Healing Power of Nature: Healing, Happiness & Human Connection with Jenny Powers

Are we missing the key to true wellness? In this must-listen episode, we sit down with Jenny Powers, evolutionary wellness expert and author of The Origin of Being, to explore how reconnecting with nature and understanding our primal roots can transform our mental and physical health. From the science of ancestral healing to the power of social connections, Jenny reveals the secrets to thriving in the modern world.

As a researcher and advocate for evolution-based well-being, Jenny’s work uncovers how small lifestyle shifts—rooted in nature and ancient wisdom—can lead to less stress, more energy, and greater happiness.

What You’ll Learn:

Why nature is the ultimate healer for stress, anxiety, and burnout
The surprising link between evolution and happiness
How small changes can create massive improvements in your well-being
The truth about social media’s impact on real-life relationships
Why community support is essential for long-term success
Plus, we dive into key insights from her book, The Origin of Being, where she breaks down the science of healing through nature, mindfulness, and primal living.

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Buy Jenny's Book anywhere books are sold, click here.

Learn more about Jenny Powers on IG, Facebook, LinkedIn, Website

#wellness #naturelovers #forestbathing #evolution #mentalhealth #podcast #nature

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Work Besties! Theme Song Written by Ralph Lentini @therallyband

Chapters

• 0:00 Evolution and Our Disconnected Modern Lives
• 8:32 Jenny Powers' Journey from Science to Writing
• 14:24 How Evolution Shapes Our Modern Behaviors
• 25:21 The Human Need for Social Connection
• 35:12 Nature's Role in Wellness and Productivity
• 42:46 Working Like Hunter-Gatherers: Four Key Principles
• 45:14 Social Media vs. In-Person Connection

Transcript

Jess: 0:00

Are you ready to reclaim your wellness? Learn how understanding evolution and aligning with our primal needs can help you and your work bestie. Recharge, realign and thrive throughout your day. So tune in today and listen to Jenny Powers share how nature holds the key to healing and our optimal health.

Claude: 0:20

Hi, I'm Claude and I'm Jess. We are corporate employees by day, entrepreneurs by night and work besties for life.

Jess: 0:29

Join us as we explore how work besties lift each other up, laugh through the chaos and thrive together in every industry. Work besties Hello everybody. Welcome to Work Besties who Podcast. Hi everyone. Hello everybody. Welcome to Work Besties who Podcast. Hi everyone. Welcome, jenny. We're so excited to have Jenny Powers with us. Thank you so much for having me.

Jenny Powers: 0:51

I'm excited to be here.

Jess: 0:59

Of course I'll give a little bit about you. You are a scientist and author and a former intercollegiate athlete as well, and you've got a great mix of expertise in engineering, immunology and a passion for writing. I know I read your book on the origin of being. It's amazing and I am so excited to have you on to explore some of the topics that you have in there and talk about how it kind of relates to some of the things that we in our Workvesty community talk about.

Jenny Powers: 1:27

Yeah, well, like I was saying, I've listened to some of your podcasts and I'm like nodding along and thinking I think there's a lot of stuff I can say that kind of like totally jives with what you guys are doing.

Jess: 1:39

Yeah.

Claude: 1:40

Yeah, I know.

Jess: 1:41

We've listened to some of your podcasts with other guests, and it's interesting. You talk a lot about nutrition and sleep and a lot of the amazing wellness things that I know our work besties would love, but then there's also some of those other things about the relationships and the personal being with somebody and connection that I think we're really interested to dive into and talk with you about. Before we do that, though, do you want to give a little bit of a background on yourself?

Jenny Powers: 2:08

Well, like you said, I've kind of done a lot of things all around. My dad was in the Air Force. We moved all around. I went to high school in DC, came out to Colorado to study engineering and play basketball and then I was like, oh well, you know, maybe I don't want to do engineering, maybe I'll do biological sciences. So I got into the PhD program at the University of Colorado studying immunology and then I was kind of in my mid 20s and I'd had a lot of success.

Jenny Powers: 2:36

But I think, as probably a lot of your listeners and maybe even you guys have, I got so caught up in my achievements, being like my worth was completely tied up in what I achieved and it wasn't necessarily doing the work that I loved and doing my passion, and so I was not very happy, kind of doing the whole postdoc thing. Learning about the human body is amazing and, and you know, has served me, but it wasn't really what I wanted to do. So when I left academia I didn't really know what I was going to do, except really deep down inside I knew I wanted to be a writer. But for some reason you have all these external expectations put on you and you have all these internal expectations and for some reason, like being a writer, wasn't even on that list.

