The Lion Eventually Goes Away

Recently, I was puttering around the science news side of the internet when I stumbled across an article in Science Daily entitled "Humans are built for nature not modern life." The piece summarizes the efforts of evolutionary anthropologists Colin Shaw and Daniel Longman to capture how modern life has hijacked the survival mechanisms wired into our brains---warping them into anxiety, depression and even auto-immune disorders.

Shaw and Longman's work further disentangles the etiology of mental health disorders. More and more we are seeing that mental health conditions don't just stem from intrapsychic factors or brain structure alone. They are a result of a person and their distinct genetic inheritance interfacing with their environment.

In other words, mental health is best seen from what we social workers call a person in environment perspective. Increasingly, our industry-centric environment---detached from the rhythms of nature---is at odds with our inherent needs as humans.

Some might even say that it is not just industry but it's bedfellow capitalism that is eating us from the inside out.

One quotation from the article stuck out to me. Longman (2025) says,

"Our body reacts as though all these stressors were lions. Whether it's a difficult discussion with your boss or traffic noise, your stress response system is still the same as if you were facing lion after lion. As a result, you have a very powerful response from your nervous system, but no recovery."

As a therapist, the analogy of a lion chase is useful for helping clients explore the impact of modern stressors on their levels of anxiety. It perfectly captures the anxiety spiral that a client might experience in response to an email from their boss, for example. The email feels like a threat to their livelihood and thus their survival. At first their stress is acute. Their body tenses into hypervigilance and their protective mechanisms start firing away.

Do twice as much!

Show your worth or all is lost.

Or avoid! Quit and move into the woods! But wait, it turns out you need a camping permit to live in the woods. There are emails involved. Is there any escape from bureaucracy?!

According to Longman, in the hunter-gather context we are adapted to, the lion would eventually go away. Reprieve would await us in a tree or some other shelter. But in our modern world, the lion is constantly prowling.

I would argue that we can subvert this lion chase, beyond the wonderful nature-based interventions Longman and Shaw suggest. We can face the lion and test to see if it really has claws.

For example, say you get a exceedingly high bill from the utility company. It's already been deducted. Now there's not enough money for this month's rent. Here comes the lion.

But all is not lost.

Ride the wave of anxiety as it spikes within you---the images of overdraft fees, the catastrophic possibility of eviction (because you were never able to catch up on that damn bill). Ride the wave and stare down the lion.

Place your hand on your chest or hug yourself. Breathe in for four. Hold for seven and exhale for eight.

Are you out living on the street right now? No? Good. There is a roof over your head. Stay in the present.

Do you have tools to advocate for yourself or come up with a payment plan for future bills? Can you create a tighter budget or find an extra source of income (however small)? Yes you do and you can.

Do you have a network of people who can support you? If not, where can you start to build one.

Have you faced down a problem like this before and made it through? You might not see it yet, but you are resilient.

Now let's take another look at this lion.

Why, it's just a bill!

Or maybe it's only a silly reel on social media telling you that you will never be enough. Who made these social media people the boss of things anyway?

Or it's only a performance review at work. Instead of a threat, it might be an important signal that it's time for a change in how you are doing things (and change is not always bad).

Turns out this lion can't eat you. It's only a paper lion. And even more so than real lions, paper lions eventually go away.

Best,

Po

Sources:

University of Zurich. (2025, December 8). Humans are built for nature not modern life. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 16, 2025 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/12/251207031335.htm