Thursday, December 18, 2008

Exuberant animal


Continuing the Paleo theme, you should also check out Frank Forencich's Exuberant Animal site. This used to be badged as "Go Animal", when all he had was his book, Play as if your life depends on it and then it contained lots of free articles. The site has evolved over the years, but still contains some great research




Play as if....is a superb book. It is simple and straight forward pleading for a more playful and natural approach to life, free from some of the stresses that we impose on ourselves....Keith discusses his approach here.

A thoroughgoing evolutionary approach: This book takes a refreshing, even subversive, look at human health and wellbeing in an explicitly evolutionary context. It is an application of Occam's Razor to our physical and mental health and wellbeing today. The author, Frank Forencich makes the point, familiar to readers of this journal, that "human physiology and biomechanics have been sculpted over the course of millions of years to enhance our survival in a semi-wooded grassland environment". In the next three hundred pages he explains how we can all mimic those challenges to improve our health, fitness and overall wellbeing. Although this book follows in the tradition of The Paleolithic Prescription1, Neanderthin2 and The TBK Fitness Program3, it actually breaks significant new ground, shifting the focus from reductionist physiology to how we can each apply the principles of evolutionary health to our everyday lives – not just our bodies – through to old age and really enjoy ourselves in the process.

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