The Primal Blueprint (43 page)

• Enhanced self-competence through improved sense of self-worth, self-reliance, and self-confidence

• Better ability to socialize with others, including greater tolerance and understanding

• Enriched capabilities for team membership

• Heightened creative ability

• Improved expressions of and reflection on personal spiritual ideals

• Greater adaptability and resiliency

• Better sense of humor

• Enhanced perceived quality of life

• More balanced competitiveness and a more positive outlook on life

There is plenty of evidence attesting to the fact that we can be more productive when we carve time for play into our busy schedules. A New Zealand study reported that people were 82 percent more productive following a vacation and enjoyed enhanced quality of sleep—but that 43 percent of Americans had no vacation plans in 2007 due to work pressures (and it’s probably worse since the economic collapse). A 2006 study published in the
Sunday Times
(England) noted that the percentage of married couples citing lack of quality time due to overwork as the basis for divorce has more than tripled in recent years, even while the traditional leading divorce reasons, such as violence and infidelity, have dropped sharply. Australian research suggests that frequent breaks from a sedentary workday produce numerous health benefits, including weight control and favorable blood levels of triglycerides and glucose. A study published in the
New York Times
suggests that enjoyable leisure activities boost immune function even more powerfully than stressful events suppress it.

4-Hour Workweek
author Tim Ferriss contends that we work more quickly and efficiently when faced with a deadline or other time constraints than when we slog through extended workdays and imbalanced lives. What if you only had to work four hours a day, with the other four devoted to leisure activities of your choice? Can you conceive of the possibility that you might be just as—or more—productive? Think your prioritization skills would improve? How about your tendency to be distracted by off-topic diversions (e-mail jokes and videos, poor discipline for phone or personal work interruptions, etc.)? If you could arrange your schedule accordingly, could you be more productive by opting out of unnecessary meetings or deciding to telecommute when appropriate, instead of burning hours and gas on the road simply for the decorum of showing up?

Seeing that we’re talking about play, you need not follow any directives from me or anyone else about the particulars of what, how, or when. Generally speaking, you’ll enjoy things that you excel at—or have a passionate desire to excel at. While such sedate activities as drawing trees in the park or reading for pleasure technically qualify as recreation, I believe best results come when you play outdoors, in fresh air and sunlight, with an adequate level of physical exertion. If you are one of the few who live a lifestyle of extensive physical exertion, quiet leisure time might indeed be the ticket. For the majority of us who move far less than we are genetically programmed to, busting out of the confinements of modern life for some exhilarating play will produce the best physical and psychological benefits.

My favorite activity of the week is a regular Sunday-afternoon pickup Ultimate game with my son and several other families at the park. It is a great sport, requiring diverse athletic and strategic skills, and is fun for players of all ages and ability levels. I’d say it’s a “safe” sport, too, except for my freak accident that resulted in a serious knee injury in 2007…possibly attributed to my 17-year-old athletic mentality directing a 54-year-old body to get some big air for a circus catch! Most importantly, my enjoyment of playtime has prompted me to reframe my main reason for exercising: I train Primally so I can play hard at whatever I want whenever I choose to, whether it’s at Ultimate, snowboarding, soccer, stand-up paddling, or golf.

If you can take the spirit of this message to heart, you can make something happen that will change your life. Let’s be clear that I’m not advocating selling the shop and becoming a surf rat. All work and no play makes for a dull boy, but all play and no work makes for a foreclosure. Balance is important in all areas of life, and it’s up to you to define your level of work-play balance. It might help to keep this popular sentiment in mind: “No one ever said, ‘I wish I’d spent more time at work’ on their deathbed.”

