There is no lack of advice on what one should do to stay healthy. Most of the advice concerns the need for good nutrition and exercise. However, there is much debate about what kind of exercise, how long it should last and when it should occur. All this advice has the aim of counteracting the disadvantages of our modern lifestyle – easily digested foods and reduced physical activity. A previous blog pointed out the need for a colon-friendly diet, that includes plenty of the substances which our colonic bacteria have evolved to work on. This blog addresses the other aspect – our lack of physical activity.

Our ancestors were constantly active – making tools, weapons and clothes, looking for food, digging for roots and climbing for fruits, gathering fuel for the fire, preparing food, hunting, moving to better environments carrying all their possessions, building shelters and so on. It was a life of almost constant movement except when sleeping. This was the norm for the early human animal. And recent research on longevity in modern humans has shown that those whose lives involve continual movement and frequent physical activity are the ones who live the longest.

Unfortunately for us, modernity is manifest as the development of labour-saving devices, technology that saves us time, and transport that needs no physical input. If the activity appears onerous someone will develop an app for it! We strive to avoid hard physical work and save time in order to sit down and watch screens. Having to regularly visit a gym or go for a jog is a nuisance – it interferes with ones leisure! The human animal did not evolve to be lazy; we need to organise our lives so as to be constantly active in order to survive.