How to Biohack Longevity

It took me many years of trial and error to figure out my physiology and what my body needed for better health and wellness. The choices, recommendations, and guidelines for age-related diet, exercise, and mental well-being didn’t work for me. I did my own form of biohacking, not giving it a name. I experimented with exercise, foods, sleep, supplements, stress levels, spirituality, and lifestyle. What I discovered is a correlation between my holistic aging practices and biohacking for longevity.

What is biohacking? Biohacking can be described as a DIY biology. It's a way to make small, incremental diet and lifestyle changes to improve overall health and well-being. This method can help with anywhere from weight loss to increased brain power. Biohacking is connecting with your body and discovering what works for you and what doesn't. It’s being aware of how your individual physiology functions because although we are all the same, each of us has unique health and wellness markers and levels of balance.

David Asprey is one of the fathers of biohacking and he says “Biohacking is a crazy-sounding name for something not crazy at all - the desire to be the absolute best version of ourselves.” In my simplistic terms, there is a direct correlation between what you put into your body and how you feel. What is clearly different from my approach of self-improvement and true biohacking is that a biohacker approaches biological changes from a “systems-thinking to our biology.” (David Asprey). Everything we input into our bodies, through our eyes, ears, mouth, and skin affects our health, mental well-being, behavior, and how we perform in all areas of our lives.

What does that mean exactly? If we want optimum physical and mental health we need to be mindful of what we input into our body and mind. It seems simple, optimum input achieves optimum output. It takes time, experimentation, analyzing results, and trying new and different approaches to everyday living, to gain the experience needed for biohacking our biology.

Biohacking emerged around 2008 with 32 members, mostly individuals from the scientific and technology community, sharing papers, research, documents, and technology. They developed techniques and protocols for DIY biology. The basis for the movement was to make biology available to non-scientists. It is a multidisciplinary approach to individual biology, combining knowledge from the scientific fields of biology, genetics, nutrition, and neuroscience. Proponents say biohacking is the future of personal biotech.

What connection is there between biohacking and longevity? Biohacking focuses on extending our lifespan by addressing aging on a cellular and genetic level. Through technology, biohackers have been able to develop innovative methods and tools to increase performance, prevent disease, and slow down the aging process. The factors in age are genetics, environment, and lifestyle. The environmental considerations are diet, sleep, exercise, stress management, and toxin exposure.

Let’s look at some of the tools and protocols for biohacking and how they can play an equally important part in holistic aging practices:

-Measuring changes and collecting results Biohackers measure what changes they make to their biology and measure their impact. Some biohackers use tools called “Quantified Self” to help measure the input and output of their bodies and track the effects of self-experimentation. They track their systems to a molecular level and measure the effectiveness of their biological systems and all hacks to it. Most of this reminds me of diaries we used to hand keep, but today apps and smart technology offer the same results. Any of the activity trackers that measure your daily habits from food to movement to sleeping would be considered an example like a smartwatch, step-counting app or a sleep cycle app. Tracking the progress of changes in our lives can have a positive effect on developing the habits needed to make them last.

-Intermittent Fasting is the number one biohack to longevity. There are many ways to fast. You can skip a meal, count hours between meals (12-18 hours), eat only 1 meal a day (24-hour fast), or do multiple days of mixing them up. When you limit your food intake, you give your body a chance to perform the biological processes it was intended to do. Fasting turns on a process called autophagy, which is a cellular cleaning process. It rids your cells of accumulated toxins, lowers your glucose levels, and promotes weight loss. Autophagy has been scientifically proven to help promote longevity. I suggest starting out slowly and building up to longer fasts. Eating meals every 3 or 4 hours or constantly snacking barely gives your body a chance to digest the food before putting in more. Over time, our self-cleaning biological systems malfunction, and we end up with chronic diseases, inflammation, and neurodegenerative disorders.

