ANOTHER blistering afternoon in northern Tanzania, one other high-stakes recreation of musical chairs. Stumbling again into camp to flee the solar, determined for a seat, we glanced at one another after which on the single unoccupied camp chair. Within the different, grinning, sat Onawasi, a revered elder with a mischievous bent. He appeared to be having fun with this.
We have been spending our summer season with the Hadza group, one of many final populations of hunter-gatherers on the planet. Hadza women and men handle to keep away from coronary heart illness and different illnesses of the extra industrialised world, and we needed to know why. Our small analysis crew had are available two Land Cruisers loaded with tech to measure each motion made and calorie burned as Hadza women and men scoured the panorama day-after-day for wild recreation, honey, tubers and berries.
After a protracted morning, we felt drained by the inescapable warmth and humidity. All we needed to do was sit. Onawasi appeared to really feel the identical means. He had spent the morning looking, and positively deserved the chair greater than we did. However this was getting out of hand. Our valuable camp chairs that we took into the bush regardless of their weight have been Hadza magnets. Each customer to our little analysis space appeared drawn to them like moths to a porch mild.
We knew we had loads to be taught from the Hadza about staying bodily energetic. It seems in addition they had one thing necessary to show us about resting. Collectively, over the subsequent 10 years, we’d come to know why chairs are so irresistible, and why they appear to make us in poor health. …
