Great Life Work - SoundSage

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Parenting in tune with our ancestry Darcia Narvaez, PhD is a professor emerita at Notre Dame, author, and expert in morality, parenting, and neurobiology.

Darcia looks to our ancestral roots as Hunter-Gatherers to inform her worldview and her approach to parenting--incorporating essential human qualities like play, cooperation, and sharing.

Her work on the "Evolved Nest" can be found at Psychology Today and evolvednest.org

Find her academic work on her homepage.

Check out her books Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality and Restoring the Kinship Worldview (with Wahinkpe Topa)

Watch the Breaking the Cycle Video (youtube)

kindredmedia.org

Complete topics include:

James shares how he encountered Darcia’s work when his firstborn son was 6 months old
Why Darcia hears from a lot of first-time Dads
The Evolved Nest--a set of human and animal practices with a 75 million years heritage
The 9 components of the Evolved Nest, all supported by neuroscience
The magic of soothing perinatal experiences
the adaptive power of breastmilk to feed a babies changing needs
Why we tend to ween our children too early
Darcia teases her new book “The Evolved Nest: Nature’s way of raising children”
how the nest “evolved” and why every species nest is a little different
how in the last 10 000 years (or in the 1%) of our existence our development course changed
The importance of a warm social climate in Small Band Hunter Gatherers (SBHG)
How Mayan’s get their teenagers to take out the trash: let them start helping at 1
24/7 presence of caregivers in SBHG
why negative touch is avoided in SBHG
James Prescott study of carrying and breastfeed leading to peaceable societies
Why the nest is for everyone throughout life, not just for babies or children
a space of play, care, nurturing, and touch
importance of self-directed play and the fostering of cooperative social skills and executive skills
Why SBHG never let babies cry -The evolved nest is immersed in nature
The Sun Bushman and the regularity of healing practices
Healing practices are how we rebalance and remain connected to the natural world
Why grandparents can be more in tuned to young children then parents
What Rousseau got wrong: no one starts alone—it’s dyadic: mother and child
How parents’ and even grandparents’ stress can be passed on to a child
How can a emotionally disregulated populace raise emotionally regulated offspring?
Brain-Based Parenting (book) (link)
Playful parenting (book) (link)
When parents feel upset or stressed, try to switch into a playful mode as it shifts brain systems
Why parents should start pillow fights—play is the best thing for disregulation
James shares a story about how his son guided him through “big emotions”
Hawaiian idea of the spirit as a bowl of light, where unhealed wounds and trauma are like strips of velcro blocking the light
examples of indigenous healing practices
Richard Katz - Boiling Energy (book) (link)
healing practices as a release—getting back in tune with the greater powers
how to integrate healing practices into a modern family setting
importance of unstructured outdoor play and wrestling Roughhouse parenting (link book): importance of wrestling for brain development
how folk song games develop the right brain and vagus nerve
The challenges of creating an evolved nest in modern society, especially contemporary USA
Why parents might need to “want less” to establish an evolved nest
how to create a village feel when you don’t have extended family in town
why Darcia think the US is “the worst place to raise a child right now”
In our ancestral heritage, children were the centre of life—their needs are crucial to ancestral and primal societies, as well as other mammals like Bonobos
In traditional societies, a baby’s needs are anticipated, whereas in the west a baby is expected to cry out
How British imperialism spread a culture of competition and scarcity
Why abundance, not scarcity, is our ancestral heritage Why Darcia thinks we are on a “trauma inducing pathway”
watch Darcia’s 6 min video at Breakingthecycle.org
How Darcia stays grounded while facing these immense problems: return to nature
how are we are a intrinsically connected, cooperative organism at biological and microbial level
James shares a story about growing to enjoy co-sleeping with his children
What thriving looks like in a hunter-gatherer society: a list of traits
Ancestral thriving traits provide a guide for Maslow’s process of self-actualization
Ancient practices are about honouring our genetic heritage
Why greatness is about being fully human, recognizing our connection within the web of life with creativity, gratitude, and presence
How the critical, conscious left brain gets us off track
What is our niche as humans? Honouring and respecting the natural world
Braiding Sweetgrass (book) (link)
The “reverbatory” power of our thoughts, words, and actions
What to do if you weren’t properly nested - final chapter of Neurobiology of Morality
the moral importance of the environments you select

More at grealifework.com

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DEPRESSION AS EVOLUTIONARY ADAPTATION Dr Charles Raison is a professor. psychiatrist, and world-renowned expert in depression. His groundbreaking work explores depression from an evolutionary perspective, and argues that the inflammatory response characteristic of depression may have in fact ensured our survival.

