Biohacking is all about getting to know yourself better. Use what moves the needle the most for you to tap into the body-mind-spirit for greater potential. In all areas of life.
Biohacking is not about quick fixes and gimmicks. It is consistency.
Find your baseline. Pay attention and be mindful. Experiment with these simple ways and see what works for you. Biohacking is about being a detective.
Eat
① Be good friends with Superfoods
② Hydrate with lemon-infused filtered water.
Upon rising, enjoy abundant lemon-infused filtered water to support liver function and circulation. Sip throughout the day. Drink before meals and not chase food with water.
We are told to drink eight glasses of water a day. As we are all different, use your energy level and pee colour as your gauge. Consider adding electrolytes such as coconut water.
③ Eat fruit on its own.
Proper food combining can make the difference. Best enjoy your fruits on an empty stomach first thing in the morning, or blend them into a smoothie. Melons need to be eaten alone. If you want to eat fruit later in the day, be sure to consume them at least half hour before a meal or two hours afterwards. Starches, proteins, and grains should be eaten with vegetables, not fruits.
fruit not only prevents illness, it slows down aging, kills off pathogens, and heals our bodies on a cellular level.
Anthony William
④ Include fermented foods in your diet.
Fermented foods are rich in probiotics which support gut health and immunity. An imbalance of good: bad gut bacteria wrecks havoc in more ways than we initially understood. Think sleep debt, mood swings, depression, eczema, for example.
Kimchi, sauerkraut, kefir, and kombucha are some examples of fermented foods. These are easy to make or you can purchase from trusted sources to minimize mycotoxins. If you have histamine intolerance, addressing this and healing your gut is important before consuming fermented foods which can add to the histamine levels.
⑤ Eat as organic and natural as possible.
No more Macdonald’s. Remember the movie Super Size Me? Forget about the low-fat diet. We need good fats! Fresh and local is best. Go grass-fed, wild-caught, and free range. Aim to favour a plant-based diet.
Eating 100% organic may be out of your budget. Environmental Working Group offers an annual report on the Dirty Dozen and Clean 15. For anything on the Dirty Dozen that you eat regularly, going organic is the best value-for-money. Getting to know your farmers via farmers’ market or a CSA program is invaluable to knowing where your food comes from.
⑥ Eliminate all foods that cause you issues.
Allergens, inflammatory foods, preservatives, sugars, gluten, processed seed oils, artificial colourings, GMO, “frankenfoods”. Then there is histamine.
Unsure? Get tested – Bioresonance is a good way. You can also follow an elimination diet in which you take out all the usual suspects for at least a month and through reintroduction, gauge their effect on your health.
⑦ Protein!
Get high-quality protein. Many people do not consume enough protein. Pink slime from McDonald’s doesn’t count. Explore vegetarian sources of protein such as chia seeds and quinoa.
⑧ Eat less and Eat well.
Calorie counting and cutting is not sustainable and may be missing the mark on the underlying imbalance to healthy weight. Eat mindfully. Chew. Chew. Chew. Try for 30 bites. The digestive system starts at the mouth and we can improve our digestion by chewing our food well. Taking our time eating also allows us to know when we are full and not overeat.
Eating good-quality nutrient-dense foods goes a long way.
⑨ Have something raw every day – soak your cold-stored nuts!
Raw is not just salads. Dehydrated foods are also raw, and less “cold”. You can also add ginger for more “heat” to your smoothie.
⑩ Have more good fats.
Coconut, Olive Oil, Avocado oil, Cocao Butter… Have good fats, in healthy moderation.
Fat has been demonized over the past decades. However, not all fats are equal and the ones from plants have a protective effect. According to the article Are Fats So Bad?, we need fat, including omega-3 unsaturated fats for physiological functions. This family of fats is not produced by our body and we obtain them from food such as fatty fish like salmon, flaxseeds, and walnuts.
⑪ Flavour your foods with Herbs and Spices (aka Nature’s Medicine)
Ginger, Turmeric, Thyme, Parsley… Spices are an easy way to not only flavour your food. It is a great way to add more omph. They support our health in a variety of ways, including boosting our immune system.
⑫ Eat foods with seeds. As nature intended.
For convenience, we have been modifying our food such as de-seeding our watermelons. There is a lot of life force in seeds and for anyone dealing with fertility struggles, include more organic food and food with seeds.
⑬ Re-think your comfort food.
We all have comfort food. Maybe it’s the chicken noodle soup Mom made us when we were sick or peanut butter sandwich. Was the chicken soup from a Campbell can? Or is that sandwich made from white white bread? Time to re-think how we make our comfort food.
Swamp out the canned soup with bone broth, hormone-free chicken, and brown rice noodles. Choose artisan real sourdough bread, sprouted bread, or one made from non-grain ingredients. Opt for nut milk instead of not-so-healthy milk. Unless you can get it fresh and raw! If you are looking for a good source of calcium, skip the milk and reach for spinach and other dark green veggies.
⑭ Forget the old food pyramid.
Turns out grains aren’t such a great thing for us. Think plant-based. As we continue to change the way we manufacture our food and as research on nutrition expands, we have to re-look at our food pyramid and food source. One of the biggest problem with grains is not the gluten as we previously thought, but the glyphosate.