Jenny Powers: 3:21

So when I, when I stopped academia, I actually started writing middle grade fiction, which is eight to 12 year olds, and I started writing adult short stories and I started doing a little bit of nonfiction, maybe for children. But it wasn't until this opportunity to research and write this book with my co author, luke Comer, came along that I really was able to like bring my scientific background and writing together and be able to actually use a lot of what I trained for for so many years was really a very fortuitous meeting, and so the process of writing the book and then the process of getting it out there and now being on podcasts and meeting amazing people all over the world, it's just really changed my life. So it's been really changed my life. So it's it's been very a very interesting ride.

Claude: 4:06

You can see, at the end of the day you have like your both passions, that you were able to fuse together. You know, and that's fantastic, it's not given to a lot of people to finally find, you know, their the passion, the combination of the passions so you mentioned your co-writer, Luke, who helped you with the writing of it.

Jess: 4:26

What was that like when you met with him? Was it like an instant bond? How did that all come about?

Jenny Powers: 4:31

with our genetics and our biological cells through nutrition and all of his research into that. He's noticed all these other things, other ways that we're not living in accord with our evolved nature. But he didn't have time to kind of research and get all this data together and write a book about all these different ways, and so he put an ad in monstercom, of all places, finding someone to research and write this book and it was pretty much an automatic because I wasn't necessarily sure what it was going to be like and yeah, but I remember my son was in preschool and I remember being late, picking him up, like I'm, because we talked for so long and I feel like we really gelled and some of the things he was talking about, some of the things that I had dealt with, like, you know, we're not sleeping right and we're not eating right and the way we approach work isn't right and you know, being with nature, we need to be in nature more and our connections and all that. I'm like yes, yes, yes, and it just started to make sense Like all of these, all the reasons that I was not happy or maybe not even not healthy, even though I was a collegiate athlete. You know one stuff I've had lots of knee surgeries so I kind of just you know my health and nutrition and being in shape, kind of you know you have kids and then you're busy, yeah.

Jenny Powers: 5:54

But then I realized, you know, the more and more you talked, I'm like this sounds so amazing and I didn't know at the time. But what was amazing that I know now is that a lot of times again, a lot of your listeners and maybe you guys do too you beat yourselves up all the time for like thinking that you're not good enough or feeling like you know, why can't I lose weight, why can't I eat healthy, why can't I exercise? You know what? For me it was like, well, why can't I be a scientist and work 80 hours a week? Like what's wrong with me, you know?

Jenny Powers: 6:28

And and through this writing process I realized, well, it's not my fault, because society and our culture has put so many of these things like external things on us that are so not how we used to live. It's no wonder that we're miserable, that are so not how we used to live. It's no wonder that we're miserable. And now that I understand that, it kind of took a weight off me, thinking that, like you know it was a moral failing, you know it was. It was this mismatch that we have between what our brains and our bodies really actually need and what our society and our environment is giving us. And so that was really helpful for me to start making changes, because as soon as you stop blaming yourself for certain things, it's easier to make changes, you know. And also, once you learn these things too it's not your fault, but it is it becomes your responsibility, because making these changes to improve your health and wellness is it's not going to come from outside. The environment is not going to change, but if you, it has to come from you.

Jess: 7:28

Jenny, can you just touch a little bit, maybe at like a high level, when you say evolution has changed and that has now caused our behaviors to change? What are some examples of?

Jenny Powers: 7:38

that, okay, well, so it's that. So when we, when we were evolving you know animals and you know early humans, like early human hominins, and you know we evolved in lockstep with our environment, right, we evolved in response to environmental changes and we and that's how you know our brains got bigger and we changed. You know our upright stance and you know all these different things happened in response to the environment. We changed our upright stance and all these different things happened in response to the environment. But then we got to the point where our brains are so big and we're creative and we're intelligent that we started being able to make changes to meet challenges that didn't rely on evolution. We could just change our behavior, and that was revolutionary because we didn't have to wait hundreds of thousands of years for our bodies and our genes you know, like a trait to evolve, to adapt to a situation. We could change our behavior and then pass that behavior on. And so then the agricultural revolution came about 10,000 years ago, and that was kind of a slow change. And then the industrial revolution came, and then the information age, the Information Revolution, came, and so each one of those changes you know, 10,000 years ago, 200 years ago, 50 years ago.

Jenny Powers: 8:56

The rate at which our environment is changing is so high that our bodies are like what is going on.

Jenny Powers: 9:01

That our bodies are like what is going on and also the fact that we can change our behavior, like the culture and the environment around us that we've created is changing our behaviors and we don't realize that how we're changing our behaviors is actually working against our biology. So not only has it happened so fast that our bodies haven't evolved, but our behaviors have evolved. So we've kind of overshot. You know we've, we're overcompensating. You know our behaviors are now they're not helping us. Our behaviors are what's hurting us. And so I'm hoping that if people can realize, like, how a lot of these behaviors evolved, like how we got to be hunter, gatherers and how that was such a successful adaptation for so long, and then see how it kind of went wrong when we started really changing our environment, because we're so creative and intelligent, and how those things we kind of didn't think about our bodies and what our bodies actually needed when we were making all of these changes and what our bodies actually needed when we were making all of these changes.

