Health Beyond Civilization

When it comes to wilderness skills, or even just being outdoors, some things are just assumed. If you go hiking, mountaineering, or camping; if you sign up for a course on survival skills or foraging wild herbs; if you go tracking deer or wolves; then there’s a good chance you’ll get dirty, cold, wet, and tired. It kind of comes with the territory — it’s a no-brainer. It’s the first step that’s so obvious that no one ever talks about it: In order to enjoy and learn from the wild, you have to take a step outside.

But because it’s so obvious, that transition from indoor to outdoor becomes overlooked as a category of study in and of itself. Often this doesn’t matter for people who are predisposed to enjoy those activities; they whiz right through and are playing in the dirt before you can sneeze.

For the rest of us, though, it can be of some value to walk through that step over the threshold a bit more carefully. If we’re stepping from a closed space to an open environment, and especially if we’re used to spending 90% of our time in the closed space, then there are many things that influence us that we’re not used to, from physical sensations of weather and dirt to mental changes like the fact that there’s just more space.

In this post I’ll be examining the effects of weather and climate on that first step over the threshold.

Consider where you’re coming from. Most of us live in a shelter with some climate control, whether it’s air conditioning or indoor heating, or at least insulation and a fireplace. We’ve got hot water, we’ve got blankets. It’s safe and solid inside.

Kinesthetically, the first thing that hits you when you take a step outside is the change in the atmosphere. The wind moves against your skin. The temperature and humidity difference hits you. The sun warms you or the rain or snow cools you. You’ve stepped out into a world where greater forces are at work.

And this is a problem, because for many people the ability to withstand even tiny variations in temperature or humidity has atrophied, made weak by the pervasive presence and convenience of modern climate control. Even if we choose not to use it in our homes or cars, it’s nonetheless unavoidable in public buildings everywhere. It becomes easier for us to go along with the crowd.

Not to get moral about it — many people need climate control, not only in order to stay sane, but to stay alive. The elderly, the sick, or even the moderately weak, if we’re left sweltering in a Florida summer without air conditioning, that could become physically dangerous.

Nonetheless, it doesn’t say much about our chances for physical survival if the weather can exert such a strong influence the instant we open the door. At the least, it can serve as an obstacle for pursuing any path involving the outdoors. For a rewilder, nothing is more discouraging than getting all gung ho about learning tracking only to wilt from the heat the instant you step outside.

Thus, it’s important to recognize the re-engagement of the elements as a crucial first step for a transition to outdoor living. It’s perhaps a step that the robust or the accustomed can skip, but still one to be considered. Actually, it should be considered by everyone anyway. Of the “sacred order” of survival skills, shelter is at the top of the list, precisely because it’s so common for those who are lost to die of exposure.

Here are some suggestions for approaches to take on expanding your experience of the elements.

My philosophy is that one should expand experience gradually. It can be done suddenly, but that takes a lot of energy up front and can lead to burnout.

As with anything, conditioning for the weather should be progressive and have a logic to it. It should involve pushing the limit and retreating into comfort. Both are important. Focus should be placed on quality, not quantity. Most crucially for long-term living, the weather should be discovered as something to be enjoyed, not just tolerated.

There are four general realms that can be explored.

Mental. The first is arguably both the simplest and the most difficult. Comfort is by and large a mental thing: We remain in the zone where things feel familiar and safe. For many people, much of the time, this is at the generally accepted room temperature around 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

But, context matters. Most of the time it may be difficult to be out in sweltering heat with sweat dripping off your body — but people do that all the time in saunas. It’s okay then, because they have absolute control over when they enter and leave. The mental frame that provides context for the experience says the sauna is okay where a summer hike in the swamp is not.

It’s this mental frame, then, that requires examination. Step back, take a look at it. What do you know about yourself? How do you know when you feel “comfortable” or “uncomfortable”? What are the sensations in your body? Why do those sensations automatically translate into a value judgment, and can that be changed?

The edges of the comfort zone, when it just starts to get a little too hot or a little too cold for your comfort, is where the learning begins. Why does it feel uncomfortable? What does it mean? What frame, what memories, what experiences are associated with being too hot, too cold, too damp, etc.?

