“Balance, Moderation, and Going All-In” KEW Episode 94: Homeostasis

Do you seek balance in your life, or do you go all-in on things you like?

I used to think everyone wanted balance, and had a moderate approach to all things in order to maintain that balance across their varied interests. Given that there are only so many hours in a day, it’s hard to do all the things we love to do – or even the things we don’t want to do!

But I have known folks who follow the, ‘if it feels good, do it!’ mantra and argue that moderation and/or balance is outright silly.

But if you look at biological systems, many of the biochemical processes necessary for life occur in very narrow bands or zones.

For example, our blood pH (the measure of Hydrogen and Hydroxide ions in our blood) needs to be maintained between about 7.35 and 7.45 pH units. It’s confusing, but the pH range is from 0-14, so 0.1 units is a VERY NARROW band within.

A more somatic example is temperature. Humans are really comfortable between like 70 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit, but Earth temperatures range between -126 and 136 degrees F. That’s a 10 degree band across a range of over 250 degrees.

There are even coarser examples like, if you don’t eat enough your hungry but if you eat too much you’re stuffed.

It’s sort of ‘Goldiloxian’, where many biological things fall into a ‘just right’ zone, outside of which bad things can happen.

Here I go beyond those examples to discuss things like climate change and personal growth through the lens of homeostasis.

Spoiler alert, I still believe in balance.

Please note, I apologize to the video fans, I was unsuccessful at getting the video from this episode, so the YouTube video is audio-only.

Podcast direct download: https://pdcn.co/e/https://chtbl.com/track/CGDA9D/www.buzzsprout.com/530563/10475596-kew-episode-94-homeostasis.mp3?download=true

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/qjJbc03gaJM

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