Claude: 10:07

Do you think that? Because again there's all this, you know, agriculture era, the industry and then the informatic era. I think that between the agriculture and the industry there was a very long time. And then suddenly after the industry, it went really fast.

Jenny Powers: 10:21

I totally agree.

Claude: 10:22

And even in the informatic now, where we see, even with our kids, we see our behavior changing so much. Do you think that also has something with it, that our body cannot adapt so fast because it's changed lately, it's changed nonstop.

Jenny Powers: 10:40

That's exactly what's happening. I totally agree that the agricultural revolution started at all, but that was about 10,000 years between then and the industrial revolution. And then the industrial revolution, the rate of change got steeper and then the age of information got a lot steeper and, like I said, we didn't make decisions based on what our bodies needed. Our bodies are responding to what our new and improved technology and our lifestyle you know it's being imposed upon our bodies. We are not necessarily making the best behavioral choices, the best lifestyle choices, and I believe it's because people just don't really understand what those choices would be.

Jenny Powers: 11:26

We've gotten so disconnected from what we actually need and I think, with the rise of all these non-communicable diseases, like anxiety and mental health issues, but type 2 diabetes and obesity and all of these things that we never really used to suffer from, I think because it's become such a chronic problem that people are starting to turn to places to see okay, there has to be a different way, there has to be another way that we can live, and it turns out like the way we nature like kind of built into us what we needed to survive and thrive, and so we just kind of need to return to our roots a little bit.

Jenny Powers: 12:06

We know we've talked about how our genes haven't had much time to evolve, so we still have all of those basic needs and our genetic makeup is very similar to almost identical to what we were as hunter gatherers, with few exceptions. So we all have that hunter gatherer in us so we can all, once we start knowing what we need, you know our bodies will take over and be like finally, you know you're giving me what we need and what I need, and now I can thrive and get you know, reverse some of these diseases of modernity.

Claude: 12:40

So what will be the steps? To go back to what our body really need and, you know, going to the foundation that we had, yeah, well, I think, first of all, people.

Jenny Powers: 12:51

It's going to kind of start with education, right, I think, the more people who are miserable and looking for another way. There's going to be kind of a period where people need to kind of teach themselves how we used to live, how we're living now, and it's not like we can just go back and live like hunter-gatherers and we wouldn't want to.

Jess: 13:11

We won't, we'll live in the middle of nowhere.

Jenny Powers: 13:14

Yeah, even to some people it's like, wow, that's so great. But you know, our society's gotten to the point where we just we can't go back to living like that, and the modern world is not all doom and gloom and horrible. You know, we have some amazing things that our technology has developed that could augment our lives so much more if we were healthy enough to enjoy it in the ways that it. You know, it could really help us. So first it's going to be education, but then I don't know.

Jenny Powers: 13:40

For me, when I was writing the book, I got so overwhelmed with everything I wasn't doing, like it all started like just wave after wave of I'm not doing this, I'm not doing this, I'm not doing this, and so it was almost paralyzing for a while until I started just making very small changes, and the changes that I made were, you know, sleep, like basic sleep, hygiene, getting up, getting up, getting in sun in the morning, you know, decreasing blue light at night. Nutrition, eating more whole foods, less processed foods. That's easy Work, you know, I've really tried to learn how to separate work, you know, from the rest of my life and not have it be so integrated. You know, have boundaries. No-transcript, no-transcript, and it was just one little step at a time.

Jess: 15:05

I think one of the things that I appreciated so much about your book was that you do hit a lot on these different topics and then you also kind of go back to it's almost relying on your community right, it's, the small changes start small and it immediately reminded me of kind of what we were trying to do with our work, bestie community and the.

Jess: 15:23

just reach out to that one person, become friends with that one person at work and it'll start to snowball and everybody will start to appreciate and understand. So I feel like when I was reading some of the things in your book it seemed to me that there's almost. It goes back to the evolutionary element of it. There is a desire and need for humans to have these connections and because of the speeding up of time we all feel more isolated than we ever have before.

Jess: 15:53

So, I'm curious if you agree with that, if you think there is a role that like Whether you work best or your community element of it, how that can help. Like what kind of behaviors and elements Would we need to help overcome some of these Stresses or things?

