Biohacking is also known as human enhancement or human augmentation. Biohacking is a Do-It-Yourself biology, a practice by which you employ strategic interventions to alter your body and improve its performance, health, and well-being.
BioHacking involves making small incremental modifications to your diet or lifestyle in an attempt to hack your body biology and bring out the best version of yourself.
We all know how being a modern entrepreneur, parent, or student takes so much physical and mental energy and deprives sleep.
This can leave you surviving on maintenance mode all day, every day, making you wish for a way to “hack” your biology and achieve more of your body.
What is Biohacking?
Biohacking is nothing new. People have been using meditation and intermittent fasting techniques to improve their physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, and cellular health for centuries.
But It’s so much more than that today.
Modern “biohackers” can now use science, technology, and diet changes to become the absolute best version of themselves.
Basically, the idea is that if we can control what we put into our body, whether food, sleep, computer chips, supplements, etc.,
The goal of biohacking is to make make improvements in our functionality and capabilities as biological human beings.
Types of Biohacking
There are various ways people choose to get involved with biohacking.
The 3 most popular types of biohacking are:
1. Nutrigenomics
Ever heard of the saying “you are what you eat” ?
Nutrigenomics finds the best foods and diet for your gene type.
Nutrigenomics is arguably the most accessible type of biohacking to anyone who’s casually interested.
This popular but controversial biohacking technique is associated with looking at the genes to optimize your diet.
Often, people who try nutrigenomics aim at finding how their genetic composition and nutrients interact and affect each other.
You can find companies that can help you to map out your DNA for specific genetic expressions and create custom-tailored nutritional services for you.
Or, you can also use at-home diagnostics kits to analyze the kinds of foods you should avoid and create a personalized diet for yourself.
Nutrigenomics can help you know the exact nutrients your body requires and discover what food works for your body and what doesn’t.
You can realize that you are prone to caffeine or alcohol sensitivity, delayed vitamin and mineral absorption. Nutrigenomics can even help you to discover the secrets of your metabolism for optimum quality of life!
2. Dopamine Fasting
This biohacking technique involves abstaining from pleasurable experiences that might trigger a dopamine surge.
It calls for biohackers to cut themselves off from almost all stimulations, including sex, social media, talking, video games, music, and exercise for some time.
Dopamine is the “feel good” hormone our brains release when something good happens, when we do a pleasurable activity, or feel “rewarded.”
Unfortunately, this chemical can cause the brain to focus more on meaningless pleasurable activities and ignore goal-oriented experiences.
You stand a chance of “resetting” your brain’s reward system if you take a break from small pleasures and addictions. Most biohackers have acknowledged feeling more focused and find joy in the activities they’ve been avoiding all along after a successful dopamine detox.
3. Intermittent Fasting
You can’t talk of health and biohacking without mentioning “hacking” your diet. The food we eat determines how we feel, look, and can be a powerful brain super-changer.
We’ve all heard crusades championing people to eat fewer sugars, the right kinds of fats, and carb-light meals. However, a growing body of research has discovered that what makes a difference is WHEN you eat and not what you ingest.
Researchers suggest that time-restricted eating is one of the best “biohack” to help optimize your body’s nutritional intake.
Restricting the time we feed daily allows our body and brain to self-repair and “get rid of built-in garbage.”
Of course, contemplating not eating for 48-72 hours is hard for the average person. But, fasting has been reported to enhance mental performance and improve our long-term health. It also simplifies our lives at the same time.
After all, the fewer meals you need to plan for, the easier your days, right?
There are various versions of intermittent fasting. However, most practitioners find the “16/8” method the most user-friendly.
This method calls for you to eat within eight hours every day. For instance, you eat between 1 pm to 9 pm every day and starve yourself for the next 16 hours.
Alternate fasting includes going without food for one day and eating, as usual, the next day. You can also limit calories one day and eat as usual the next day or eat for five days and fast for two days.
This type of biohacking involves trying new techniques and deciding what feeding schedule works for you.
What Are the Benefits of Biohacking
This process creates interconnections between the mind and body. It ensures your physical and mental well-being and brings out your superior version.
The best biohacks not only improve one area of your life but your biology as a whole.
See the benefits you’ll reap when you apply biohacks in your life.
Health/wellness
- Improved Circulatory System
You can biohack your circulatory system using cryotherapy, also known as cold therapy. This biohacking element involves exposing your body to freezing temperatures.
Cold therapy targets blood flow to targeted areas by causing vasoconstriction (narrowing of the blood vessels) and preventing sufficient blood flow to those parts.
However, mineral and nutrient-packed blood rushes to the targeted tissues when the body returns to normal temperatures.