“
We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
—
George Bernard Shaw
,
Irish playwright and political activist (1856-1950)”

While the dangers of excessive sun exposure are well recognized and heavily promoted by today’s medical community, it’s important to challenge Conventional Wisdom’s blanket statement to shun the sun—or lather up with tons of sunscreen as do English Channel swimmers with their lanolin. Adequate exposure to sunlight helps our bodies manufacture vitamin D, which helps regulate growth in virtually every cell of our bodies and prevent a variety of diseases. Vitamin D is essential for healthy teeth, bones,
and nails; eyesight; the absorption of other key nutrients, such as calcium and vitamins A and C; and immune function. Vitamin D has also been shown to play a role in the prevention of breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer; cardiovascular disease; diabetes; autoimmune diseases; and inflammatory conditions, such as arthritis.

Perhaps the most exciting revelation about vitamin D has to do with its critical action on Gene P53—the “proofreader” gene. P53 acts as a spell-checker during each of the hundreds of millions of cell replications that occur each day, informing the cell when something has gone awry and instructing it to make necessary changes. Many scientists believe P53 is an important first line of defense against the kinds of mutations that can develop into cancers. The bottom line is that regular sunlight is essential to excellent health and the
prevention
of skin cancer.

Early humans spent hundreds of thousands of years absorbing powerful equatorial rays over their entire bodies every day. As we migrated farther away from the equator, genetic adaptations occurred (the lightening of skin pigment and hair over many generations) to help us continue to absorb sun optimally even when it was less plentiful. Just as we’ve suffered devastating health consequences from the relatively recent shift in the human diet away from hunter-gatherer to grain-based, the same dynamic holds for our sun exposure—except this lifestyle alteration has been even more severe. Only in the last couple of centuries of industrialization have millions of people in the civilized world gone for long periods of time with little to no direct sun exposure. Consequently, there has been an alarming increase in health problems related to vitamin D deficiency.

The symptoms of vitamin D deficiency are not as overt as the disturbing image of scurvy-stricken sailors staggering around lacking vitamin C (which was, ironically, partly a result of their high grain consumption), but the health consequences are devastating nonetheless. The risk increases for those with confined lifestyles (spent in the home, office, or auto—witness Ken Korg), those with dark skin living distant from the equator, children with vitamin D–deficient mothers, the elderly, or people who are house-or hospital-bound. Recent research suggests that vitamin D levels are also low in those with obesity and Metabolic Syndrome.

Internet and television health advisor Dr. Joseph Mercola (
mercola.com
) states:

   The dangers of sun exposure have been greatly exaggerated and the benefits highly underestimated. Excess sun exposure is not the major reason people develop skin cancer (many believe poor diet, exposure to other environmental toxins such as swimming pool chlorine, and insufficient sun are more significant risk factors). [A study from the Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego suggested that] 600,000 cases of cancer could be prevented every year by just increasing your levels of vitamin D.

Granted, the “fell asleep covered with baby oil at the beach” burn-and-peel ordeals are indeed bad news. Medical experts say that even a few severe sunburn episodes in your early years (who hasn’t fallen asleep on a beach or chaise lounge as a teenager?!) can generate sufficient ultraviolet radiation damage to lead to the development of melanoma in later decades. But there is a happy medium between too much sun and too little.

Regular
brief
daily exposure to sunlight remains the primary way to obtain an ample amount of vitamin D so critical to good health. While vitamin D is found in small quantities in fatty fish (salmon, sardines, and mackerel), meat (particularly liver), eggs, fortified foods, and dietary supplements, most ingested sources are insufficient to ensure adequate vitamin D levels (e.g., without sun, you’d need some 40 glasses of milk a day to get enough D). It is also possible to overdose on vitamin D with supplements but not with sunlight, because excess vitamin D is destroyed by the sun itself. Blood tests are available to determine how your vitamin D levels compare to recommended levels.

For most people, a slight tan indicates that you are obtaining adequate vitamin D exposure, while a burn is, of course, unhealthy. It’s important to observe the critical variable of your skin pigment and moderate your exposure accordingly to make absolutely sure that you never burn your skin. In most of North America or countries of comparable latitude, 20 minutes per day is adequate for health benefits and yet brief enough to prevent damage from overexposure.

