How to live aligned with nature in a city
Kaya KozaneckaWritten on 9th March
As much as we love to romanticise an ancestral lifestyle, imagining the slow golden mornings in the countryside, fresh milk still warm from the cow, and the smell of wood smoke curling from the stove as broths simmer for hours, this can sometimes feel a little far from reality.
For most of us, life is a little less wild: high rises replace forests, and our daily hunt involves navigating crowded grocery store aisles rather than tracking game.
Does that mean ancestral living is off the table? Not a chance.
You don’t need a sprawling farmstead to reclaim your roots. You just need a little ingenuity and a refusal to accept modern convenience as king.
Even in the heart of a concrete jungle, you can reclaim the way you eat, move, and live. You can build strength, fuel deeply, and reconnect with nature: even if your nature is a small park nestled between office buildings.
Here’s our tips to living ancestrally in the city:
1. Hunt and gather (at your local farmers market)
One of the best parts of city living is access to farmer’s markets where local producers bring in fresh, high-quality foods. Seek out grass-fed beef, pastured poultry, wild-caught fish, and organ meats: nutrient-dense staples of an ancestral diet. Many farmers even travel from rural areas to supply city markets with fresh produce.
But farmer’s markets aren’t just for meat, they’re also a fantastic way to access seasonal, organic vegetables. Many markets and independent farms offer seasonal veg box schemes, where you receive a fresh selection of locally grown produce every week or month. These schemes ensure that you’re eating what’s naturally available, reducing your environmental impact and getting vegetables at their peak nutrition and flavour. Not to mention, it eliminates the hassle of grocery shopping for produce and helps you discover new, nutrient-dense foods you may not have picked up otherwise.
Building relationships with vendors or joining a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program ensures you get the best produce, meats, and eggs, all while supporting small-scale, regenerative farmers. Plus, these direct-to-consumer models often mean better pricing for higher-quality food compared to supermarkets.
2. Start an urban garden (even if it's just a windowsill)
A small herb garden in your kitchen, a pot of tomatoes on the balcony, or a community garden plot can reconnect you to the food you eat in a way that buying bagged greens never will.
Just a few generations ago, backyard gardens weren’t hobbies, they were essential. People grew potatoes in the ground, tomatoes climbed trellises, and fresh herbs were within arm’s reach for every meal. Even in cities, rooftop gardens, allotments, and shared green spaces allowed for homegrown food.
If you have even a sliver of space, start growing. Herbs like rosemary, basil, and thyme thrive in small spaces. Leafy greens like lettuce and spinach can grow in containers. If you’ve got a backyard or an allotment, go further: plant hardy vegetables like carrots, beets, or onions, the kind of food that sustained families before refrigeration made everything artificially available year round.
And if growing isn’t an option? Support those who do. Community gardens, urban farms, and local co-ops bring fresh, seasonal food back into city life.
3. Go barefoot where you can
One way to move more naturally in the city is to free your feet from overly padded shoes. Our ancestors walked and ran on varied terrain with either no shoes or minimal moccasins/sandals, which encouraged strong, resilient feet. Modern research finds that barefoot or minimalist footwear strengthens the muscles and bones of the feet and ankles, improving balance and reducing injury risk.
By contrast, thick, restrictive shoes can weaken our feet and alter our gait, even a simple walk becomes more natural and connected when you go barefoot. In a safe area (like a clean park or even at home), try walking barefoot to improve your proprioception (body awareness) and foot strength.
If that feels a little rogue, another great option is minimalist shoes with thin, flexible soles and wide toe boxes to simulate barefoot conditions during daily life. This can restore your natural walking pattern: indeed, for most of human history, people had no arch support or cushioning, yet did just fine covering long distances
Tip: Start gradually with barefoot time or minimalist shoes to let your feet adapt. Over time, you may notice better posture, less knee or back pain, and a pleasant sense of grounding with each step
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4. Take your movement outdoors
Maybe it’s the crisp morning air filling your lungs, the feeling of the earth beneath your feet instead of a treadmill belt, or the way your body naturally falls into rhythm with the sounds of wind, birds, and distant traffic. Whatever it is, once you start moving outdoors, a fluorescent lit gym starts to feel like a cage. The best gym has no walls.
Find your city’s wild pockets: parks, open fields, riversides and claim them as your training ground. Use what’s there: benches for step-ups, tree branches for pull ups, railings for dips. Many cities now have outdoor calisthenics parks: bars, rings, and parallel bars designed for bodyweight training.
If solo training isn’t your thing, look for a local run club or outdoor training group. Cities are full of people reclaiming movement in its rawest form: whether it’s barefoot running crews pounding the pavements or bouldering groups tackling urban climbing spots.
Go for long, aimless walks through your city’s green spaces. Find a set of monkey bars and rediscover how to hang, swing, and climb. Sprint barefoot on the grass. Carry something heavy for distance. If you’ve ever watched kids playing outside, jumping, climbing, balancing, laughing, you’ll realise that movement is meant to be fun, fluid, and instinctive.
5. Realign your circadian rhythm
City environments bombard us with artificial inputs (lights, noise, pollution), but we can take steps to create a healthier habitat for ourselves within the urban ecosystem
Before electricity, people rose with the sun and wound down after dark. Modern city life flips that script with bright lights and screens late into the night, which can wreak havoc on our sleep cycles. At night, artificial light (especially blue light from LEDs, phones, and computers) confuses the body’s internal clock. Exposure to room lighting or screens suppresses melatonin (the sleep hormone) and throws off the circadian rhythm
Blue wavelengths are the worst offenders because while they keep us alert by day, at night they suppress melatonin twice as much as other wavelengths and shift the circadian clock significantly
Instead, dim your lights after sunset, use warmer, amber-coloured bulbs or candlelight analogs, and consider blue-light-blocking glasses if you must use screens. Many devices now have night modes to cut blue light, use them.
In the morning, do the opposite by getting ample sunlight. Natural daylight, especially in the first hour or two after dawn, is crucial for setting your internal clock properly. Getting outside for a short walk or even having your coffee by a sunny window can cue your body that it’s daytime, leading to more wakefulness in the morning and better sleep at night. Importantly, stop wearing sunglasses.