Jenny Powers: 16:09

Yeah, well, I feel like, you know, when we were hunter gatherers, we Our bodies, needed to be at their best, because we it was a survival, you know we needed to survive, couldn't be sick, we couldn't be overweight, we couldn't be tired, you know. So we really had to take care of our bodies. But also, when we were hunter gatherers, we could not survive without other people, like we literally depended on other people to cooperate. You know, we shared our food, we shared responsibilities, we shared child rearing. We had so many things that we were just so reliant on each other for, and it was essential for our survival. So we might not need to, we might not ever need to leave our house, we might not ever need to see another person in order to survive, but our psychology and our bodies don't know that we still have that drive and we still have that need. So when those needs are met, there is, you know, pathology, depression or anxiety, or you know any number of things like that, or anxiety, or you know any number of things like that. So I feel like also, it's kind of it's sort of a unique American thing where we're all rugged individuals and we can all pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and you can do it alone. We go it alone and it's the antithesis of how we lived for millions of years in a group where we all helped each other, no one had to get go it alone. You know no one had to raise their children all by themselves. You know no one had to go to work and be all by themselves. You know work, work was not only do we work less, but we worked a lot more with a kind of a playful spirit, like making connections with co workers.

Jenny Powers: 17:55

You know the men would go hunt and the women would go gather. You know they both would leave, leave the house, you know, leave the village and someone would be at the village. And to help the kids, you know, do with the kid thing. Or oftentimes, you know the older kids took care of little kids and there was multi-group, multi-age play. But you know the women had their friends. They would sing, they would laugh, they would talk. It was a social outing. Right, going to work was a social outing. Yes, it was fun. It was fun.

Jenny Powers: 18:25

You know people you know had best, had best friends. I mean you even see this in like other primate communities, like chimpanzee communities. There are, like chimpanzee, best friends. They will like they will, true, they will they will try to actually go and do the things they need to do with their friend, because it makes it so much better and so much easier to do the things that are hard.

Jenny Powers: 18:46

If you have a little bit of play in there and your best friend always keeps you in check, you know if you're getting too anxious, you know they'll be like what are you talking about? Or you know, or if you're you know you're getting too anxious, they'll be like what are you talking about? Or if you're lagging a little bit, like come on, I need you, you have to help me. There's so many things that having that social connection with someone else just balances you out present moment because you have somebody there with you. If you're all by yourself, you're more likely to start worrying about the future or like thinking about oh God, why did I say that to my boss? You know you're like you're living in the past or you're living in the future, and I think being in social groups, being around other people, helps anchor you into more of the present moment, which is something something we haven't chatted about.

Jess: 19:36

You're right, I think, because you are. You're having so much fun interacting with that person. It's more about what's happening right then and there versus thinking about the past. Well, not only the past, but like I just need to work five more hours because I was going to prove to everyone that I get to get to the next level and right yeah, so you're put like it's. It's okay just to sit there and live in the moment with your, your work best. You probably have more fun.

Jenny Powers: 20:01

But it's not like you don't think about the future or the past, but you bring a little more levity to it. It's not quite serious and if you, if you live more in the present moment, you, your body's not in constant fight or flight, so you're actually more equipped to deal with problems that come up. If you think about the future and you're in a more centered present state of mind, it's easier for you to figure out how to deal with something.

Jess: 20:26

Right.

Jenny Powers: 20:27

When you're not just so in the future, so worried, anxious, anxious, anxious, fight or flight all the time. I think people are like, well, you can't just live in the present moment, and it's true. But if you can be more present, then the changes in your body make it, so you can, you have more resources to deal with with, you know, future problems.

Jess: 20:51

Yeah, it gives you the ability then to, when you are in that moment where you have to think about the future or reflect on the past.

Jess: 20:58

you're coming at it with a much more grounded, relaxed, sound state of mind. Yeah, I love that. There's many reasons why I really liked your book and wanted to have you on our podcast, one of which was the fact that social connections continue to come up a lot in your book, one of which was the fact that social connections continued to come up a lot in your book. The other one, though, that I'd love to chat a little bit about, too, is the connection to nature. So this season in our work besties, we're really focusing on wellness and tips and tricks for our work. Bestie. Community out there, community out there, and one of the elements that you had in your book was all around like, sometimes just being out in nature in and of itself helps you to kind of ground yourself.

Jenny Powers: 21:45

Do you mind talking a little bit about that? Sure, well, I think it follows really nicely with what we were talking about.

Jenny Powers: 21:49

because, about being present, because, there's nothing more being in the present than being in nature. You know, you were looking at flowers and trees in the sky and you have this sense of awe. It's very grounding in the present moment and there's actually an evolutionary reason for that. The people who were attuned to nature were the ones who were more successful. They were the ones who took care of their bodies better, because they could predict, like, oh, you know, there's a storm coming, I can sense there's a storm coming, so they would protect themselves. Or, you know, if they were in a situation where there were maybe predators around, you had to be very in tuned to what was going on around you. Like are the birds singing? Oh, the birds stop singing. What? What does that mean? A branch has bent a certain way. I know it's because the you know, the animal that we're hunting is went this way.