The variables of season, climate, and skin tone are substantial and should be carefully considered on a daily basis to ensure you obtain adequate sunlight while avoiding risk factors of excessive exposure. Those with very fair skin may obtain adequate vitamin D exposure with just five minutes of direct sunlight on the face and arms, outside the peak sun intensity hours of 11 A.M. to 4 P.M. in the summertime. Solarly challenged folks (say, someone of African heritage living in Scandinavia or scientists on a winter research project at McMurdo Station, Antarctica) have to make a major effort to soak up enough sun to attain sufficient vitamin D levels. In the event that natural sunlight just isn’t available, there are some new forms of artificial tanning lights that have been proven to increase vitamin D levels safely. Information on the latest “approved” versions can be found at
MarksDailyApple.com
.

Unfortunately, there is little conclusive research about just what constitutes ideal sun exposure times to synthesize adequate vitamin D. My position here is that we have generally exhibited a knee-jerk, fear-based reaction to skin cancer dangers by viewing the sun as evil. I believe that you should obtain between 10 and 30 minutes every day (weather permitting and working up to longer exposure periods as the sunny season progresses) of direct sunlight exposure to at least 40 percent of your body. Just like with calories, your body is adept at soaking up rays and storing vitamin D for prolonged utilization when seasonal and climatic circumstances compromise your sun exposure.

If you find yourself spending more time than the general range required for healthy vitamin D synthesis, you should have a protection plan. Unfortunately, Conventional Wisdom lets us down again by touting sunscreen as a fail-safe method. Credible research has shown that most sunscreens have historically not blocked the UVA rays that cause melanoma. This may have resulted in millions staying in the sun too long simply because their skin wasn’t burning from the blocked UVB rays. Had they used no sunscreen at all, at least they would have known enough to get out of the sun when they got a little pink. And in the case of skin cancer susceptibility, genetics does play a significant role. Those with fair skin, red or blond hair, and light eyes or those with numerous moles are six times more likely to develop melanoma than those with darker features. Some researchers even believe that excessive exposure of the skin to swimming pool chlorine is a bigger risk factor for melanoma than ultraviolet sunlight.

Furthermore, many of the popular agents used in sunblock products may have toxic properties, especially when you consider the standard recommendation to reapply these synthetic chemicals frequently to your porous skin. Octyl methoxycinnamate (OMC), a chemical contained in 90 percent of sunscreen products, could damage living tissue if it penetrates your outer layer of dead skin. Titanium dioxide, another popular sunscreen compound, has been named a “potential occupational carcinogen” by the U.S. government due to unclear toxic danger.

Hence, if you must be out in the sun for extended periods of time, it is far preferable to use clothing, especially technical fabrics touted as providing extra sun protection, to minimize your exposure to harmful UVA rays—and to prevent burning. There are numerous apparel brands touting enhanced SPF (sun protection factor) effectiveness; search the Internet or visit a high-quality specialty sports store to find some. If you are partial to good ol’ cotton, realize that it, too, will offer significant SPF effectiveness. Examining your skin after a day in the sun to make sure it’s not burned will reveal just how well your clothing protects you. As a backup to clothing protection, use a premium sunscreen that protects against UVA, UVB, and the newly described UVC rays, such as Neutrogena’s Helioplex or an opaque zinc-based cream that blocks all rays entirely.

If you are concerned about getting overheated by clothing, it’s interesting to note that participants in the Badwater 146-mile footrace across Death Valley in the middle of summer (definitely a non-
Primal Blueprint
approved event!) dress from head to toe in loose-fitting white garments. While it might take a little getting used to, light white clothing has been scientifically proven to keep your skin and core temperature cooler than letting your skin glisten in the sun.

Beyond exposing yourself sensibly and being careful always to use protection (can you believe I slipped that line past my editors?!), the high antioxidant values obtained when you eat
Primal Blueprint
style, combined with the use of potent antioxidant supplements, can also go a long, long way toward reducing or eliminating any damage caused by sun exposure.