Tomorrowmind

The natural human state is that of a hunter-gatherer.

Modern labor – working in an office, factory, etc. – can breed anxiety, depression and sedentary lifestyles. How people work today seems unnatural; this is due to how the brain evolved. For 200,000 years, the human brain evolved to serve a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, developing skills such as the ability to recognize poisonous plants, track prey and create diverse languages. The hunter-gatherer life enabled humans to adapt to changing climates, and provided time for innovation and creativity.

Around 10,000 BC, human labor took a dramatic leap into farming. Humans no longer worked with nature, but made nature work for them. They attempted to plan for future droughts, floods and famines, which generated anxiety.

During the Industrial Revolution, factory work made people function in ways that moved them even further from their natural hunter-gatherer mode. Humans were expected to operate like machines – repeating movements over and over – which furthered negative impacts such as depression, alcoholism and suicide.

Though most modern work differs...