American journalist Michael Easter says athletes and regular people can thrive by overcoming adversity and embracing discomfort, like trekking through the wild

Carrying weight for distance — or rucking — is part of the human design and it can keep us fit and healthy

After 33 days in the backcountry — lugging an 80-pound pack through forests and tundra, spending each night outdoors in a tent — Michael Easter says that his reunion with running water almost brought him to tears.

In his new book, The Comfort Crisis, Michael Easter investigates the connection between modern comforts and conveniences and some of our most pressing problems, like heart disease, diabetes, depression, and a sense of purposelessness. Turns out, engaging with a handful of evolutionary discomforts can dramatically improve our mental, physical, and spiritual wellbeing.

YouTube Kids is a colorful, stripped-down version of YouTube, full of animations, bright colors, and cartoon avatars meant to keep the youngest internet users engaged. When scrolling through the app, kids can see everything from Nickelodeon song mashups to prank series to baking videos — a cheerful-seeming microcosm of actual YouTube.

I recently found myself standing in the Arctic tundra, about 120 miles from civilization, in Kotzebue, Alaska, with half a year’s worth of dinner—100-plus pounds of caribou—strapped to my back. Gnarled four-foot antlers burst from the top of my pack, and my shoulder straps felt so weighty that I thought they might slice me lengthwise into thirds. I was up there on a backcountry hunt, and all I needed to do was carry my meat back to camp. Thing is, the five-mile slog was uphill and across a savage landscape that existed in an ice-cream-like state, all spongy layers, dense moss, mucky swamp, and basketball-sized tufts of grass. No easy path.

Michael Easter was a contributing editor at Men's Health magazine, columnist for Outside magazine, and is professor at UNLV. He also is the author of the new book "The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort To Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self" available now.

Our world has never been more convenient and comfortable. With just a few taps of our fingers, we can order food to our door, access endless entertainment options, and keep our climate at a steady 72 degrees. We don’t have to put in much effort, much less face any risk or challenge, in order to sustain our daily lives. 

Meeting up with Michael Easter for an interview requires a little trek into nature, and a bit of sand in your shoes. Climbing up rust-colored rocks under a bright blue sky peppered with pillowy clouds, Easter — a longtime health journalist and lecturer at UNLV — shared one of his favorite adventures from his new book, “The Comfort Crisis.”

If this year feels like it has flown by, there’s a solid scientific reason for that. Most of us spent it locked in our homes, doing the exact same thing day in and day out.

The Kaji family is navigating the increasingly complicated world of kidfluencers by expanding beyond YouTube.

Vanessa McConnell arrived at the UNLV baseball stadium ready to broadcast the day’s game for student-run KUNV 91.5. Before setting up the equipment and testing the microphone levels, she had another, more important responsibility: Making sure her son was comfortable.