Jenny Powers: 22:43

So we need to follow it so like you're so focused in on what's around you and and it's it's different because it's you have all of these senses, all of your senses are in play, but they're not being overwhelmed Like if you are in the city street and there's cars and there's noise and there's people and you know there's pollution, you know you have to walk around things. That's like a sensory overload, right. But when you're out in nature you kind of have this passive. All of your senses are working and they're like they just have kind of gentle feedback. You're not being assaulted, you're just able to kind of like take it in at your own pace and and it's being in the present moment and actually I'm sure you've heard of forest bathing there are all these new studies coming out that show how being in nature like reduces your blood pressure, reduces the cortisol in your body and all of that I think is wonderful for your mental health and your physical health.

Jenny Powers: 23:38

So then when you go back to you know if you spend some time in nature and then go back to work, you're more productive, you're more creative. They actually have studies where people who went into nature instead of went for a walk in the city had like better scores on like measures of creativity and like better cognition, you know, but not only. But yeah, better mental health, be more content, less stressed, but also better cognitive health.

Claude: 24:04

So what were you calling? Because I didn't know. The term is forest.

Jenny Powers: 24:09

Forest bathing.

Jenny Powers: 24:10

Forest bathing, yeah, and so there's actually this Japanese term that it means forest bathing, and it comes from Japan, where they actually have the doctors over there prescribed you need to go be in nature. Yeah, it's actually a prescription of like this is what I think you need, and it makes total sense that being in nature would benefit our bodies, because nature is our natural habitat. We are the species that does not live in our natural habitat and is actually well, I was going to say, thriving. I don't know about that. It varies, right, yeah, it varies, but if you take other animals out of the natural habitat, they don't do very well unless they're really supported and get their needs. But it's amazing that we haven't gone extinct yet, because we're not, you know, we're totally in a completely artificial habitat, which no other species on the planet has ever done.

Jess: 25:10

So and yet we still continue to live longer, which is interesting.

Jenny Powers: 25:16

Well, maybe so, but what's our health span? Yeah, it's not necessarily healthily, but yeah, I mean, I actually think our, our lifespan is actually going down for the first time, really okay, um, and our health span is not. It is going way down. You know you might live till you're 75 on average, but like how many of those the last 10, 15 years are you enjoying it? Are you healthy?

Jess: 25:40

Yeah. Interesting, so so yeah, so we live in a city so we don't have a lot of just direct nature. But I mean, I will say one of my things that I enjoy most and I feel much more centered on the days where I run in Central Park, because I tend to run not just on the main path but in the like hiking trail area. So you are like literally, it's like trail running.

Jess: 26:05

You're not in and around people, it's like just you with trees, and I do feel much more calm and centered on those days. Are there other ideas of things that those that do work in a city can do throughout the day?

Jenny Powers: 26:19

Yeah, yeah. I mean I think some people feel like, oh well, in order to interact with nature, I have to like make this big deal and like go to Yellowstone.

Jess: 26:27

Yeah, go find a mountain to hike.

Jenny Powers: 26:29

You know little community gardens, or something that I'm doing is just looking at the clouds, watching the sunset, like what's the quality of the light? You know what are the, you know the clouds pink, you know is there a storm coming? But also just looking at, like paying attention to the tree that's right there in busy city street. You can like look at the leaves and be like it's starting to change or I wonder what kind of tree this is. Just having that, that curiosity and and man-made nature, like flower gardens, or being able to like you know, I heard there's, you know, people who grow their own herbs in like a high-rise apartment building in New York City and just the the act of growing your own herbs, you're getting your hands in there and actually creating something, letting something grow. All of those things are interacting with nature.

Claude: 27:20

It's almost stepping back right from even our everyday life and enjoying, like you said, enjoying the present and enjoying the sunset, the sunrise in anywhere, the beauty of nature. I love what you say, that you don't have to go on in a mountain or you know a hill.

Jenny Powers: 27:38

You, you can find it, and a lot of time we don't see that it's really reaching out for this beauty yeah, and in order to do that we have to slow down, because we're we're running from thing to thing, we're eating in our cars, we don't have time to like sit and look around when we're at a stoplight, but it's something that I've tried to learn how to do and I've also really tried to teach my kids like we're riding in the car oh, my gosh, look at those clouds. Oh, did you see that bird? You know like just not being internal and like in our heads and in our car going to our next thing, but like what's going on around us, because there's so many things that are nature that you don't really think about, that you kind of take for granted, and so becoming more attuned to those things is really helps your state of mind.