This is a process of (1) separating sensation from interpretation, and (2) understanding the mental context that generates that interpretation. If you can do both, and then discover ways to change the context, then you’ve just changed your relationship with your own discomfort.

 

Physical. Physiology counts. Some people have arthritis that clearly gets worse when the weather changes. Some people sweat buckets all the time. Some people are cold when everyone else is in shorts. These things need to be recognized and taken into account.

The same weather system can affect different people in different ways. When there’s a cold snap, what determines why one person gets sick and the next person doesn’t? What determines why one person thrives in cold and the other loves the height of summer? There’s something more to it than psychology.

One of the most famous ancient Chinese medical texts is the Shang han lun, roughly translated as “On Cold Damage.” Chinese medicine teaches that climatic influences are a major way that disease is created; it’s their equivalent of germ theory. The Shang han lun is a huge tome that describes all the intricacies involved in the invasion of one of those climatic influences. The Chinese and most other traditional cultures recognized that climate and weather are forces to be reckoned with, and have variable effects on human physiology. This is why differential diagnosis is such an art: Everyone’s different!

I’ve learned to have compassion on myself that I don’t take extremes of weather as well as others, that I still need to plug in a heater in the winter or turn up the air conditioning in the summer. It’s about coming to terms with strengths and limitations. Accept where you are, accept the body you have to work with, and strive to understand why it is the way it is.

If you run cold when others are in shorts, then you know you need to take care in the winter. You need to make adjustments using clothing, activity, and diet. Research the types of foods to eat that will keep you warm and avoid those that cool you down. Consult an herbalist who can help you further. Understand and work with your condition; change what can be changed, work within the parameters of what can’t.

 

Environmental. To some extent this is what our civilization excels at. We insulate houses. We heat homes and then cool them. We humidify and dehumidify. Overreliance on these technologies have made our abilities in the other areas weak.

Still, learning to generate or avoid heat is among the basic survival skills. Learn to build a shelter to hold in your body heat when you’re out in the elements. Learn to build a fire to generate heat to keep yourself alive and sane. Learn to take a siesta or work in the mornings and evenings to stay cool. Learn how to stay in the shade, and how to find a cool breeze on a sunny day. These are qualitatively different skills than turning up the thermostat or turning on the dehumidifier.

Fortunately, these are also the skills that are among the most commonly taught. So I don’t have much more to say about them that others can’t say better.

 

Spiritual. I haven’t experienced it, but I heard that in a Tom Brown, Jr., class he has you jump into a freezing lake and stay there for a few minutes, after hypnotizing yourself into staying warm, or something like that.

Certain Tibetan Buddhist monks have abilities to elevate their body temperature even in freezing temperature, using a technique known as tummo. Traditionally I believe they sit meditating in the snow, generating enough heat to dry three wet towels that are placed on them in succession. This ability has been scientifically documented in Western laboratories.

These certainly sound like useful skills to have. However, I believe pursuit of them can be misleading and dangerous when stripped of their original context. To be able to generate and handle energies like the tummo practice in your own body requires certain preliminaries or fundamentals; otherwise you risk burning out your circuits, so to speak. Or, even if you’re able to hypnotize yourself into being warmer, you risk depleting your own energies. There’s no point maintaining a high body temperature if it means you have no energy left to go about your day.

If you’re taught these skills, great. They can be perfect in an emergency situation. If you learn them in a balanced way and can apply them all the time without damage to yourself, then you definitely have something to teach us. Until that point, however, I would say, apply with caution.

 

My aim here has been to illuminate what might not be a very impressive or sexy thing to admit: that sometimes it’s hard just to go outside, because it’s uncomfortable. I personally am not ashamed to admit it, because admitting it means taking the first step to overcoming the problem. And, after all, staying where it’s comfortable is just following biology; there’s not much immediate survival value in going where conditions are more difficult.

But in the long run, staying within a comfort zone becomes a hazard and a liability since it keeps us from staying fluid in adapting to the environment. So it’s important to start examining and transforming our habitual responses, ultimately to relate to nature in a healthier and more dynamic way.