Don’t we all want to be healthier, feel better, and slow down aging?
Biohacking – taking shortcuts in science to improve your health and performance by ‘hacking’ your biology.
If you have ever tried to find ways to improve your health – consider yourself a biohacker. But it’s not just picking banana over butter-covered french toast for breakfast. It’s about a deeper understanding of how your body and mind work in symbiosis, and how to use technology to master the knowledge of becoming the best version of yourself.
In general, there are two kinds of people who get interested in biohacking – those who want to live longer; and those who want to have better brain function, with a focus on longevity and cell protection.
This means reducing inflammation and oxidation, so we can protect our cells from air pollution, psychological stress, and all things that cause us to age faster.
Biohacking is basically working to modulate your biology: to control and alter your body.
Trying to optimize every aspect of your life. It’s about exercising your body as well as your brain. It’s admirable how curious people are about how their biology and bodies work.
Your long-term goals can be to improve cognitive function, just finding out interesting facts about biology, or staying alive as long as possible, so that science can develop even further during that time. Meaning you can cut the benefits of science and modern technology in order to live longer than most human beings have so far.
Table of Contents
1. What is biohacking?2. What does biohacking do for your body?
3. Simple ways to start biohacking at home
4. Biohacking with mushrooms
4.1 Chaga
4.2 Lion’s Mane
4.3 Shiitake
4.4 Reishi
4.5 Mushroom routine
5. Best biohacks
6. Bottom line
1. What Is Biohacking?
Biohacking is a very broad concept as it is often explained differently within the mindset of a hacker.
It is often explained as being ‘a symbiosis between a man and a machine to live an optimal life.’ Or even as ‘optimization of body through the use of biology, technology, holistic research, and personal experience.’
What connects these different definitions is a mutual question: What can I do to enhance my life, and which technological and non-technological approaches can I use?
As mentioned before – biohacking has many forms.
The most common are:
– nutrigenomics: focuses on how the food we consume affects our gene expression.
– DIY biology: experimenting with one’s body outside of a controlled environment.
– grinder biohacking: the most extreme version of biohacking, that sees every part of the human body as ‘hackable’.
Biohacking might sound like an unknown, risky science project, but most biohacking techniques are not something new. Many techniques have been around for thousands of years and there are lots of ways to start biohacking naturally, in everyday ways. There’s nothing unfamiliar for example in meditation, quality sleep, drinking coffee each morning, exercising, or taking supplements.
2. What does biohacking do for your body?
Research focuses on the food we consume and the effect it may have on gene expression. This includes long-run tracking of how different nutrients affect how we think, behave, and feel. But also how they affect our genetic profile.
But nutrients are just one part of the factors that have a major impact on our bodies. We need to take other factors into consideration, like stress levels, exercise, and our living environment.
3. Simple ways to start biohacking at home
Our body needs a nonstop supply of nutrients for it to function properly. Optimizing the nutrients necessary for your body is the very core of biohacking. Failing to do so leads to health problems and reduces your performance.
4. Biohacking with mushrooms
Biohacking with mushrooms is not as difficult as it might sound – it’s simply adding medicinal mushrooms into your daily routine. But why mushrooms?
Mushrooms—including all of the incredible medicinal varieties—are more closely related to human DNA than plants, and also have their own immune system, which may partially explain why they’re so good for our immunity, too.
Mushrooms are considered nature’s original favorite superfood. Not only are they delicious, but have been used for centuries in different cultures to cure diseases and boost longevity.
It’s important to select the right kind of mushrooms that work best for your needs. Mushrooms can be consumed in various ways and many forms. There are powders, tinctures, and even mushrooms in the form of gummy bears.
Like with all supplements that are there to improve your health – it’s vital to select the supplements with the highest quality.
Mushroom supplements are often actually myceliated grain-grown extracts and not made from 100% fruiting bodies. That means the ‘mushroom’ mentioned consists of 80% grain and 20% fillers and/or mycelium, and does not contain any real mushroom. Bottom line, you only pay for grain and roots. Whereas with using real mushroom fruiting body tinctures, you can be sure you’re getting maximum bioavailable compounds!