Claude: 28:27

And I mean I love it because you were, you know, saying about teaching your kids and I've always done that with my son, I think he was sick of. It was like oh my God, look at the sky. Oh my God, look at that cloud and white was about two weeks ago and he's a teenager, so you know.

Jenny Powers: 28:44

I guess I have one of those.

Claude: 28:45

Yeah, yeah. But then and I was so happy and so proud because he came to see me and then he left the room and he looked outside like oh wow, look at that cloud, look at the sunset, and I was so happy that he stopped and look at it. You know, and appreciate.

Claude: 29:05

I think that you're right. It's also teaching you know the people to just step out, and it's not only on video games and things like that, because I do believe that we were like you say, we were gatherer, but all this informatic and everything we feel very lonely. You don't have this interaction as much as we used to.

Jenny Powers: 29:29

Totally, and I think that really goes back to what we were talking about in terms of being around other people. Like you had an influence on your son because you were a model for him of seeing things in a different way, maybe, so that being together and influencing the people around you to slow down, influencing the people around you to start opening their eyes and looking at nature it comes from. We're communicative, social, intelligent creatures, and that is how we teach and we learn, and that is how things, that's how we change, and so, like we have to have, we have to be around other people in order to transmit the things that we know to be good for us, and then those people who we've taught can teach others, and that's how it spreads.

Jess: 30:20

So it kind of goes back to yes, you can teach your kids, which is great, and yes, but you also can teach those in your work environment to leverage your work bestie.

Jess: 30:29

And we have been talking about how, throughout the day, you have your five minute break. Another great example is just taking whether it's the five minutes or a couple, you know half an hour of just going out and appreciating something else and actually saying it to people, either going with them or, you know, having those conversations, Because it's the small changes you commented on right.

Jenny Powers: 30:52

Yeah, and a lot of people think like, oh man, I don't have time for that, I have so much to do, when in reality the studies have shown that taking breaks actually improves your performance. You know, once you reach a certain point, like working more isn't going to, you know you need to take a break so you can come back and then you'll be more productive yeah, yeah.

Jess: 31:12

So, jenny, you hit on a couple of things that really make sense for the working style world. What else would you recommend or talk about? That you think are kind of some either small changes or big changes that can help when you are a person who does work a nine to five or very. You know it's kind of sitting at your desk style job.

Jenny Powers: 31:35

Yeah, well, probably like kind of the four main things. If we look at hunter, gatherers and how they approached work, there's kind of four things and we kind of touched on one of them, which is having more fun and using like a playful spirit at work. Also, we also alluded to another. One is like we need to make sure we take our breaks and enjoy our leisure time and we need to start listening to our bodies. If we're sick, we have to take care of ourselves. If we're tired, we need to go to sleep. We can't be like oh, I got to stay up for three more hours to finish this. It'll eventually happen. I do the same thing, todd, literally texted me the other day.

Jess: 32:11

like I know you're still up working, go to bed.

Jenny Powers: 32:22

Because our bodies, we don't necessarily have to rely on our bodies and whether or not we're alert to survive anymore, but it does.

Jenny Powers: 32:25

You know, it does help our health. Yeah, we like I like I was saying we work so much longer than hunter-gatherers maybe only hunter-gatherers, maybe only worked 30 percent of the time when they were awake, maybe like 16 hours a week, you know, getting food and things like that, and then they learned how to enjoy their themselves, right. So, and we talked about being in the present moment they lived and worked in the present moment and that really helps as well.

Claude: 32:50

It was like, yes, they were working less because again it's a different type of working, but it has again has to do with nature, because again it was a different habitat. Right you had, they were more or less working with the sunset and sunrise. No, sunrise and sunset. Sunrise and sunset, yeah. You know so it's really that was depending on nature.

Jenny Powers: 33:18

They were very attuned to the ebb and flow of the day. Mm-hmm. And there was one other thing. So that would help people in the modern working world, and this is another hard one to do. So it's like slow down but also we don't need, we can live with less and if we don't need as much.

Jenny Powers: 33:38

So an entire hunter gatherer group had fewer belongings than one agriculturalist early on, like they just had the things that they could carry on their backs because they were nomadic. They moved all around, like things were not important to them. It was their relationships. It was how they interacted, it was celebrations and dancing and singing, and it was really about relationships and connections, not about stuff. And so I think people get caught up in I need to work more so I can make more money, so I can afford this stuff. And then it gets to the point where you know I have to work more so I can make more money, so I can rent a storage facility, so I can keep all my stuff in the storage facility. Um, because there's like houses have gotten bigger and bigger and the number of people who live in them have gotten fewer and fewer, and yet we still have garages full of stuff and we still have storage facilities full of and we don't. It's a.

