The study of habits has exploded in recent years. Atomic Habits, The Power of Habit, and countless others line bestseller lists. We're obsessed with building habits—for health, business, time management, productivity, wealth.

And for good reason: our habits make us. We literally become our habits.

The choices we repeat daily—when we wake, what we eat/drink, how we move, when we look at our phones—aren't just actions. They're carving neural pathways, shaping our biology, determining our health and happiness outcomes.

We understand this. That's why we track steps, meal prep, and invest in apps that gamify our routines.

But here's what we've missed in all this habit optimization:

We've forgotten the most important habits of all.

The habits we've practiced as a species for millennia. The habits that kept our ancestors healthy and connected long before we needed books to tell us how to build them. The habits so fundamental we didn't even call them habits—we just called them life.

I call them Human Habits.

We've become a species suffering from our modern/conventional habits!

Somewhere between the invention of the light bulb and the smartphone, between grocery stores stocked with strawberries in December and offices that keep us indoors from sunrise to sunset, we forgot something fundamental: we are nature. Not separate from her. Not above her. Not immune to her laws.

It's our collective forgetting of them is at the root of most modern disease.

What Are Human Habits?

Human Habits aren't the latest wellness trend or another thing to add to your already overwhelming to-do list. They're the opposite. They're what we've done as a species for millennia—the rhythms, patterns, and practices that kept our ancestors healthy, vibrant, and connected long before we had pharmaceutical companies and health insurance.

These are the habits that align us with the Universe and the rhythms of the Sun and Moon. The habits that ground us to the Earth and sync us with circadian rhythms for proper cellular function and hormone regulation. The habits that connect us to our eco-region and what Mother Earth provides through food, herbs, and the changing seasons.

The beautiful paradox? Modern science and the biohacking community are now proving exactly what Ancient Wisdom—Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine, indigenous practices worldwide—has told us all along.

The Circadian Rebellion: Why We Think We Can Make Our Own Rules

Our bodies operate on a 24-hour clock that has been fine-tuned over millions of years of evolution. Every cell in your body knows what time it is. Your digestion knows. Your hormones know. Your immune system knows..

Dawn light triggers serotonin production—the hormone that helps you feel alert, focused, and emotionally balanced. Dusk light signals your pineal gland to produce melatonin, preparing your body for deep, restorative sleep. This isn't mystical thinking; it's biology. It's how we're designed.

But we've decided we can beat the system.

We wake up in dark bedrooms, immediately stare at blue light from our phones, commute to offices under artificial lighting, eat lunch at our desks without seeing the sun, and then wonder why we feel exhausted, anxious, and can't sleep at night. We've essentially told our ancient biology, "Thanks, but I'll take it from here."

Our bodies don't know how to interpret this rebellion. Artificial light after sunset suppresses melatonin production, disrupting not just sleep but the entire cascade of hormones that regulate everything from appetite to immune function to cellular repair. We're running a 24-hour convenience store in a body designed to close down at night.

We wonder why we feel exhausted, anxious, and can't sleep at night.

The result? Insomnia. Anxiety. Depression. Metabolic dysfunction. Hormonal chaos. And we treat these as separate problems requiring separate pills, when they're all symptoms of the same root cause: we're out of sync with the rhythm that created us.

Seasonal Eating: The Wisdom We've Outsourced to Grocery Stores

There's a reason your great-great-grandmother ate root vegetables in winter and leafy greens in spring. It wasn't because she was following a food blogger's meal plan. It was because that's what the Earth provided—and the Earth, it turns out, is a better nutritionist than we gave her credit for.

Ayurveda teaches that nature offers different foods in different seasons specifically to counteract the qualities of that season itself. Heavy, warming root vegetables ground us during the cold, dry, mobile quality of winter. Light, bitter greens help us detoxify and lighten up after months of heavier eating. Juicy fruits and cooling foods balance the heat of summer.

This isn't poetic metaphor. This is sophisticated medicine hidden in plain sight.

When we eat strawberries shipped from another hemisphere in January, we're not just missing out on nutrition (those berries were picked unripe and have traveled thousands of miles). We're actively confusing our bodies' natural seasonal preparation. We're telling our system it's summer when it's not, disrupting the hormonal and metabolic shifts that should be happening to keep us healthy through winter.

Our ancestors didn't get sick at every season change because they were eating with the seasons, not against them. The Earth was their pharmacy, their produce section, and their preventive medicine—all in one.

