The Human Body is a Machine.

It may be a machine made of meat and calcium sticks rather than metals and plastics, but it is a machine nonetheless. It was designed not by inventors or engineers, but by the unfathomably slow, iterative trial-and-error process that is evolution by natural selection. As the world around us rapidly changes, one might wish that evolution’s management team would take a page from the Apple playbook and start releasing a new model of human body every year. Sadly, the fact of the matter is that we’ve been stuck on version 1.0 for all of human history, and to date, there have been no credible leaks hinting at the first major overhaul.

The good news is that human body 1.0 is highly adaptable. While we are best suited to the original primary functions that our ancestors used to negotiate the harsh, natural world – walking, running, munching on natural foods, and so forth – we’ve somehow found ourselves miraculously capable of performing feats that were never required of our evolutionary predecessors: talking on a telephone, driving an automobile, sitting at a desk and typing on a keyboard… to name a few. And while we tend to do a satisfactory job at these tasks, too, they put our human meat machines into positions that are not quite consistent with their natural intended use. Akin to driving a car with poorly pressured tires or the wrong motor oil, you might get pretty far before you notice the mistake. Over time, however, these micro-abuses can lead to a significant loss of function.

Desk jobs tax our schedules as much as they tax our bodies. You may find that the hour you wish you could spend in the gym or on a run has been replaced with a 30-minute commute in each direction. Or perhaps you end your day so drained of willpower that you can’t fathom ordering a healthy meal, let alone cooking one. These kinds of health roadblocks are equally capable of compounding on you, and it’s as important to straighten our your schedule as it is to straighten out your posture. Each article on this site is meant to address one small challenge posed by office work culture, and one day I hope to have built a comprehensive resource to help desk jockeys around the world to live long and vibrantly healthy lives.