Getting off the couch and joining the gym of life

While the goal of developments in technology is to make life easier for us, people’s self-confidence and personal development require a degree of challenge to improve.

If my goal is to get to a town 20 miles away, cars lower the challenge considerably in comparison to walking. If I want to clean my clothes, using a washer and dryer lowers the challenge in comparison to having to go down to the river to wash them by hand.

​As the curve of technological development grows incredibly steeper, there is a risk that those who have access to it the most will lack enough challenge to develop their skills to deal with technology-unmediated life, the real world as we say.

​When convenience gets in the way of health

There are other correlates of health that follow a similar fate. For example, modern life is much more sedentary, once again to those with most access to technologies. This is good because it protects the body from the heavy and risky load of manual labor, but if sedentary people don’t intentionally exercise, their physical health can massively deteriorate.

Likewise, modern life provides more calories to feed people’s bodies than ever before. For millions of people, this overabundance of calories leads to illness, to the point that nowadays there are more countries where more people die of overnutrition related issues, than malnutrition issues. The opposite was the case for the vast majority of human history.

Both in the case of exercise and nutrition, intentionally designed challenge is necessary for adequate health. Getting off the couch to exercise and restricting ultra-processed foods through a good diet are well known practices for people to be healthy.

Mental health needs challenge too

However, we do not seem to have dawned on the fact that getting off the couch and going to experience real-world unpredictable, unknown and potentially somewhat risky and uncomfortable situations are necessary for proper health, especially mental health.

Additionally, restricting ultra(technology)-processed experiences, such as the kinds that screens and apps provide, is likely essential as well. Humans are an incredibly innovative species, but it's only until very recently in our evolution that we have radically maximized our capacity to create technology that solves all kinds of problems for us.

​The following chart makes it visually evident how for thousands of years we progressed gradually but very little, but from the industrial revolution onwards, the change is dramatic:

Here’s an interesting fact shared by the most recent Mental State of the World Report (2025):

“What is clear is that the greater wealth and economic prosperity of a country does not equate to greater Mind Health and Wellbeing of its population. Most significantly, young adults fare substantially better in less developed regions.”

Is it possible that this statistic is a good reason to think that when there is greater wealth there is more access to technology, and with it less access to challenge, and therefore less wellbeing? If so, then it's possible those of us who have plenty of access to all kinds of technology and are not suffering significantly for other reasons should be seeking a healthy dose of challenge.

A byproduct of dealing with an adequate amount of challenge is resilience. Also, when people expose themselves to manageable uncertain situations regularly, their problem-solving abilities improve, their self-confidence increases, and their anxiety lowers. Why? The same reason your muscles get stronger when you put them to work.

When we are continually practicing how to problem-solve and getting information from our environment on what works and what doesn’t, we become better at predicting what strategies to use, and this helps us become more adaptable.

What Comes After Play?

In his book, The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt calls for a play-based childhood to help reduce the epidemic of mental health in young people, where children can play without the supervision of adults, where there is risk and the need for problem-solving. This concept of a play-based childhood matches well to the analogy of the gym of life.

But, if children need a play-based childhood, what do young adults need to protect against anxiety as well as develop their self-confidence and resilience?

​A few words come to mind, like an autonomous-based young adulthood, a contributing young-adulthood, an exploratory young-adulthood. If you’ve read this far down in the blog, maybe you'll share with me what kind of young adulthood we should be encouraging.

---

##
Dr. Danny Recio, PhD, is Director of The Bridge Costa Rica, Pathfinder Costa Rica, and a co-founder of New Summit Academy Costa Rica. Learn more about Danny here.
​
The Bridge Costa Rica is a unique blend of a gap program – offering cultural immersion, community service, language, adventure travel, and internship opportunities – and a supportive community – providing group and individual coaching as well as a strong sense of safety, support, and guidance toward mastering skills for the adult world. With a campus for young men and a new campus for young women in the town of Atenas, Costa Rica, The Bridge serves young adults ages 17-23.