The mismatch between our biology and the modern world

Our brains are essentially running on an ancient paradigm in a world that has been completely redesigned. 

The fundamental architecture of the human brain hasn't dramatically changed in roughly 200,000 years.

We still have the same neural circuitry that helped our ancestors survive on the African savanna. 

That brain was adapted for a world rife with immediate  threats, tightly knit social groups, nomadic life, and direct contact with raw nature. 

Our brain evolved to crave calorie-dense foods because they were scarce, to feel anxious about social rejection because ostracism meant death, and to focus on immediate rewards because long-term planning beyond seasonal cycles wasn't helpful. 

These adaptations were highly useful for our ancestors, but they have become liabilities in our modern world.
The mismatch between our evolutionary design and contemporary life created a host of problems that are endemic to modern society. 

Our reward systems got hijacked by social media notifications and video games that provide infinite stimulation. 

Our stress response system, designed to mobilize energy for a life-or-death encounter, get activated in response to emails, traffic, and deadlines.

Our life is sedentary and our nutrition is a jumble of hyper-processed products.

We have also substituted deep social bonds with hundreds of shallow digital connections. 

This evolutionary mismatch is a sign that we actively need to design our lives to work with our biology rather than against it.  

We can't change our neural architecture, but we can change our environment by curating our digital consumption, resisting temptations, and deliberately fostering real connections with people.

The key insight is our ancient brains are poorly equipped to handle our artificial, rapid lifestyle. 

We are not broken creatures, we are just living in a world that we were not designed for.