Camping: A Modern Day Ancestral Experience

How camping can reset your circadian rhythm, expose you to cold, connect you with your food, and give you uninterrupted time with your tribe

Last weekend Maddie and I went camping in Northern Arizona with a couple of friends and our dogs. We spent 2 nights in the woods where we rose and winded down with the sun, stayed present, ate wild food, and spent quality time with our tribe. 

This got us thinking… Camping out in nature without technology really mimics the way our ancestors used to live (as long as you aren’t out there just getting wasted and riding ATVs).

Resetting our circadian rhythm, exposing us to cold, connecting us with our food, and giving us uninterrupted time with our tribe trip were all benefits that helped us to come back feeling refreshed, recovered, and recharged.

Circadian Rhythm Reset

When sunlight floods into your tent and the birds start singing, it’s nature’s alarm clock and your signal that it is time to rise. Ask anyone who has ever been camping and they’ll tell you it’s virtually impossible to sleep in.

The same goes for bedtime, where once the sun disappears, there aren’t many things that you can do other than sit around the campfire chatting. What’s interesting though, is that when you watch the sunrise and when you are out and about all day hiking, fishing, or whatever your camp activities might be, your body practically shuts down as soon as the sun is gone. This is because your circadian rhythm quickly adapts to be in tune with the natural cycles of the sun.

Compare this to when you’re at home with your blackout curtains. You more than likely sleep in much later than when the sun rose. When it comes to bedtime out in the woods, you don’t have the sleep-disturbing blue light in the form of your phone or laptop to lure you into “just an episode or two” and keep you awake longer than you should.

If you are exposed to light after sunset while camping, it’s likely just the glowing red light of a campfire. 

Another benefit that doesn’t sound too attractive when you first hear it is sleeping on the ground. Most people think they’ll be extremely uncomfortable if they have to sleep on the cold ground on top of rocks and sticks and whatever else lines the forest floor, but in our experience, it’s some of the best sleep we’ve ever got!

Potential benefits of sleeping on the ground include a cooler sleep temperature, relief from back pain, and better posture the more you do it. It can also be seen as the ultimate form of grounding when you are connected to the Earth for 6 to 8 hours of sleep time!

Cold Exposure

Speaking of cooler nighttime temperatures… Camping is an excellent way to practice cold exposure! Now, I’m not saying to under-pack and wear summertime clothes if you’ll be camping somewhere cold or where the nighttime temperatures drop significantly, but being a little cold while you sleep is actually beneficial. 

Sleeping in the cold promotes better sleep by helping you to fall asleep faster, sleep deeper, and thus increase the quality of your REM sleep throughout the night. It also slows down your metabolic rate, so it’ll prevent you from tossing and turning or waking up too often.

Most camping trips also take place near a body of water such as a river or a lake, so if you so dare, you can also take a plunge for a more deliberate type of cold exposure! When I’m on a long hunting trip without access to a shower, I do this out of necessity and always feel so invigorated and refreshed afterward.

Eating What You Catch

Fishing is a great camping pastime and a fun activity to do with whoever you are camping with. An added bonus is that you can usually eat whatever you catch, making it a great way to experience being connected to your food source.

On this camping trip, we were fortunate enough to catch a beautiful, good-sized rainbow trout. I was able to show our friends the proper and humane way to dispatch the fish to minimize suffering, as well as how to clean the fish to get it ready for the campfire.

Once we had our protein source secured, Maddie took out her foraging book that shows edible plant and mushroom species for the area of Arizona we were in and took a long nature walk to look for something we could eat alongside the trout.

While she didn’t find anything worth eating on this trip, foraging is an amazing way to learn about and connect with the natural world around you. It’s one of those hobbies that can be very difficult at first, but once you start to find edible plant species, it becomes almost impossible to not find any.

Distraction Free Time With Your Tribe

While all of the above benefits of camping are great, perhaps the single best thing about camping is that it gives you distraction-free time with whoever you are with.

Think about it, in today’s world, people are either distracted by their devices or distracted by what they have to do later. When you are camping, you are forced to be present in the moment you are in and take it in for what it is.

Since Maddie is somewhat new to camping, she mentioned pre-covid it would have stressed her out knowing she couldn’t access the outside world on a whim and “accomplish things”. I even find myself stressed in everyday life answering work emails or work calls and staying on top of everything as it comes in. But when I’m out camping or hunting, I literally cannot check in on work because I’m disconnected from any WiFi or cellular networks.

You’d be surprised by the relief you feel knowing you don’t “have” to check any devices or do anything, because you literally can’t!

This leads you to appreciate the people you are with and the time for what it is. We learned new things about one another’s families, our childhoods, and likes/dislikes, topics that may not come up day-to-day.

Whether you are hiking, walking, fishing, sitting around the fire, or just sitting in silence, you learn to “stop and smell the roses” (literally and figuratively) when you are camping. 

Take Action: Schedule a camping trip with your friends. Start small and plan 1 day and 1 night out in the woods or desert and plan to turn your phone off if it isn’t far enough to cut you off from cell networks (bring a satellite phone to stay safe though).

-Sebastian