This wide range conversation covers depression, Raison's theory of PATHOS-D, the relationship between autoimmune conditions like allergies and arthritis with depression, and so much more.

Find out more about Charles' work at Emory Spiritual Health

TOPICS INCLUDE:

Why depression is no longer considered a “broken brain” in the scientific community
Why depression is thought of as a syndrome, rather than as a disease—more like a “cloud” or a “cluster” in response to adversity
Why do humans, worldwide and across history, share this constellation of immunological reactions in response to stress and adversity? What function could it serve evolutionarily?
What purpose could depression serve?
How the search for a depression gene has been unproductive: can’t reduce it to a single gene
Depression is part of genetic makeup
Why would depression hide itself from the person experiencing it?
How the “fear of wounding” and infection risk explains the inflammatory response of depression
Stress as a “early warning system for wounding,” which may result in infection
Evolutionary, stress-activated inflammation proved to be advantageous for survival, which explains why depression may have been selected for
Pathos-D helps explain why psychological stress creates a inflammatory response in humans and other animals-
James suggests evolutionary underpinnings to why “chicks dig scars”
Is depression a calling out for help?
Charles’s theory that depression evolved to manage relationships with other humans and the microbial world
Why Charles is surprised people like to visit zoos
depression as a warning sign that you are failing at your chance of reproduction or survival
How unquestionable “must-have” desires are proximally linked to evolutionary survival or reproductive needs
Rather than a disease, depression evolved out of sickness
Increased core temperature and inhibited sweat-response in depression and why that can’t serve as a diagnostic test for depression
Why depression is like an environmental trigger activated by adversity depending on genetic risk factors—kind of like an allergy
Depression as reminiscent of an allergy, albeit operating via different systems
Depression, Allergies, and high-inflammation subtypes
How metaphors are sometimes instantiated in science
Why autoimmune disorders of all kinds are on the rise: an impaired relationship with the microbial world
Graham Rook “The old friends theory” (link)
Why the immune is more like a diplomacy service than an attack squad—it’s about learning what NOT to attack
Anti-inflammatory properties of Microbactorium Baci and cancer treatment, research Chris Lowry and others (link)
Why bugs were our ancient teachers
What if allergies were an evolutionary response as well?
How hyperactive immune responses were helpful in the bubonic plague—why survival is best served by a range of genetic variance in a population
How might something like hay fever serve an evolutionary purpose?
How our response to adversity shapes our perspective and healing.
Why environmental interventions offer the best opportunities for treating “regular ol’ depression”
Use changes in environment to signal wellbeing to the individual
sauna as a treatment for depression
The search for treatment that doesn’t involve the constant external stimulus of medication
Why depression is a catch-22 in modern times—would it be crazy
Psychedelics as a mode of restoring environmental connection
Charles reflects on his English Lit studies and how discovering Freud led him to psychiatry
How Charles read Siddartha at the perfect time in his adolescence
analysis as a double-edge sword for the depressed
Why Freud’s efforts to understand how our minds and world works constitute greatness for Charles
Charles’ page Emory dept of spiritual health

FIND OUT MORE AT GREATLIFEWORK.COM

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Marc Lewis is a professor, neuroscientist, author, and therapist whose own personal struggle with opiate addiction continues to inform his groundbreaking work in the field.

In this wide-ranging discussion, Marc explains how addiction isn't actually a disease, but rather a highly motivated form learning--and how this understanding accounts for the ways in which people ultimately overcome addiction: often spontaneously and without external treatment.

To find out more about Marc's work, check out his website or buy one of his books (I highly recommend them!)

Great Life Work: Recent Episodes

James Nicholson