Hardwired: How Our Instincts to Be Healthy Are Making Us Sick examines a troubling paradox: people are living in one of the safest eras in history, yet anxiety, chronic pain, and lifestyle-related disease are surging.
Drawing on insights from both social science and medicine, the co-authors argue that a growing health emergency is rooted in how our evolution-shaped brains and bodies collide with rapid social and technological change. Ancient survival drives, once essential for staying alive, now push many toward stress, obesity, poor sleep, and risky choices.
Across seven tightly argued chapters, the book explores how modern hospitals can be unexpectedly hazardous, why we crave sugar and salt, how emotionally driven brains respond to social media and misinformation, and how our pursuit of happiness and lack of sleep undermine well-being. It also considers how we misjudge risk and what history can teach about healthier societies.
This concise, research-based work is suited to readers interested in public health, psychology, and the hidden forces shaping everyday choices, offering a clearer understanding of why good intentions so often lead to unhealthy outcomes.
- Connects evolutionary biology, social science, and modern medicine
- Explains rising anxiety, obesity, and chronic pain in context
- Highlights the powerful role of social life in health outcomes
