Five Ways to Combat Evolutionary Mismatch
Easy steps to living a more natural life.
Posted May 14, 2026 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma
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 consider ways to mitigate them. Below are five things that you can do right now to help minimize the adverse effects of evolutionary mismatch on your life.
Evolutionary mismatch, which exists when the fish jumps out of the proverbial fishbowl—or when the person leaps from ancestral nomadic conditions to large-scale industrialized societies—can have a broad array of negative effects on people's lives. Mismatch can lead to physical, emotional, and social problems. And it often does. If you're like me and live in an industrialized country with large cities, processed foods, and lots of advanced communication technologies, you may well have to go out of your way to reduce the adverse effects of mismatch on your life. The five steps here are all easy ways to bring yourself back to natural living—the living that our bodies and minds evolved for. If you take a few minutes to follow even one of the suggestions herein, your mind and body will likely appreciate it.
Note: This post was inspired by a conversation I had today with fellow evolutionary psychologist, Sarah Hill
Geher, G. & Wedberg, N. (2022). Positive Evolutionary Psychology: Darwin’s Guide to Living a Richer Life. New York: Oxford University Press.
Giphart, R. & Van Vugt, M. (2018). Mismatch. Robinson.
Guitar, A. (2017). Evolutionary Medicine: A not so radical (but absolutely necessary) Paradigm for Modern Health and Behavior (seminar given in SUNY New Paltz Evolutionary Studies Seminar Series)
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Glenn Geher, Ph.D. , is professor of psychology at the State University of New York at New Paltz. He is founding director of the campus’ Evolutionary Studies (EvoS) program.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.