Mastering Your Domain Part III – Master Your Environment
There aren’t many things I enjoy more than the walk to work on a brisk Fall day. Carving-up the grid of midtown Manhattan, a slightly different route, with slightly different sights, and a brand new cast of characters every single day. There’s no melting in the sweltering sun, or chopping icicles off the tip of my nose, only a tap to play the next podcast in my queue and pure flow. There is one thing, however, that seems to have a particular set of skills, not Liam Neeson skills, but skills to draw my concentration, interrupting this flow state. And unfortunately, it’s all over the place, to the extent that some days I find myself playing a game of aerial frogger, dodging clouds of tobacco like a wrench straight out of Patches O’Houlihans hand, holding my breath, scanning the surroundings for a pocket of fresh air. Hate it or Love it, that’s the landscape of this modern day urban environment, good, bad, indifferent, It’s Reality.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that “The Environment” we inhabit has a direct and possibly lasting effect on our health. Looking to its official definition, an Environment is: the surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates. It can be as finite as the apartment you pack-it into each night or as limitless as “Infinity and Beyond!” – Sorry, I let Buzz get the best of me, what I meant to say was – or as limitless as planet earth (and possibly beyond). I know, never have you had so much control, yet so little at the same time. Below I’ll break down the importance of both the environment that we can influence (the micro), as well as the larger picture, where the controls are beyond reach (the Marco) for the normal Joe. Lastly, some tips on how to create an environment that will put you in a position to win.
Your Micro Environment
Forget the World, the Country, and City you live in and ponder this: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates, the average American spends 93% of their life indoors. 87% of their life is indoors, then another 6% of their life in automobiles. A pretty crazy statistic, and after a quick calculation on my TI-98 calculator, that leaves us with only 7% of our entire lives spent outdoors. This was definitely not the case ten thousand years ago, let alone 100,000!
The Good News is – the indoor environment we call home is very much in our control! The Bad News is – we’re doing a pretty shitty job mastering this domain. Back to the Good News – That only leaves room for improvement! Poor natural light, Chemicals everywhere, Fake Food, and lack of biodiversity are just a few factors hindering our daily operations. Affecting the way we Look, Feel and Think on a daily basis. A war against germs along with a highly processed diet has depleted our microbiomes, many everyday products such as cleaning supplies, beauty products, and self-care items come with a side of Hormone Imbalance, Endocrine Disruption, Gut Dysbiosis and even Cognitive Impairment [1]. So to master your domain, you must first master where you spend most of your time, which is the place you call home.
Your Macro Environment
Marco environments are a bit trickier. Think back to the earlier example, even though I don’t smoke, it’s pretty much unavoidable on my walk to work. In these environments change occurs at a drastically slower rate, a prime example of this is climate change itself, to quote my boy Logic “It doesn’t happen Overnight, it happens Over Many Nights“. I get it, in many macro environments nature and politics run the show, at least until Elon gets cooking with that whole inter-planet species plan (Jeeze, what’s taking him soo long…). They are the Towns, Counties or Cities we live in, a greater geographic territory, or even the country we currently call home. Characteristics of these macro environments, such as City or Rural, Coastal or Inland and Low-Income vs. High Income has been shown to influence us in both direct and indirect ways.
Take this 2012 UK study, which found that people who live near the coast tend to be healthier, or the correlation between living in a low-income area and risk of obesity. In my case, living in an urban city presents a daily dose of pollution, less interaction with nature and more than enough coffee shops to caffeinate the world. But if we flip to the benefits, everything’s relatively close in the City, I tend to walk/bike more and drive less, which gets me outside longer and exposed to more sunlight.
Finding Balance
In most cases, you live where you live. You’ve made the decision to live where you currently are for a plethora of reasons. Work, Family, Income, Scenery, Etc… It’s a pretty big decision, or else there wouldn’t be all of those house hunting shows on HGTV. And sometimes you don’t get a choice at all, you have a roof over your head and that’s all that matters. Here are some tips on how to optimize how you interact with both your micro and macro environment:
- All Natural Products – Survey your Home/Apartment/Room for all cleaning and self-care products. They may smell nice, but many of these contain harsh chemicals which tend to be counter-productive to optimal health. Your skin is not a solid shield that reflects and blocks all from the outside world, it’s porous, it absorbs and interacts with everything. A good rule I like to follow is – If I can’t eat it(without harm), I don’t want it on me. Everything in this world has the potential to be toxic, it’s the dose that’s the deciding factor.
- Bring Nature to You – Unless you live in a log cabin in the middle of the forest there’s a good chance you could use a few plants in your living space. Up until the last few thousand years, we used to live outside with them, we’ve evolved being around plants, they filter our air and increase the biodiversity in the room/house. So get a few plants…and don’t forget to water them.
- Light In & Out – You run on this internal Super Clock called a Circadian Rhythm, daylight and darkness are key drivers for optimizing our bodies functions. Aim to get as much natural light (and fresh air) into your space as possible, while limiting those artificial lights at night (set the blue light filters on your electronic devices). I use a Himalayan salt lamp in my room that projects a soft red light and sets the sleepy time mood.
- Escape – There are pros and cons to all environments, so identify your current situation and supplement with a bi-weekly or monthly day/overnight trip to a new environment and reap some of its benefits. I often escape to the beaches of Long Island to get some surfing in, or bike trails just north of NYC, full of trees and greenery.
We’re all in the unique position of living in the greatest (in my opinion) era ever. Transit systems can take us anywhere across the globe in a matter of 24 hours, devices can provide an answer to any question in a blink of an eye (or tap of a thumb), non-stop entertainment, food delivery services, and swipe right sex. Often we overlook the fact that we are animals, living in an ecosystem, impacting our environment, sometimes for the better, but many times the worse. Mastering the space(s) where you spend the majority of your life may be one of the most important investments you can make. It certainly has enormous ROI potential over the course of 80 years and is an essential piece to the puzzle of mastering your domain.
Stay on the lookout for Part IV… Staying Still
