I first heard about the book The Comfort Crisis when reading Outlive and as really liked that book, I decided to give it a try to The Comfort Crisis as I am looking to improve my Pillars of Health and the title also caught my eye.

Let’s see a bit more about the book The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self.

This post is part of the series Learnings from books where my goal is to share what I learned from the book that I read. It is a mixture of review and summary with a bit of my opinion and point of view. But, as reviews, these learnings can say more about me than the book itself, so I trust that you the smart reader will take it with a grain of salt.

Learnings from The Comfort Crisis

The book is a little bit different than expected because it contains many stories about the author’s adventures in places with discomfort and not only information from research. Maybe it is a good balance between stories and the information but I was not expecting a lot of stories.

I liked the book, and maybe it is just confirmation bias, but I also think that we have too many comforts and we don’t expose ourselves to discomfort anymore so we are in a way becoming soft. Don’t get me wrong, I love comfort, but if we never expose ourselves to challenging situations, we are never going to grow and also never going to really get to know what we are really capable of doing.

The book has some good learnings and I will share the 5 most important learnings from the book.

we need more boredom

This is something that I have been trying to expose myself to. Today we have many technologies and information (TV, cell phones, etc) and we are very rarely bored as we have an easy escape with any of these technologies.

The book cites some studies showing that our lack of boredom is leading us to be more mentally fatigued, less creative, and a lot more anxious because we are always been stimulated, not having our mind wander, and receiving a lot more information than we evolved to receive.

we need more nature time

I am very biased on this one because even before I read this book, I added “Access to nature” to my Pillars of Health. Being in nature reduces a lot our stress levels as the book mentions “They discovered that 20 minutes outside, three times a week, is the dose of nature that most efficiently dropped people’s levels of the stress hormone cortisol.” (without the phone, of course).

It also helps us to give another perspective on our problems as we take the beauty of nature. I personally feel a lot happier and grateful for what I have after a walk in nature.

the power of silence

Silence is another thing that is hard to find especially for us that lives in the cities. As I write this, I can hear trucks backing up, cars on the road, my dishwasher working, and the Skytrain passing.

But silence is essential for relaxation. According to the book “Other research found that two minutes of silence led to the bigger drops in measures of relaxation like blood pressure and heart and breathing rate compared to a handful of other relaxation techniques. Yes, silence is more relaxing than most of the ‘relaxing’ products marketers try to sell us.”

So, even if silence is uncomfortable, it is worth seeking it.

Exercising should not be only physical

When we think about exercising, we think that we are going to exercise our muscles. That is true, but according to the book, we should also need to exercise our cognition while exercising. As the book says "‘If you put people outside, like if you’re going for a bike ride or trail run, where you’re having to navigate, make decisions about when to stop, how to pace, where to turn… all of those things add a cognitive challenge to that activity.’ And that, Raichlen believes, could enhance and protect the human brain— sharpening it, making it quicker and more disease-resistant."

hard tasks improve us

Another point brought from the book is that what improves us the most is the harder and uncomfortable things that we do. It makes sense as the real things that we value the most are not easily acquired but the ones that we need to put effort into.

The book also talks about misogi. Doing something that is really hard and that you have a high chance of failure. While I liked the concept and idea, I find that is kinda hard for normal people to do that.

Favorite quotes

These are my 5 favorite quotes from the book.

  • “Scientists are finding that certain discomforts protect us from physical and psychological problems like obesity, heart disease, cancers, diabetes, depression, and anxiety, and even more fundamental issues like feeling a lack of meaning and purpose.”
  • “What’s more, new comforts have moved the goalpost further away from what we consider an acceptable level of discomfort.”
  • “Despite the fact that people today are rarely alone, we are increasingly lonely.”
  • *“Finding a different outlet for boredom also lets us tap into creativity.”
  • "’…OK, many people find it odd to measure things. Many people are also sick, fat, poor, slow, and ignorant as a result of nonmeasurement.’"

These are my learnings from the book The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self written by Michael Easter. A special thanks to Vancouver Public Library (VPL) for allowing free access to the book.

Cheers.