we are also very attentive and vigilant. Strong immunity allowed our ancestors to cope with infectious diseases. This is where our amazing immunity comes from, although we do not always feel it, especially in autumn.
Another conclusion concerns mental abilities. The descendants of Eve who had the qualities that helped them survive were more likely to leave offspring, and you and I are also endowed with these mental abilities. The fact that behind us is an unbroken chain of survivors, that none of our ancestors fell into the mouth of a lion, is not fell off a cliff and did not starve to death before having children, should mean that we superhumans. We all need to be as resourceful as a Nobel laureate Marie Curie, wise, like the spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi, and cold-blooded, like Jack Bauer from the TV series 24 hours. But do we really combine all these qualities?
Luckily fit in
The expression survival of the fittest (survival of the fittest) evokes associations with those who are at the top of their form - physically and psychologically. But when it comes to human evolution, the word fit means not being in good physical shape. to fit - to be in shape), and the ability to adapt (eng. to fit - adapt) to the environment in which you live. We should evaluate the qualities that helped our ancestors survive and reproduce by the standards not of our world, but of the one in which we lived throughout the history of mankind.
The fact that Eve's children were healthy, strong, happy, benevolent, harmonious or intelligent meant nothing in itself. From the harsh point of view of evolution, only one thing is important - that they survived and had children of their own.
Realizing this, I completely revised my view of the person. The human body is designed for survival and reproduction, not health. The brain is designed to survive and reproduce, not to psychological comfort. For how you feel, what kind of person you are, whether you have friends, food, a roof over your head or other resources - it does not matter if you are dead. The brain's priority is survival. So what exactly was he supposed to help us avoid? In the tablet next to you you will see what we died from in the course of history, that is, what your and my ancestors had to protect themselves from.
Way of life | Hunter Gatherer | Agriculture | Industrialization | Digitalization |
Period | 250,000–10,000 BC e. | 10,000 to. n. e. - 1800 n. e. | 1800–1990 | From the 1990s to the present. time |
Life expectancy at birth | OK. 33 years old | OK. 33 years old | 35 years (1800) 77 years old (1990) |
82 years (Europe, 2020) |
Most common causes of death | Infections, starvation, murder, bleeding, childbirth | Infections, starvation, murder, bleeding, childbirth | Infections, childbirth, pollution, heart attack, cancer | heart attack, cancer, stroke |
Share in history | 96% | 3,9% | 0,08% | 0,02% |
You may be thinking right now, “What does this have to do with me? I'm not a hunter-gatherer, after all." Of course not, but the body and brain still believe that we are hunters and gatherers. The fact is that evolution is slow: it usually takes tens or even hundreds of millennia before any changes occur with a biological species. The same applies to a person. The way of life to which you and I are accustomed is just a spark that flickered in history - too quickly for us to adapt to it.
Your social media account probably lists you as a teacher, nurse, computer programmer, dealer, plumber, taxi driver, journalist, cook, or doctor in the occupation section. From a purely biological point of view, you could well indicate that you are a hunter-gatherer, since your body or brain over the past 10,000 and even 20,000 years has significantly not changed. The most important thing to know about people is how little we change. A history of 5,000 years, about which written evidence has been preserved (and at least as many), inhabited by people like you and me, who, like you and me, are essentially hunter-gatherers. So what kind of life are we really fit for?
250,000 years in 2 minutes
It's easy to romanticize the life of hunter-gatherers - a kind of existence in the spirit of Huckleberry Finn: a lot of adventures among untouched nature together with other people in small soldered equal groups. In fact, much indicates that the life of our ancestors was a living hell. Medium life expectancy was about 30 years old - and this does not mean that everyone died at the same time at the age of 30, just that many died young. Half died before reaching adolescence, sometimes during birth, sometimes from infection. Those who survived childhood and adolescence faced starvation, bleeding, dehydration, attack by wild animals, more infections, accidents and the possibility of being killed. A tiny minority survived to the current retirement age, although there were those among the hunter-gatherers who reached the age of 70 and even 80 years. Thus, old age is not new, but the fact that people live to see it is news.
About 10,000 years ago, the biggest change in human life took place: we became farmers. However, the bow and arrow were replaced by a plow not overnight - the transition from a nomadic to a settled way of life occurred gradually, over the centuries. The way of life of farmers can be described briefly: more more hellish. The average life expectancy was still the same 30 years, and the risks of losing life remained the same as those of hunter-gatherers, except that hunger threatened a little less. But now murder has become a much more common cause of death, probably because the ability to cook food and store resources has become new grounds for disputes and strife. Hierarchy became clearer, and some contagious diseases spread […]. Work has become monotonous, and working hours have increased. The food also seemed more monotonous and most likely consisted of wheat for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Prominent historians and thinkers call the transition to agriculture the biggest mistake of mankind.
Why did we make this transition, if everything has deteriorated so much? Probably the biggest reason is that farming produces far more calories per square meter than hunting. When you have many mouths to feed, you don't complain that the food is monotonous, the work is boring, or that someone is trying to get their hands on what you've earned.
More calories meant more people could feed themselves. When all the time ceased to go only to find food, specialization arose. Technological progress began, a more complex social structure became possible. All this led to an explosive population growth. Before the transition to agriculture, 10,000 years ago, 5 million people lived on earth. In 1850, before industrialization began, this figure was already 1.2 billion. 30,000% increase over 400 generations!
But let's get back to Eve, with whom I began the story. Imagine if she knew that most death threats would disappear in the future. That her great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren will no longer be threatened by terrible infections and predator attacks. That women will rarely die during childbirth. That people will have access to varied and high-calorie food and will not be bored, as they will have access to all the knowledge and entertainment of the world. Most likely, Eve would think that we were playing a prank on her. However, believing that her descendants would live in such conditions, she would certainly be glad that her efforts were not in vain. And if we told her that the psychological well-being of one in eight adults would be so bad, that medicines would be required, Eve would not only think about what medicines are, she would consider us ungrateful.
Are we really ungrateful and do not understand how everything is fine with us? At least I myself feel a little ungrateful when I have Bad mood for no apparent reason. I have lost count of how many of my patients are ashamed of their feelings: depression or anxiety that arises despite the fact that they do not need anything. Not everything is so simple, and the point is not in our ingratitude. You and I, as already mentioned, are the children of the survivors - we were probably not supposed to feel good.
I know it sounds grim that evolutionary history has genetically programmed us for bad things. psychological well-being, causing anxiety and fear to cope with life difficulties. Of course, we can improve well-being, and we will talk about this a little later.
The book “Why I feel bad when everything seems to be fine” will help you understand how our brain works and why we tend to experience negative emotions at times. After reading, you will better understand your nervous system and begin to listen more carefully to the signals of the body.
Buy a bookRead also📌
- Emotion damping effect: why we again agree to what was really bad
- Why negative emotions are needed and why they should not be blocked
- Where is the line between healthy optimism and toxic positivity and how not to cross it