-Sleep might be the greatest biohack. During sleep our brain cleans itself by removing toxins and metabolic products via the glymphatic system. Neurotoxic waste products can build up in the brain and can be a contributing factor to degenerative brain disorders. Science has connected a lack of sleep to a variety of health problems, including weight gain and weakened immune systems. Sleep deprivation negatively impacts mental health, cognitive function, and stress levels. Biohackers suggest limiting screen time before bed as blue light tells your brain its daytime and can greatly impact your sleeping. Computers, smartphones, and fluorescent lights are all forms of blue light that can disrupt your circadian rhythm and your sleep-wake cycle. Blue light also suppresses melatonin, our sleep hormone. It’s a good idea to turn your phones, computers and lights off at bedtime and leave them in another room.

-Diet Food is a powerful biohack. Biohacking looks at individual food needs and what works to make us feel our best while maximizing our nutrition. Personal diets vary according to genes, metabolism, age, ethnicity, body type, activity level, lifestyle, and values. Yet, there are some universal facts that work for most of us. We are what we eat. Every time we put food in our bodies, we trigger a metabolic response that tells our body what to do with it. Food is a roadmap to your body's systems. Red meat, processed foods, sugar, and caffeine disrupt our hormonal systems. Refined carbohydrates (cereal, pasta, bread etc), fried foods, red meats, sugar, trans fats (margarine, refrigerated dough, microwave popcorn) all trigger inflammation.

Are you getting the point? Biohacking means you eat with a purpose, choosing foods mindfully, tracking the effects, and being aware of eating habits. Then, you make informed food choices to reduce inflammation, reduce exposure to toxic foods, and reduce the intake of chemicals present in our food supply. I call it mindful eating.

-Physical exercise - Our bodies need to move. The human body is designed to move and functions best when it's active. Our bones, muscles, ligaments, and joints in our body are designed to support daily movement. Moving improves our health, stimulates the healing process, reduces daily aches and pains, and improves quality of life. We are not designed to sit in a chair or lay on a sofa. Technology has negatively affected our physical activity level and we are seeing the results in our health. Non Movement causes blood flow to slow which impairs our thinking and memory. Sitting can also deactivate lipoprotein lipase, an enzyme that breaks down fats in the blood, so you aren’t burning fats. It leads to long-term health problems like heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, and obesity. There are brain health issues as well, such as brain shrinkage and neurodegenerative diseases like dementia associated with lack of physical exercise. Start moving around. Get up and take a short walk, go for a bike ride, use the stairs instead of the elevator, pick the parking space furthest from the door or dance while doing the dishes or housework.

-Breathing and meditation - I have lumped breathwork and meditation together, although biohackers separate them. Both are closely related practices. Meditation is the most basic form of biohacking. There is a science behind meditation. When you meditate, levels of dopamine (think pleasure response), serotonin (think happiness response), and GABA (think calmness response) all rise. When you adopt a meditation practice on a daily basis, these signals become more routine.” Regular meditation is linked to the increased thickness of the prefrontal cortex, which is associated with higher-order brain functions such as awareness, concentration, memory, and decision-making.” (Dr. Mirela Loftus, MD. PhD). Breathwork has similar advantages mentally, but also has profound physical benefits by promoting relaxation, and stress reduction. There are simple techniques to use throughout the day, like diaphragmatic breathing, alternate nostril breathing, and box breathing. Like meditation, breathwork benefits have been scientifically proven to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, promoting a state of calmness and tranquility and mitigating stress responses in our bodies. Both breathwork and meditation can be done anywhere at any time, and it's free. There are YouTube videos, tons of information on the web, and apps available to learn beginner techniques. Once you become comfortable with breathwork and meditation, it's easy to customize a daily habit.

Here is the takeaway. Silver Chats talks weekly about holistic aging practices that include physical and mental well-being, spirituality, love, and lifestyle. Biohacking mirrors my beliefs but takes them to the next level of practice. I, for one, will be fasting more. The physiological benefits of a 16-18 and 24-hour fast are incredible, and I want to experience them for myself. I will also be looking at my genetics and tapping into that information. If you are interested in pursuing some of the ideas of biohacking, I recommend listening to a podcast hosted by Dave Asprey called “The Human Upgrade.” it is full of top researchers, doctors, and scientists and can open the door to biohacking ideas.