Jess: 34:38

It's a cultural shift that has to happen, but we could live with less and if we had less, we could work less I say that as a person who I'm a avid clothes shoppers always battle with that too, where I'm like I don, I don't need this. I hear you, though, cause I think I do feel so much better when I go and do like a closet cleansing and I get all the stuff out of there and I can see everything that I have, like you do feel, I don't know if it's psychological or what, but I do feel better. So I kind of understand what you mean, and it probably does go back to the hunting gathering days, when you would, if I had to run, I wouldn't be able to grab any of this stuff. So what does it really matter?

Jenny Powers: 35:18

You got to move out fast. You just got to. You got to, you know, grab your kids and grab the stuff you can carry and go, and that actually provided people a lot of freedom. You know, if once, once, you were in a house and you had all this stuff and it was a bad situation, you didn't feel like you could leave right, whereas if you just needed all the things on your back and you could just get out of a bad situation, you could move to another group. You know there wasn't any hard and fast rules about having to stay. You know where you are, you know, yeah, you, there's the all these groups kind of intermingled and came together, went apart. You could just go somewhere else and find a better situation for yourself. You don't feel that human being, though.

Jenny Powers: 36:00

They need that belonging, that sense of belonging yeah, yeah, so you have to find it somewhere else don't, yeah, force it go find that yeah, don't, don't go off and be by yourself, because being by yourself is like the worst hunter-gatherer society. Being alone is like a death sentence, right? So if you're not getting what you need in this particular group, you go find another group. You take it, you know your stuff off.

Jess: 36:28

You have the freedom to move to another group and find what you need there so some of our listeners are a little younger and they probably are part of those that are very much attached to the social media aspect. And then we know that certain elements like Instagram is not exactly always real or at all. What would be kind of your advice for for, like the younger generation, if they're attuned to that Like, how do you help them adjust back to to?

Jenny Powers: 37:00

your point.

Jenny Powers: 37:01

This is not what our bodies are really meant for, because, on one hand, we can find the people who think like you know, we can find our people, we can find the people who find our tribe, and we might not necessarily live in the same state, right, or the same country even, but the fact that we can find each other and interact, I think that's great. Using social media for that, as opposed to using social media to attack somebody or, you know, compare ourselves with somebody or, you know, put something out there so we get likes, so we can feed our self esteem. You know those. Those are not the good ways to use social media. But if you're using social media to connect with people and and like, have friendships and stuff like that, I think that's a wonderful use of social media.

Jenny Powers: 37:50

However, there are limits to social media and we were talking about this, I think, before we started recording. You know there are actual physiological things that happen when you're in the same room with somebody. That's different than being on a screen. I mean, you can get some of it from being on a screen or be. Just being in contact with people is so important, but being in a physical, being in physical contact with somebody has so many other benefits. You know, like we were talking about.

Jenny Powers: 38:14

You know, hugging somebody, you get oxytocin release, which is that belonging, feel good chemical. You know, when you're sitting across from somebody you start like mirroring their oh. You know you start mirroring their, their facial. You know their body language and their facial expressions. Those are mirror mirroring neurons and that makes you kind of feel like you're on the same wavelength with that person. And I haven't seen that happen as much on, you know, on social media or face to you know, on a zoom call. There's not that like. You know, you can still get into that, you know the giggles and you can still kind of feel this energy, but it's not quite the same as being in person in the same same room.

Claude: 38:52

Yeah, and, and sometimes I have to say also when, because text also is huge but, again. It's so easy to misunderstand a text, right that oh, meanwhile, when you're talking.

Jess: 39:06

It's very easy, you know you understand, you ask me and text you. You know it depends on read your own connotation exactly, depending on which one.

Claude: 39:16

You know what mood you're in. Like. There's this commercial. That's no, that's mean. So it's actually very funny that you have it's between two people. That one, you know, reads the wrong way, yeah, when the other one, that is sending is really key and peel have done a skit on it.

Jess: 39:33

It's hysterical where the one's like like, do you still want to go out tonight? And he's just like he's sending is really he and Peele have done a skit on it. It's hysterical. It's really good Like, do you still want to go out tonight? He's like do you still want to go out tonight? And he's like asking, like in a nice way, and he's like what do you mean? Do you want to go out tonight? And his response is like I don't know, do you Like aggressive, you know?

Claude: 39:55

It was he's like all light and positive. But I think too it really depends. And I think also at the same time, technology did help us during COVID to stay in connection. It was the only type of connection you could have, the only time you could have. But then again afterwards I know, for example, with my friends work bestie or whatever, with my friends work bestie or whatever, once we found each other again in real life you know it was again that need of touch that was so important.