We recommend 4 main medicinal mushrooms that make up a perfect cycle to take throughout the day!
4.1 Chaga
Chaga is technically not a mushroom per se, but more like a fungus that grows mainly on birch trees and is native to cooler northern regions of Asia, North America, and Europe.
Chaga contains many nutrients that might boost your health and immunity:
- Vitamin D
- B-complex vitamins
- Fiber
- Potassium
- Copper
- Selenium
- Iron
- Zinc
- Calcium
Some of the health benefits of Chaga include:
- potent antioxidant properties
- lowering high blood pressure
- lowering blood sugar
- slowing the progression of malignant cells and preventing malignancy
- easing inflammation
- boosting energy levels
- lowering cholesterol
4.2 Lion’s Mane
Lion’s Mane is a mushroom that has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries in dried, fresh, and supplement forms. In the east, Lion’s Mane is used for both culinary and medicinal purposes.
Lion’s Mane’s many health benefits include:
- reducing inflammation
- enhancing immune function
- helping with emotional distress and mood disorders
- boosting cognitive function and preventing many diseases
- improving heart health
- managing blood sugar levels
- preventing malignancy
- encouraging nerve cells to grow and repair more quickly
4.3 Shiitake
Native to China, but grown in both Japan and China before prehistoric times. Shiitake—meaning ‘mushroom of the oak tree’ in Japanese—is highly valued in the Orient for its medicinal properties and delicious flavor. The mushroom is especially rich in nutrient content which consists of vitamins B, C, and D; manganese, zinc, iron, and potassium.
Its many health benefits include:
- helping protect the skin from aging
- giving a healthy glow to skin, and reducing wrinkles and the appearance of scars and acne
- reducing inflammation
- improving circulation
- boosting overall energy
- lowering cholesterol
- boosting the immune system
4.4 Reishi
The Reishi mushroom—also known as lingzhi (‘herb of spiritual potency’), ‘elixir of life’, and ‘mushroom of immortality’—symbolizes success, well-being, and longevity. Wild Reishi is very rare, so mycologists have cultivated bioavailable forms.
Reishi mushroom has been around for over 2000 years and includes some incredible health benefits, including:
- supporting the immune system
- helping with cardioprotective problems
- reducing malignant cells
- lowering blood pressure
- helping with neurodegenerative disorders
- fighting against allergies
- improving liver function
- helping to relax and fall asleep
4.5 Mushroom routine
Start your morning off with Chaga mushroom to get an energy boost.
Midday is all about Lion’s Mane to help you focus.
Reishi is for the evening as it helps you to calm down and get better sleep.
Shiitake can be taken whenever during the day as it helps to support your immune system all day long!
5. Best biohacks
Start your mornings off right!
Ever wondered if there is something you can add to your morning coffee to avoid the rush? Something, that helps you to relax as well as avoid emotional distress? And all that without quitting your morning coffee? It’s called L-Theanine. It’s an amino acid that is primarily found in green tea, black tea, and some mushrooms. It is said to help ease emotional distress and reduce sleep disturbances.
Add about 100mg to a cup of coffee, and it helps you to balance your neurotransmitters. Another great herb is called Tulsi.
The right kind of showering saves the day!
Taking cold showers in the morning – 20 sec of cold water, 10 sec hot, 10x over. It’s called ‘5-minute hot-cold contrast shower’. If you can get your head wet as well – even better. That helps to fix something called ‘leaky brain’. Why? Your brain has a blood-brain barrier that is supposed to keep certain toxins and chemicals out of your brain, and by keeping your brain—or that blood-brain barrier sound—you’re going to increase your ability to operate neurologically.
Breathe.
There are a lot of different techniques to breathe, but one good one is called ‘Buteyko Breathing’. This technique is also ideal for people who have issues with asthma, emotional distress, wheezing, coughing, and feeling short of breath. It’ll teach you to breathe slower and deeper.
