2: 8 Key Primal Shifts for Ancestral Living

Michael Kummer: You're listening to the Primal Shift Podcast. I'm your host Michael Kummer and my goal is to help you achieve optimal health by bridging the gap between ancestral living and the demands of modern society. Get ready to unlock the transformative power of nature as the ultimate biohack, revolutionizing your health and reconnecting you with your primal self.

Hey guys, and welcome back to the Primal Shift podcast. In the second episode, I'd like to talk about the eight key primal shifts or core principles, as I've called them in the past, that I think make up a healthy lifestyle. And a lot of people think that, you know, they just have to exercise enough or eat well or do this or that, and they're going to be fine.

But the truth is we need to cover a lot of different angles, a lot of different areas to make sure that we thrive and that we. that our health is optimal. And so into this episode, we're going to talk about, give you an overview of those eight, and then we're going to dive into more details over the next couple of episodes.

Now, before we start, I'd like to remind you that please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, leave a five star review if you think it's worth it. because it helps a lot to help me get discovered and for other people to help find this podcast. It's a very competitive environment out there, as I'm sure you can imagine.

And so every review, every subscription really helps to tell Apple, Hey, this is a podcast that other people should see as well and listen to as well. So thank you very much in, in advance for, for helping out there. Now let's talk about those eight primary shifts or core principles. Number one, I'd like to talk about is sleep.

Sleep is the foundation of everything. And I like to say that if you don't sleep well, nothing else matters. That's obviously not entirely true because everything else certainly does matter, but optimal health is very difficult to achieve if your foundation is off and sleep is the foundation. If you wake up already not rested, if you didn't give your body enough chance to, you know, recover and restore consolidated memories and all of those things, then there is no way you can perform.

physically or mentally optimal in the next day. So sleep is incredibly important and sleep, getting good night's rest seems to be unattainable for many people, but there are actually just a few things that we're going to address in more detail over the next couple of episodes that you can do. to improve your sleep, to normalize your sleep, and to just sleep well.

Because guess what? Humans have slept well for most of, of our history. You know, good sleep is not something that needs to be trained, that needs to be, that's impossible to achieve. It's the default state. Unfortunately, For many of us, we are so out of whack with, you know, how we should be that sleep, sleeping well is difficult, but just a few pointers that can help you really dial in your sleep.

One is consistent sleep and wake time. And that's probably the most challenging part for a lot of people because of, you know, family life and work and all of those things. But that's really one of the easiest hacks or most effective hacks is to just go to bed roughly at the same time and get up roughly at the same time, you know, expose yourself to sunlight, you know, that's a, one of the other things that has helped a lot of people by just exposing themselves to natural light.

All of that goes back to normalizing your circadian rhythm, supporting your circadian rhythm, and that makes sleeping much easier. Number two, nutrition, obviously, that's one of. You know, the core areas of my blog and YouTube channel is how to, how to eat like a human, you know, eat in a way that's conducive to our genetic makeup, to our physiology, to our digestive system.

The problem is there is so much often conflicting information out there with, you know, today a study says this, tomorrow the study says something different. and is, you know, more plants, eat your veggies, more meat, meat causes cancer, meat causes, you know, high cholesterol. There is just so much information out there and nothing seems to be making sense.

And so going back to, you know, looking back in human history and said, what have humans eaten? for most of evolution. And you'll realize that you don't need a study to tell you that, you know, eating around, eating predominantly animals is probably a good thing. That, you know, eat some plants, that's probably okay too.

Do we need plants? No, there is nothing in there that we need that doesn't mean we can't have them if we know how to prepare them properly. You know, that goes back to, as Dr. Bill Schindler said, you know, eat like a human. You know, humans have learned how to process and prepare certain foods to make them more compatible with our physiology.

So I'm not telling you have to be a carnivore and I'm certainly not telling you have to be a vegan, but there are certain guiding principles that we'll talk about in the next few episodes that can help you figure out what you should be eating predominantly. and how to listen to your body to figure out if something sits well with you or it doesn't, you know, at the end of the day, if you feel well, then probably you're doing something right.

If you don't feel well, maybe, you know, you're not doing something right. You're doing something wrong. Physical activity and exercise, incredibly important for a number of reasons, not to lose weight or to maintain weight or to, you know, out exercise a poor diet. That's not the point of exercise. The point of exercise is to challenge your body, to put it under stress because only certain stressors will help.

your body become more resilient. That's one of the reasons why even astronauts, you know, in space, they work out, they do weight training, resistance training, because otherwise their bones, their bone mass would shrink, their muscles would atrophy, because the body says, hey, I don't need to bear any weight, so we don't need those, that strong skeleton, we don't need those strong bones or those muscles, what for?

We are weightless, you know, and so the same applies here on earth, you know, we need to challenge our body to either grow to be, our bones to become more dense, our muscles to become bigger, to help, you know, us move and do the things we need to do. And that's one of the reasons why exercise is so important as a hormetic stressor.

