Evolutionary mismatch exists when an organism is in an environment that doesn't match ancestral times.

In the modern, industrialized world, we are surrounded by all kinds of evolutionary mismatches.

Here are five ways that you can reduce the adverse effects of mismatch right now.

You may not realize it, but so much of what you experience in your everyday life is likely both unnatural and potentially harmful. In the evolutionary sciences, we refer to this kind of situation as an evolutionary mismatch (see Giphart and Van Vugt, 2018). A mismatch exists when an organism (like you or me) finds itself in an environment that differs in important ways from the ancestral environments that shaped its evolutionary history. If you live in a modernized, industrial country (as I do), you likely run into all kinds of mismatches every day. You likely encounter strangers at a higher rate than was true during the lion's share of human evolution. You likely engage in much less face-to-face communication with others than was true in ancestral times. Some proportion of your diet likely includes processed foods (think breads, pasta, cheese, baked goods, chips). In the industrialized world, mismatches abound. And we are only now starting to see the adverse physical and mental health consequences of this fact (see Geher and Wedberg, 2022).

The good news is that, as we begin to understand the nature of mismatch and its adverse effects on our lives, we can........

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