Why Simple Is So Hard

What modern wellness has forgotten

I recently read a blog by Mark Hyman explaining just how simple it can be to double your daily step count.

It was thoughtful. Well-researched. Genuinely helpful.

And yet, I couldn’t shake the quiet discomfort it stirred in me.

Not because walking is bad advice. Quite the opposite.
But because somewhere along the way, something as instinctive as moving our bodies through space now requires a multi-thousand-word explanation, supporting studies, practical hacks, and behavioural psychology to legitimise it.

That discomfort isn’t about Mark Hyman.
It’s about us.

Because this isn’t just happening with walking.

It’s happening with breathing.

With rest.
With cold.
With nature.
With sleep.
With hunger and fullness.
With movement and stillness.
With listening to our bodies at all.

The Seduction of Novelty and Complexity

We live in a culture that is neurologically primed for novelty.
This is not a personal failing. It is biology.

Our brains are wired to notice what is new, different, or unexpected. Novelty triggers dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with motivation, learning, and reward. It pulls our attention forward and keeps us engaged. From an evolutionary perspective, this made sense. New information once meant opportunity or threat. Paying attention kept us alive.

Complexity adds another layer. When something is technical, layered, or supported by data, it signals credibility. It feels intelligent. Safe. Reassuring. Especially in a world where uncertainty is high and authority feels fractured.

Modern society, and particularly modern technology, is built on this wiring. Platforms, apps, and content ecosystems are designed to capture attention by delivering constant novelty, increasing complexity, and promising optimisation. Wellness has not escaped this. It has absorbed the same logic.

And so we accumulate knowledge.

Articles.
Podcasts.
Apps.
Wearables.
Protocols.

Each one offers something new to learn, track, refine, or master. Each one gives a small hit of progress, even when nothing in our lived experience actually changes.

We learn more and more about wellbeing, often without doing very much of it.

Novelty stimulates us.
Complexity legitimises us.

But neither guarantees effectiveness.

In fact, there is a growing irony at the heart of modern wellness. We have more tools, more data, and more access to information than ever before, yet many people feel increasingly disconnected from their own bodies.

Not because they lack knowledge.
But because attention has been pulled outward, and trust has been quietly outsourced.

We’re not uneducated. We’re disconnected.

When Explanation Replaces Embodiment

Take breathing.

Breathing is the first thing we do when we enter the world. It is rhythmic, responsive, and self-regulating. And yet today, many people feel anxious about breathing “incorrectly”.

So we turn to breathwork.

There are countless techniques now. Box breathing. Coherent breathing. Resonance breathing. Wim Hof. Soma. Holotropic. Each with its own logic, language, and learning curve.

Some of these practices are powerful and appropriate. I am not dismissing them.

But it’s worth pausing to ask a deeper question.

When did breathing stop being something we feel, and start being something we perform?

The same pattern appears everywhere.

Walking becomes step counts.
Nature becomes content.
Cold water becomes protocols and timers.
Rest becomes recovery optimisation.
Breathing becomes techniques.
Sleep becomes data.
Stillness becomes productivity-adjacent.

In the pursuit of understanding why these things are good for us, we often lose touch with how they feel.

We haven’t lost access to our bodies.
We’ve lost confidence in listening to them.

The Quiet Truth About Simplicity

Here is where things get uncomfortable.

Simple practices are not easy because they lack sophistication.
They are difficult because they remove our hiding places.

Going for a daily walk does not require a new identity, a purchase, or a download. It requires consistency.

Breathing slowly does not demand expertise. It demands presence.

Cold water does not ask for intellectual engagement. It asks for surrender.

None of these practices give us much to talk about.
They do not make us feel cutting-edge or informed.
They do not reward us with novelty once the initial resistance passes.

And this is precisely why they work.

Simple practices ask us to meet ourselves as we are, again and again, without distraction. They strip away optimisation and leave us face to face with habit, resistance, boredom, and sensation.

This is why complexity is so attractive.

Complexity keeps us busy.
It gives us something to adjust, analyse, and refine.
It offers movement without stillness.

Busyness can look a lot like commitment.
Research can feel like responsibility.
Preparation can masquerade as progress.

There is also something else at play here.

Simple practices take time to work. They are cumulative, not catalytic. Their effects are subtle at first and easy to dismiss. You rarely feel a dramatic shift after one walk, one night of better sleep, or one week of slower breathing.

In a culture conditioned for instant gratification, this is deeply unsatisfying.

We are used to quick wins, visible results, and immediate feedback. Our technologies reinforce this constantly. Likes, scores, streaks, metrics, and notifications all train us to expect reward now, not later.

Simple practices do not offer that.

They ask us to invest without immediate proof.
To trust a process before results are obvious.
To keep going when nothing dramatic appears to be happening.

And so they are easily abandoned.

Not because they do not work, but because they do not perform.

Simplicity asks for patience in a culture addicted to speed.

Complexity, on the other hand, often delivers the feeling of progress straight away. Learning something new feels productive. Tracking data feels reassuring. Adding another layer feels like movement.

But often, complexity protects us from the one thing that actually creates change.

Showing up.

If wellbeing is technical enough, specialist-led enough, or externally validated enough, we can stay in pursuit. We can keep learning, refining, and upgrading without ever having to settle into the simplicity of practice.

Because once something is simple, there is nowhere else to look.

No expert to defer to.
No system to blame.
No missing piece to wait for.

Simple practices confront us with a quiet, uncompromising truth.

If we do not feel better, stronger, calmer, or more regulated, it is not because we do not know enough.

It is because we are not doing the obvious thing, long enough, to let it work.

And that realisation is confronting.
Because it returns agency to where it belongs.

With us.

Science Is Not the Enemy. Disembodiment Is.

At this point, it would be easy to assume I am arguing against science.

I’m not. You all know my love of neuroscience.

Understanding the nervous system matters. Physiology matters. Evidence matters.

But science was never meant to replace experience. It was only ever meant to illuminate it.

When explanation becomes a substitute for embodiment, we lose the plot.

Knowing why walking improves metabolic health is useful.
But walking improves metabolic health whether you understand it or not.

The real question is not “Does this work?”
It is “Does this help me listen more clearly to myself?”

If a tool sharpens awareness, it has value.
If it dulls intuition, no amount of data will make it wise.

This is where discernment becomes essential.

Not everything new is necessary.
Not everything established is outdated.
And not everything complex is superior to what is simple and well-worn.

The Return to the Obvious

Perhaps the issue is not that wellness has become too complicated.

Perhaps it is that we have mistaken novelty for progress, and complexity for effectiveness.

We keep searching for the next thing while quietly avoiding the invitation of the obvious.

Move your body.
Breathe in a way that feels regulating.
Expose yourself to nature, cold, and rest in doses you can feel.
Pay attention.

Not once.
Not perfectly.
But consistently enough to rebuild trust.

And often enough that there is nowhere left to hide.

Real wellbeing does not arrive as a revelation.

It arrives as repetition.

The most radical act of wellbeing today may not be learning something new.

It is doing the simple thing you already know works, even when no one is watching, measuring, or applauding.

And if that feels boring, confronting, or slow, it may be because it is asking for something we have been trained to avoid.

Responsibility.

This work was never meant to be outsourced.