When Did We Stop Touching the Earth?

When was the last time you stood barefoot on soil, grass, or sand?

For most of us, the answer is: far too long ago.

We wake up on mattresses, walk on carpet or hardwood, put on rubber-soled shoes, drive in cars, sit in offices, and return home without our skin ever touching the Earth. We've literally insulated ourselves from the planet.

Meanwhile, research on earthing (grounding) shows that direct physical contact with the Earth's surface reduces inflammation, improves sleep, decreases pain, and lowers stress hormones. The Earth carries a negative electrical charge, and when we make direct contact, we absorb electrons that act as antioxidants, neutralizing free radicals.

Our ancestors didn't need studies to tell them this. They felt it. They knew it in their bones. Connection to the Earth wasn't a wellness practice—it was just life.

The Rhythm of Cellular Health

Modern eating culture tells us to eat three meals a day plus snacks, keep our metabolism stoked, never let ourselves get too hungry. But our bodies weren't designed for constant input.

Our ancestors experienced natural rhythms of fasting and feasting—not from diet trends, but from the reality of food availability. Periods without food triggered cellular cleanup processes (autophagy) that clear out damaged cells and reduce disease risk. Feasting times provided abundance and celebration.

We've lost this rhythm entirely. We eat from the moment we wake until the moment we sleep, giving our digestive system no break and our cells no chance to perform their housekeeping duties.

In Ayurveda, digestion (agni) is the root of health. When we eat in alignment with our body's natural digestive rhythms—lighter meals when the sun is lower, our largest meal when the sun is highest, and stopping eating well before sleep—we support not just digestion but every system in our body.

As the World Accelerates, We Must Decelerate

Our modern world is moving at an unprecedented speed and shows no signs of slowing. Technology, AI, constant connectivity, endless information—it's only getting faster.

Which is exactly why we need to slow down.

We didn't always have this many distractions. Our brains evolved for a different pace, a different scale of stimulation. We're running ancient hardware on modern software, and the system is crashing.

Mindfulness isn't a luxury anymore—it's a necessity. Living with intention, direction, and presence isn't about being perfect or achieving some zen state. It's about pumping the brakes before we careen off the cliff. It's about remembering that we're human beings, not human doings.

As the world becomes more online, more disconnected from nature and from each other, it becomes our responsibility to remember our primal roots. To remember that before we were scrolling, we were walking. Before we were staring at screens, we were staring at stars. Before we were eating food-like products, we were eating food.

Why This Matters More Than Ever

Think of a magnificent tree in a powerful windstorm. The tree doesn't resist the wind by being rigid—it bends, it sways, it moves. But it doesn't break and it doesn't fall.

Why?

Because its roots go deep.

When our roots—our connection to nature, to Earth's rhythms, to our own bodies' wisdom—don't go deep, we become easy to topple. A stressful email, a poor night's sleep, a change in routine, and we break—physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually.

But when we're rooted in Human Habits, when we're aligned with the rhythms that created us, we become resilient. Not because life gets easier, but because we're connected to something deeper than the chaos.

Remembering What We Never Should Have Forgotten

The path forward isn't more complicated. It's simpler.

🌅Watch the sunrise. Let your eyes receive that morning light.

🌿Eat food that grows in your region, during the season it naturally grows.

🌍Touch the Earth with your bare skin.

🌘Let there be darkness at night. Real darkness.

🚶🏻‍♀️Move your body in ways that feel primal—walk, climb, carry, play.

⏰Fast sometimes. Feast sometimes. Stop eating when the sun goes down.

🧘‍♀️Slow down enough to feel your breath, your heartbeat, your aliveness.

These aren't additions to your life. They're subtractions of everything modern living has piled on top of your fundamental humanness.

The ancient wisdom is waiting, patient as stone. Modern science is catching up, proving what our ancestors knew in their bones. The Earth is still offering her medicine, her rhythm, her invitation.

The question is: will we remember we're part of her?

Will we sink our roots deep enough to weather the storms?

Or will we keep insisting we can set our own rhythms, make our own rules, and ignore the natural laws that govern all life—and then wonder why we're sick, tired, anxious, and disconnected from our INNER WISDOM (aka intuition)

The choice has always been ours. The wisdom has always been here.

We're not discovering something new.

We're remembering what we are: human—part of nature, governed by her rhythms, nourished by her generosity, and designed to thrive when we align with her ancient wisdom.

It's time to come home TO YOURSELF!

Human Habits