June Cohen says ancient practices offer a path to happiness
Media pioneer June Cohen argues that ancient wisdom systems, from physical challenges to communal rituals, help people navigate hardship, and that modern science is beginning to explain why they work.
Ancient cultures around the world built wisdom systems, embodied practices passed down by example that helped people get through hardship, build connection and find happiness. Media pioneer June Cohen, co-creator of TED Talks, Masters of Scale and Meditative Story, argues that modern science is now confirming what these traditions long understood. Her insights come from her new book, The Great Remembering: Powerful Ancient Practices and the New Science Bringing Them Back.
The first of these insights centers on the epic physical challenge. Across history, boys' coming-of-age rituals often required a hunt or a swim through an icy river, marking an emotional transition through a physical test. Pilgrimages, long journeys frequently undertaken during periods of grief or when seeking forgiveness, follow the same pattern. Cohen notes that people still reach for this approach today: after a divorce someone may run a marathon, and after recovering from cancer someone may climb a mountain. Without necessarily knowing why, people pair hard emotional moments with hard physical ones.
Cohen points to research on what scientists call hormetic stress, or good stress. This refers to the physical strain of genuinely demanding conditions such as extreme exertion, fasting, or intense heat or cold, rather than emotional stress. When the body meets these challenges, it triggers a process of renewal that reaches down to the cellular level. One such process, autophagy, is sometimes described as spring cleaning for cells, and the scientist who discovered it won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
Cohen also highlights the effect on the brain. She writes that an epic physical challenge can produce neuroplasticity, the brain's capacity to form new connections. Mark Mattson of Johns Hopkins told her that nerve cells appear to grow and form new synapses in response to physical exercise and, to a lesser extent, intermittent fasting. The effect extends beyond the motor cortex to regions such as the hippocampus, which governs learning and memory. Cohen suggests this may help people rewrite their personal stories during difficult emotional periods, which could explain why many people turn to marathons, pilgrimages, fasting, silent meditation or darkness retreats.
Cohen also argues that not every physical challenge produces the same benefit. Across cultures and eras, she identifies several elements that determine whether a challenge is carried out successfully: structure, meaning, a coach, a witnessing community, time in nature, recovery and a supportive group of fellow participants. Structure provides guardrails so the challenge pushes without causing harm, while meaning clarifies who a person will become on the other side. Recovery is especially important, because cells repair and brain cells grow during recovery rather than during the challenge itself. Without it, Cohen suggests, the growth is lost.
Her broader point is that the body is a pathway to the mind and mood. Ancient festivals were highly physical, involving long journeys, mountain climbs, fasting, all-night vigils and hours of dancing, which suggests that spiritual transformation was understood to begin with the body. Cohen attributes much of the mood effect to endorphins, the body's natural pain relievers, which are linked to the runner's high and to the calm, lifted feeling many people experience after exertion. In her telling, the ancients had an intuitive grasp of how these chemicals support well-being, even without the scientific vocabulary to describe them.
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