Biohacking is for everyone!
Recently, I went to a very cool presentation by Luis Arauz, Certified Functional Diagnostic Nutritionist and Executive Coach. His presentation was called “How to Biohack your way to Higher Performance.” I don’t know about you, but “biohacking” is still a relatively new term to me.
Here is the definition of “biohacking” that I like the most:
Hacking your own biology & gaining control of your body/health through changing your environment, utilizing technology, and/or utilizing science.
The 6 steps of biohacking
1. Identify a problem that needs to be fixed. What system or bad habit do you want to hack? For example, do you get chronic headaches? Do you have trouble sleeping? Are you addicted to sugar? Any of these things can be “hacked.”
2. Identify your baseline. Take notice of your starting point. Going back to the chronic headache example, how often are you getting those headaches and how long do they last? How intense are they on a scale of 1-10? It’s important to take inventory before you start “hacking” (making changes). If you don’t identify your baseline, you won’t be able to know for sure if the problem that you’re trying to hack is actually improving. It’d be like starting a workout program in an attempt to lose weight without taking your starting weight.
3. Identify the requirements. It’s important to not overwhelm yourself with multiple biohacks at once. Focus is key. If you’re trying to biohack your stress with meditation, yoga, sleep, and diet all at the same time, how will you know which one is making the biggest difference? Clearly define what it is you will be doing. For example, “To biohack my chronic headaches, I will limit my sugar intake to 25 grams per day for one month. Before I begin this experiment, I will take one week to rate my headache pain on a scale of 1 to 10. Then, I will track my sugar intake by logging my food into MyFitnessPal app. To decrease my sugar intake, I will need to increase the amount of vegetables, protein, and healthy fat in my diet so that I automatically decrease the amount of refined carbs, desserts, and high glycemic fruit I consume. Every night, I will rate my headache pain on a scale of 1 to 10 and write about how I am feeling. At the end of my experiment, I will look back on my ratings before the experiment and during the experiment to see if eating less sugar impacted my headaches.” This example covered all of the following:
- The problem (chronic headaches)
- What hack is being attempted (Seeing if eating 25 grams of sugar per day instead of a high sugar diet will help relieve your chronic headaches)
- How long you will attempt this hack (one month)
- How you will determine your baseline (rating your headache pain on a scale of 1 to 10 for 1 week before starting the hack; doing the same rating exercise every day during your experiment)
- How you will track your hack (measuring your daily intake of sugar using a food log app)
- What you will need to do in order to implement the hack (making sure you eat plenty of vegetables, protein, and healthy fat so that you don’t go for sugary snacks)
- How you will know if the experiment is working (reviewing your daily ratings)
4. Determine the potential barriers. What would get in the way of you successfully competing this biohack? Try to address all the barriers that are within your control before beginning your biohack.
5. Take action. Very important step! The only way to start learning what works and what doesn’t is to commit.
6. Repeat these steps. You might notice some hacks don’t solve the problem and that’s okay! Just keep trying different healthy habits and biohacks to see what works best for you.
Hope this was helpful! Please comment below: What biohack are you currently working on? I am currently practicing 8 weeks of meditation every morning. I’ll keep you posted on my results.