Jess: 40:27

Yeah, Well, we know I did want to ask you, jenny, because we did reference this a little bit before we started recording. I saw that your book which I highly recommend to those that are listening to get a copy of it and read it on the origin of being, but I saw that this is book one of three, right? Do you care to talk a little bit about, maybe, what's the book number two and when that might be?

Jenny Powers: 40:56

Sure, sure, like as I was talking about when I met Luke and he was telling me about all these different things where we're not living in alignment. The first book was really just about sleep, nutrition, work and rest in nature, but there are six other areas of you know, of our evolutionary behaviors that we think are really important too and they kind of move up in in like complexity, I guess. So these are our basic needs. Book one is our basic needs and then book two focuses a lot on what we were talking about today, like our social groups, our social connections, why, why we evolved this way, why it's important, and child rearing. You know, because I'm sure we could have tons of podcasts about parenting, about the sexes, like you know, have we always been in a male dominated society? Let's see if we have an evolutionary record right.

Jenny Powers: 41:49

You know, like we were talking about earlier, women used to always were women worked away from the home all the time. You know what I mean. So there's so much rich stuff there to talk about and to think about. So that's book two, and then book three kind of gets into more complex things like the arts. You know, how does storytelling and singing and dancing, how does that affect us and how does that affect how we bond with other people? Rituals how important rituals are, rites of passage are, and then we talk about religion and spirituality. So these are like really high level human stuff, you know. And so that that's in book three, and so we're hoping to at the end of this year to release book two and then the end of next year really release book three.

Jess: 42:33

So it'll be our little trilogy two and then the end of next year really release book three. So it'll be our little trilogy trilogy. I feel like all three of these books are so on brand for the work besties and cool kind of explain some of the the why behind the importance of having a work bestie. So we we appreciate you being on and we're going to be looking forward to reading book two and three and we may tap you again if you're interested yeah, I really enjoyed talking to you.

Jenny Powers: 42:58

It's been a really fun conversation and I, like I said, I love the. I would be so much fun to like have a podcast with my best friend and my work bestie. Yeah, I mean, I just love. I love the concept and the energy that you guys play off of each other and bring um. It's been a really fun, really fun talking with you.

Jess: 43:17

Well, the good news is that there's so many other work besties out there that are like this that you want to continue to start that movement and, just like you said, one small change at a time, one little change at a time, all it takes one small change and you take a step back and you're like okay, I mastered that.

Jenny Powers: 43:41

Let's do the next step, Yep, Having your work bestie at your side or your bestie you know they don't have to be your work bestie, but just your bestie Having somebody at your side while you're doing those things makes those things easier to do and they stick and they last longer and you support each other.

Jess: 43:48

Even the hard things. Yeah, it's make it or break it. The nutrition, like paying attention to not having so much sugar, having that one exercise a day or whatever it definitely helps.

Claude: 43:59

It's like you have, you know, a gym buddy and you know all those different that help you to be accountable. Yeah exactly Because it's very hard alone and having a work bestie that became a bestie or work bestie that makes a big difference.

Jenny Powers: 44:15

Totally Well. Thank you, jenny. The work bestie that became a bestie or work best, that makes a big difference. Totally it's not. If it's not what you do, it's who you spend your time with oh, yeah, oh definitely.

Jess: 44:22

That's an amazing tagline you should totally make.

Jenny Powers: 44:29

Make that your little work. Besties who podcast, it's not what you do, it's who you're with yeah, just like that, you're gonna see it change steady, you can have that. You can have that one gosh, this has been amazing.

Jess: 44:47

Thank you so much. Um, I just so appreciate you being willing to come on our our humble podcast because I feel, as we mentioned, we heard you on other podcasts and you are just such a wealth of knowledge and so interesting and I love that you could kind of help explain it in art. So we appreciate that oh, you're welcome.

Jenny Powers: 45:05

Thank, thank you very much. Like I said, it was so wonderful that you reached out and were interested. I'm like this sounds like a great, a great match. Um, yeah'm looking. I'll keep in touch with you all.

Jess: 45:16

Definitely, I would love that so for all the work besties out there. We hope you enjoyed this and we hope you take away from this to do just one small change, even if it is just reaching out and finding a new bestie, or it's thinking about your nutrition, yeah, doing with your bestie going out in nature, just appreciating things, taking that step to recharge. Um, and don't forget to check out jenny's book on the origin of being and her upcoming book series, which we're all excited about, and make sure to like and subscribe and check out jenny's socials. That we will keep in our notes. So with that, thank you all. Thank you all, bye. Remember, whether you're swapping snacks in the break room, rescuing each other from endless meetings or just sending that perfectly timed meme, having a work bestie is like having your own personal hype squad.

Claude: 46:10

So keep lifting each other, laughing through the chaos and, of course, thriving. Until next time, stay positive, stay productive and don't forget to keep supporting each other. Work besties.