Should You Be a Bio-Hacker
- Dave
- Sep 22, 2023
- 1 min read
I think we should first agree on just what biohacking is. Healthline says “Biohacking can be described as citizen or do-it-yourself biology. This consists of making small, incremental diet or lifestyle changes to make small improvements in your health and well-being". I think of it as a clinical study with one participant (yourself). Should you then start doing health studies on yourself? I think you already do, and I am all in favor of more of it. If you start eating avocados and you notice your skin and hair are not as dry, you just bio-hacked. If you notice you feel alright with two glasses of wine in the evening but feel sluggish the next morning if you have three glasses...you just bio-hacked. We are biohacking every time we eat something and notice its positive or negative effects on our body. It goes beyond food. You may want to see if blocking blue light at night helps you sleep better. A continuous glucose monitor can tell you which foods spike your blood sugar. You may want to see if a supplement helps you.
Good things happen when we pay close attention to what our bodies tell us.
As someone who has dealt with moderate headaches most of their life and only recently discovered that taking caffeine in the mornings can reduce their frequency, I have been biohacking a lot recently. I started with coffee concentrate with milk, moved on to sparkling fruit drinks with "natural" caffeine, and even have tried liquid water enhancers that include caffeine. I'm trying to find that perfect recipe to reduce headaches further, while not compromising my health by consuming too much artificial flavorings or too much caffeine itself.
I used to think that I was an "over eater". Then Marc David, my teacher at The Psychology of Eating said that everybody over eats sometimes and how would we know the right amount to eat if we didn't sometimes over eat and use that as a benchmark to eat a bit less.
I recognize the value of bio-hacking the older I get. My primary care doctor emphasizes the importance of being my own best advocate when it comes to health, and listening to what my body is telling me. When I was much younger, my body would try to give me advice....I just didn't listen as often as I should have or chose to ignore the evidence.
Sounds like a good, common sense way to approach eating, drinking and life in general. Unfortunately I don’t always use that common sense when I am enjoying eating or drinking something …. And then regret it later. I will try to do better at bio-hacking and apply it to my habits.
I couldn’t agree more with the notion many of us Bio-Hack over our lifetime. Our knowledge of healthy choices; dietary, exercise, supplements etc continues to grow as we age. Learning what our bodies need and don’t need is a never ending proces!