Most people tasked with shaping the built environment are looking for ways to make our lives more comfortable and pleasant. Their goal is to make life easier, more convenient, to protect us from the uncertainties and stresses of life. However, there are specific environments that are purposely designed to provide us with momentary discomfort and stress. For example, a gym or workout facility offers people a variety of ways to stress their bodies. Research has confirmed that we need to experience regular levels of physical stress to remain healthy. Excessive stress can certainly be problematic, but our bodies are designed to respond to stress in surprisingly positive ways. We require a certain level of resistance that many of us no longer experience in our daily lives. There was a time when life provided that needed stress — gathering our food, keeping our homes warm and preparing for times of lack kept us healthy or physically fit.
It is interesting to note that the fitness center is a fairly recent development and has perhaps become more necessary as our daily routines becomes more comfortable and sedentary. One space commonly found in these facilities is a sauna. The thought of heating up a small cedar-clad room to 195 degrees and spending time in that room, sweating profusely, with a group of strangers to raise your core body temperature is a strange notion at best. Regardless, regular sessions in a sauna apparently can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, stroke, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and stress. The pleasure and benefits of such activities do not occur while one engages in the activity, but rather after one has endured the regime. Perhaps it would be healthier and more beneficial if we stopped trying to make our built environment so comfortable and began integrating elements of resistance into the spaces we use every day.
I’m just curious David…we both grew up in Iowa and you having lived near the Amana Colonies…to see physically the way people were still living….horse and buggy….old school farming techiniques…I think it gives you a clearer vision of just how much has changed….In 1971 I was required to take a SLIDE RULE course at ISU in prep for Calculus and other classes….the next year the Hewiit Packard hand calculator made that course instantly obsolete…I think certain cultures thru time have always had saunas and sweat lodges…we just have more modern versions and perhaps those older versions had a spiritual connection that is partially missing these days???