Recommended to practice for 15-20 minutes, three times a day, for at least six weeks. It is said that the ideal form is to have a higher level of carbon dioxide simultaneously with a high level of oxygen. Because when you have a lot of carbon dioxide in your system, it shoves the oxygen into the tissues. It’s called the ‘Bohr effect’.
In an ideal scenario, you teach your body how to both increase carbon dioxide and increase oxygen simultaneously.
- Sit on the floor or on a chair.
- Elongate your spine to maintain an upright posture.
- Relax your respiratory muscles.
- Breathe normally for a few minutes.
The Control Pause
- After a relaxed exhale, hold your breath.
- Use your index finger and thumb to plug your nose.
- Retain your breath until you feel the urge to breathe, which may include an involuntary movement of your diaphragm, and then inhale.
- Breathe normally for at least 10 seconds.
- Repeat several times.
The Maximum Pause
- After a relaxed exhale, hold your breath.
- Use your index finger and thumb to plug your nose.
- Retain your breath for as long as possible, which is usually twice the length of the Control Pause.
- Once you’ve reached the point of moderate discomfort, inhale.
- Breathe normally for at least 10 seconds.
- Repeat several times.
While the Buteyko Breathing Technique has many benefits, it may not be suitable for everyone and it’s not a substitute for your doctor’s treatment plan. Always talk to your healthcare provider before beginning breathing exercises.
Avoid BBT if you have any of the following:
- high blood pressure
- heart disease
- Musculoskeletal pain from conditions such as seizure disorder.
- a serious medical concern
The second good form of breathing is called ‘Box Breathing’.
It’s good for suppressing the heart rate a little bit. It’s very simple – 4-counts in, 4-counts hold, 4-counts out, 4-counts hold. You can do whatever combination you like: 5-5-5, or 6-6-6. Box Breathing is one of the better stress control strategies.
Eating!
Be sure to avoid any processed oils. Whether it is canola oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, or any other processed vegetable oil. Those types of oils are worse for your body than sugar. Oils comprise cell membranes after you eat them.
Deep Sleep!
If you don’t get enough deep sleep, that means you’re not repairing, not recovering, and you’re not consolidating memory.
Exposure to red light at night is one very good way to enhance deep sleep. You can go as far as changing your lightbulbs in your bedroom to a red light only (no artificial light – definitely only very small amounts of blue light!)
No matter what your beliefs on biohacking – where people meet in the middle, is the understanding of the necessity of good sleep. So, if you’re getting, for example, 6h of sleep, the main thing is to get as good quality sleep as possible. Also, omega-3 is a great fatty oil that can lower your overall inflammation and stress level, help you relax, and reach deeper stages of sleep.
Take care of your body!
Become a fat-burning machine! Controlling inflammation and glycemic variability, or how many blood glucose fluctuations you get during the day, are probably two of the most important things you can do.
So how to lose fat? When you get up in the morning, you’re in a fasted state (probably you’ve fasted about 12-16 hours). While being in that fasted state, do about 20-30 minutes of aerobic exercise (not cortisol, stress-producing exercise), walk, swim, or do an easy yoga session. This way you’re tapping into your own adipose tissue by doing something aerobic. Then you can finish with 2 to 5 min of cold exposure (shower).
As a bonus, have a little bit of caffeine to enhance your fatty acid utilization – a coffee or a green tea. It’ll blow up the effect.
6. Bottom line
Biohacking, or do-it-yourself biology, is all about getting to know one’s own biology and own bodies. The unconventional ideas might sound crazy, but including the simplest DIY bio hacks to your daily life might be easier than you think!
You might want to try a gratitude walk, breaking your old sleeping patterns for better ones, or reduce emotional distress by simply adding some mushroom supplements to your daily diet. These small things may well improve your life!
Biohacking is no longer just a crazy idea from Silicon valley – it’s here to stay!
