Biohacking and how it can improve your heath and well being.
I wanted to recognise that some of you may have started on a health and fitness mission. But are you sure that the mission you’ve chosen is perfect for you? Will it be easy to sustain?
Have you taken a step back and thought about the food, rest, work and play equation that’s tailored to you, allowing you to perform day-in, day-out at your optimum, to be the best version of you? One of my clients at Cryojuvenate UK Sevenoaks is a biohacker and she was extolling the virtues to me…
What is biohacking?
You may have heard of a hack – it’s a quick way or a short cut to achieve something. There are hundreds of YouTube videos dedicated to life hacks on cooking, your beauty regime, crafting with children and even arranging the apps on your phone!
Biohacking is, according to Dave Asprey, biohacking guru,
“a crazy-sounding name for something not crazy at all—the desire to be the absolute best version of ourselves. The main thing that separates a biohacker from the rest of the self-improvement world is a systems-thinking approach to our own biology.”
“If we want better outputs—to have more energy and focus, to be free of disease, to have a better memory, to perform optimally in business and athletics—then let’s tweak the things we put into our body and mind to stack the deck in our favor.”
And, of course, it’s very individual; what works for one person may not work for another.
There are several layers of biohacking.
- Working with your body and examining factors around you that you could easily (easily being used here in relation to the other layers of biohacking!) change to improve your health and wellbeing. This covers the likes of nutrition and exercise, sleep, happiness, mental health.
- Manipulating your DNA and genetics.
- Using technology to improve your body’s performance; implanting devices under the skin such as a man here who has implanted a compass under his skin so that he always knows where is north. Fascinating stuff.
Biohacking in practice
To be clear, I haven’t developed a new service to manipulate DNA or genetics or to implant devices under my clients’ skin! But I am intrigued by ‘Layer 1’. Aren’t we all wannabe biohackers? Don’t we all try to find the best combination of food, rest, work and play so that we can perform at our optimum?
The Cryojuvenate client, Simone, who first mentioned the concept of biohacking to me, came across it by chance herself three years ago. She and her husband, Mark had always eaten well and exercised but their body weight yo-yoed and Mark suffered terribly with hayfever leading to breathing issues. They decided that something had to be done.
The Sevenoaks couple read Dave Asprey’s book, “Head Strong” (@dave.asprey) which has changed their lives. As enthusiastic Simone puts it, biohacking is “the latest and most innovative methods for enhancing mental and physical performance by taking control of your own biology.” Biohacking tends to involve ‘functional doctors’, doctors who treat the individual and want to understand the root cause of their malady rather than applying generic medical knowledge. As Simone explains, “You find the things that make you work.”
In their quest for health and wellbeing, biohackers approach life with an open mind – they are willing to try all sorts of ‘hacks’. Simone and Mark have changed their diet, their sleeping habits (for example, using special glasses to eradicate the blue light from the TV before bed), started to meditate and of course, visited me at Cryojuvenate. They feel healthier now than they did when they were ten years’ younger.
Biohacking at Cryojuvenate UK
The therapies at Cryojuvenate are perfect for biohackers. Our innovative cold treatments and the REVIV vitamin boosters and infusions are alternative therapies designed to enhance your physical and mental performance – exactly what biohackers are after! But aren’t we all?
Dave Asprey himself is an advocate of cryotherapy, recognising its pain and inflammation reducing benefits and the positive impact it has on mental health and sleep. As for the vitamin boosters and infusions, these are made from natural products and can treat a number of different symptoms alongside the body’s organic processes – lethargy, jet lag, hyrdration, immunity and ageing, to name a few.
Biohacking is a serious topic in many ways with commentators believing that biohackers’ use of technology to enhance their physical and mental states is pushing medical advancements. But if we concentrate on what I have called ‘Layer 1’, perhaps Biohacking ‘Lite’, then I really think this applies, or could apply, to the rest of us.
Unlike some, for whom the trips to the gym might dry up in February, biohackers persevere in their pursuit of bespoke physical and mental ‘perfection’. They want to be the best that they can be and they constantly tweak the formula of food, rest, work and play, trying new things such as cryotherapy, to see how they fit into the equation.
So whether you consider yourself a biohacker or not, why not try something new and see how it fits with your personal health and wellbeing equation? I would love to hear your story and help you learn more about cryotherapy and how it can help you.
Want to know more?
Checkout this blog by Hack Biohacking, a site that helps people to understand what biohacking is and how it works. This blog is an in-depth guide to bio-hacking – a must read!