Cold therapy improves blood circulation, increasing cell rejuvenation and reducing swelling, inflammation, and chronic pain.
Cold also helps increase cell rejuvenation which energizes, strengthens your immune system, and helps treat tissue damage and muscle injuries.
This technique is popular among athletes like Usain Bolt and Floyd Mayweather, who use ice baths for optimum performance and recovery after exercise.
- Weight Loss
Anyone with an independent streak when it comes to taking charge of their health should try intermittent fasting.
Not feeding your body and allowing it to rest improves its insulin response, minimizing your blood sugar. It also makes stored body fats easier to burn, aiding in weight loss.
Fasting also helps slow aging due to increased cellular waste removal, prevent cancer, improve memory, and reduce levels of body inflammation.
- Helps us Understand Our Own Biology
Biohacking techniques like nutrigenomics allow you to understand and track your body function.
Knowing your genetic composition and finding a befitting diet will allow you to make informed decisions for body improvement.
Self-Improvement
- Improved Mindset
Biohacking techniques like dopamine fasting are supposed to make ordinary tasks such as developing physical connections or book reading more pleasurable.
Without substances, social media, screen time, and other stimuli distracting you, you become reacquainted with yourself.
Dopamine fasting helps curb destructive addictive behavior and make you more aware of yourself and your body in a NEW way.
It allows people to re-evaluate and address the roots of their addictions and place healthy limits on destructive behavior triggers.
- Increased Productivity
Today’s world demands that you maximize your results in the shortest time and with as little effort as possible if you want to stay competitive.
To do this, you need to improve essential things like sleep and exercise, considering their impact on your energy and efficiency.
Good quality of sleep, which is also a biohacking technique, has a positive compound effect in whatever area of your life you want to boost.
Sleep improves your fitness level because it allows you to have more energy to exercise more, with less fatigue and fewer injuries. It also increases your muscle recovery process.
An energized body means an energized mind and increased productivity.
Is Biohacking Safe?
Biohacking involves various human life aspects, including exercise, sleep, nutrition, and mental health.
Some forms of biohacking, such as diet modification, taking certain supplements, cold therapy, fitness, quality sleep, and wearable technology, are all essentially risk-free.
Other types that involve body modifications are safe as long as qualified medical personnel oversee them.
However, some techniques like grinder biohacking, which involves optimizing the body using gadgets, implants, and chemical injections, are extremely risky.
Grinders seek to become “cyborgs” and make their bodies work the way they want them to, which is dangerous and even illegal in some countries.
As always, there could be risks even in the safest practices. It’s best not to experiment on yourself or others, and you shouldn’t blindly follow trends without considering whether they are fit for you.
Speak to your doctor before modifying your diet or getting anything foreign to your body.
The Future of Biohacking vs. Biotechnology
The Future of Biohacking
Man and technology are blended now more than ever, and biohacking is starting to make the sci-fi future look more and more real.
Biohackers are no longer limiting themselves to conventional biohacking methods like meditation, exercise, and diet to bring out man’s best version.
They are using scientific and technological techniques to test out new concepts that make humans more than just mass of flesh with typical human limitations.
And, the mainstream population is picking up on some of the “body hacking” techniques more than before. Seeing someone inserting a microchip into their arm is no longer such a big deal.
During this age where computers are must-have gadgets at all times, the notion of having one inside your body isn’t as scary as it once was.
It may sound like science fiction, but people are already implanting RFID (radio-frequency identification) chips in their bodies.
These embedded implants and memory-enhancing smart drugs known as nootropics are not some dystopian future. Instead, they are already available in the market, allowing humans to manage their biology using electronic techniques.
This shows that although there are still ethical concerns about biohacking, the mainstream could easily absorb biohacking within the next 50 years.
The Future of Biotechnology
Biotechnology is the use of biological systems and living organisms to solve problems and create useful products. The bio-based products include detergents, new medicines, and Genetically Modified (GMO) foods.
Modern Biotechnology incorporates five branches, namely, environmental, industrial, human, plant, and animal.
Biotech is considered the “science of the future.” It aims at helping humanity to fight hunger and diseases, save energy, and reduce environmental pollution.
Biotech inventions like imprinting, where temporary tattoos and band-aids aim at providing unique sensing and tracking applications, show promise of potential application by 2025.
This shows that with the ever-growing knowledge and evolving technology, you can be sure that humans will continue to test and push the boundaries.
It’s interesting to see just what we can achieve in the future.
Conclusion
Biohacking entails changing your body, mind, and health to accomplish your goals and attain your best state of “being.”
However, whether you utilize supplements, fitness, nutrigenomics, or microchips to age consciously and achieve a healthspan, just ensure it is safe and medically recommended.
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