The Comfort Crisis

So, I picked up this book expecting only a bit more than a typical self-help lecture, but Michael Easter has a wonderfully dry sense of humor and isn't afraid to call out his own past as a professional hypocrite health writer. I was actually surprised to learn Easter teaches right down the road at UNLV. It makes me wonder if any of my friends know who he is, maybe Dave. He takes us on a 33-day backcountry caribou hunt in the Arctic, weaving his freezing, exhausting adventure with the science of why our climate-controlled, ultra-processed modern lives are making us miserable.

I found the book incredibly insightful, especially because he does a nice job of keeping things grounded instead of promoting fads. For example, he never actually uses the phrase intermittent fasting, but he describes the exact same process and cites the same research I’ve read in several other books on the subject, particularly Delay, Don’t Deny by Gin Stephens. While I don’t think of fasting as a fad, a lot of folks do, so dodging the label was a smart move to keep science front and center.

He completely sells the idea that comfort creep is real and that we need to actively seek out tough challenges where there is a legitimate chance of failure. If you are hungry for a fresh perspective, his arguments really give you a lot to chew on. (Pun intended. Always intend your puns.)

Weaving the Alaskan adventure with the science around discomfort kept me engaged. His writing style is witty, like when he jokes early on with his wife that his insurance policy does not cover remote corpse recovery. It is a solid four-star read that genuinely made me rethink my own daily routines. And, I think I’ll add “rucking” to my morning routine at the new year.