Speaking of stress, obviously, you know, stress is sometimes a good thing, sometimes a bad thing. Chronic stress, most definitely not so good. One of the issues really is in our, our brain cannot necessarily differentiate between something that's life threatening You know, because that's one of the reasons why we, why we have a stress response to help us survive in case there is a saber tooth tiger trying to eat us, you know, or if we need to run after a mammoth and try to kill it, you know, there are, there is a reason for why we have a sympathetic branch of our nervous system, but there is also the issue of our modern lives that get in the way and trigger that sympathetic response Constantly, you know, every financial issue, every, you know, every time the kids cry, every time there is, you know, your boss annoys you, we go into sympathetic mode much more often and more consistently than we've ever done as part of human evolution.

And that causes issues. And so we have to learn how to to deal with stress, how to become more resilient to stress triggers and how to downregulate our nervous system. That's also one of the things that I'm very much looking forward to sharing more details on. Environmental toxins. That's a big one.

That's, I think, one of the most challenging ones for us here at, uh, in the Kummer household to reduce our exposure to environmental toxins from personal care products, from, food storage containers from tap water from paint in the house from from furniture. I mean, the table I'm using here has probably been stained with something that off gassed, hopefully a long time ago and not anymore.

But all of those things are toxic to our body and we are exposing ourselves to all of those things. every single day in amounts that's unprecedented in human evolution. And so that's another way where I can share tips with you on how you can dramatically reduce your exposure and reap the benefits of that in the long run.

Hormesis is another thing that I, maybe just two or so years ago, started exploring more. And hormesis basically means exposing yourself to hormetic stressors. Stressors that make you more resilient. What doesn't kill you make you stronger, I'm sure you've heard. And that principle applies not so much to chronic stress, because chronic stress doesn't make you stronger, it makes you sick.

But intentional stressors, be it hot exposure, cold exposure, so sauna bathing, cold plunging, um, exercise for that matter, those things are hermetic stressors that can cause a response in your body that make you more resilient and stronger. And those are incredibly important. And that's why when someone says, Oh, you know, but I don't wanna you know, cold shower.

Why would I do that? It just feels uncomfortable. Well, sometimes, you know, ideal health is about feeling uncomfortable for a certain time. And, you know, we'll talk about more that in, in a dedicated episode, but that's a super interesting area as well that I'm, that I'm very passionate about. Belonging and tribalism, uh, number seven.

That's something we often ignore, especially in the last, I think three years or so as part of the You know, that health issue everyone seemed to be having, you know, we became more isolated, you know, and, and there are a lot of people that say, Oh, I just do what I want. You know, I want to be my, myself because I don't want anyone to tell me what I can do and not do it.

I, I feel that because I'm very much at heart, a a libertarian solver. Like, leave me alone. I do what I think is best and I leave you alone, kind of. But at the same time, I've realized that humans are not meant to be alone. They're not meant to be isolated. We thrive in a tribe of ideally like minded people and sometimes, you know, opinions that differ, but that we can figure out as a tribe, as a community.

And so we've really been trying to make connecting with others, sharing what we know, um, hearing their point of view and their opinions and, and trying to see the positive of having a community and, you know, just try to ignore some of the things that don't work out. I mean, there are certain things that I, you know, I, I can't look past and I say, you know, we cannot be part of the same tribe, but in many areas, it feels so good to have help.

And we've come to appreciate that even more because You know, my wife and I and the kids, you know, we are here in the U S my family is in Austria. My wife's family is in Costa Rica. So we are alone, you know, family wise and whenever we need help, you know, with the kids or whatever, if, you know, my wife and I want to have a date, we need to pay someone or ask a friend.

Fortunately that now we've built a network of friends that can help out, but you can't do it alone. And the more and more we get into. you know, farming and raising some of our own food, the more we realize you cannot run a farm by yourself and, you know, do podcasts and write blog posts and record YouTube videos.

All of those things require a group of people, a support net at the end of the day, and that's why belonging and tribalism are so important. And number eight, reconnecting with nature. We are all in our bubble, in our offices, in our, you know, homes, climate controlled, under artificial light. And sometimes, you know, the days go by and we are not out in nature.

You know, when was the last time, you know, you stood out in the rain and just let the rain, you know, pour on you and appreciate how it feels? When you get soaking wet, you know, without an umbrella or when you walk barefoot in the grass, how does it feel or on gravel or in, you know, on, on the forest floor or whatever, all of those things are super important to us because that's what humans have been exposed to for such a long time.

You know, for millions of years, we walked barefoot, you know, exposed to the elements, to hot and cold and everything in between. And so we need that to a degree. It doesn't mean you have to run around a loincloth barefoot, you know, and go to the office, but you know, make, try to make this part of your routine, you know, walk out barefoot.

If you have a patch of grass or soil, you know, without concrete, you know, just walk barefoot ground a little bit, you know, feel it, feel how it feels, you know, be exposed to the, to the sun without sunscreen and to the rain without, you know, wearing a raincoat. So all of those things are super important that I, that I'm super excited to talk about to you.

over the next couple of episodes. But before we wrap it up today, again, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. But I also want to talk about a real quick MK supplements, which to a degree pays for what I'm doing here. So I'm very appreciative of all of your support already, but I have a special discount Primal Shift, code Primal Shift, one word for 15 percent off MK supplements.

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And so very good product. Uh, I think. obviously, because otherwise I wouldn't be doing it. But if you want to give them a try, and I would highly appreciate it, Primal Shift, 15 percent off on shop.michaelkummer.com. And with that, we're going to wrap it up and I'll see you in the next episode.