⑮ Remember your vitamins and minerals.
Vitamin D is needed by every cell and affects over 1000 genes. Vegan/vegetarian? Watch your Vitamin B12. Vitamins work in tandem.
Magnesium, according to Dr Osborne, has “more functions than any other nutrient” and helps with carbohydrate metabolism, supports bone health, provides relief for muscular spasms, helps to maintain blood flow, and even plays a positive role depression.
⑯ Watch out for fungus, mold and mycotoxins.
Common culprits? Corn, coffee, bananas, and yes chocolate. Fungus impacts sex hormones, thyroid levels, and pancreatic function. Could mycotoxins be the real cause for celiac, food intolerances, allergies, sinus problems, infertility, etc?
From Dave Asprey – vodka and grapefruit seed extract to prevent mold.
Instead of coffee, opt for an herbal adaptogenic blend such as Rasa Koffee which is made of organic non-GMO roasted chicory, burdock roots, dandelion roots, eleuthero, shatavari, he shou wu, codonopsis, chaga mycelium, ashwagandha, rhodiola, Ceylon cinnamon, and reishi.
Move
① Be Flexible.
Stretch. Try yoga, qi gong or tai chi. The foam/bamboo roller is fantastic. Physical flexibility has an effect on our mental flexibility – open mindedness, collaboration-oriented, curiosity…
② Train Smart.
This does not mean hard and long. Train high intensity and short duration. Think bursts. Yep, burpees are your friend.
Try these top 3 from Level‘s Alex Salihin – Olympic weightlifting (snatch, clean & jerk), squats, and pull up/chin up variations.
Go for technique. Aim for doing it well, not lots. 20% – 50% of maximum effort is a good place to start.
Get a good trainer to get your technique right.
③ Move your body.
Sitting too long is not so good. Stand up more. If you work long hours at the computer, set an alarm for every 20 minutes. Get up, stretch, grab a glass of water. For that, I have a senior dog whose bladder size is keeping us both up and out regularly.
“The next position is the best” – Kelly Starrett. Instead of a static position, opt for movement. Change-up your position consistently and constantly.
I’m a huge fan and a follower of Marlee Grace on Instagram. She has a daily personal practice of movement. Each day she observes and expresses in movement. Moving is not about being a dancer, athlete, or even being coordinated. It can be bold, dynamic, quiet, contemplative, explosive…whatever it is, make it authentic.
④ Get to know your body.
I used to work at a dog rescue organization and I always tell the adopters to take their new family member for a check up, even if the dog appears healthy. More than anything, it is to establish some kind of baseline. The vet may let you know the dog is a bit overweight, underweight, etc. I also suggest for people to touch and brush their dog daily so that they become familiar with the body’s landscape.
We can do the same for ourselves. We can pay attention to our body in the shower. Observe how our body behaves in the moment – what makes us tense, what allows us to sink further into our body, how do we move, when do we strain ourselves?
⑤ Go outside.
As they say, the best connection is with nature. Not only is indoor air quality much less desirable than most people realize, being outside gets us in dynamic motion. We also become entrained with the natural rhythms to restore our internal flow.
⑥ Stretch out of your comfort zone.
Psychologists Andy Ryan and Dawn Markova identified three zones of existence – comfort, stress, and stretch. Comfort is “the realm of existing habit” and auto pilot and stress is “when a challenge is so far beyond current experiences as to be overwhelming”. This is unproductive and destructive to be all the time. Stretch is where change happens.
⑦ Connect movement with the breath.
We often forget about our breath. We hold it, we breathe superficially, we don’t pay attention to it. What happens when we connect our movement with our breath? Try it and let us know.
⑧ Use your bodyweight. Kettle balls are fun too.
We have come to associate exercise with the gym. We don’t need fancy equipment, especially when we are first starting out. We can use our bodyweight. Doing the planks is one of the most effective ways to build strength.
⑨ Walk more.
Exercise is not confined to the gym or anything structured. We have become a sedentary culture and we now have to make time for walks. Build walking into your daily life – walking to the bus stop, walking up the stairs or the escalator, park further away from where you are going…
⑩ Play more.
Play is great for the brain. We also learn more easily with play. It also makes movement more fun.
According to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, children should have the right to play. Ikea Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the parent company of the IKEA Group of companies, has partnered up with Handicap International for a 3-year partnership called Let’s Play For Change.
Play is not just for kids.
From birth to age eight, play is fundamental to development. It allows children to learn negotiating skills, teamwork, and resilience to stress, and it helps the brain develop.
Chris Williams, Communications Manager at IKEA Foundation
⑪ Laugh more.
Laughter is the best medicine.
⑫ Dance more.
Albert Einsten said “Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.” Think of the energy of dance – flow, expression, self, movement, creativity … When energy feels stuck, move, dance, match the frequency of movement to experience the reality of movement.
⑬ Travel more.
In The Joys of Travel, Thomas Swick points out that the attraction of travel is largely because it is a break from routine. It is not everyday life. Travelling can then be an opportunity for us to be inspired, a space for us to try something different, something new, and even something challenging. Travelling of course exposes us, if we allow it to, different cultures – what they eat, how they deal with problems, what is their local folk medicine.
⑭ Pick up a new hobby or interest to create new synaptic pathways.
The brain is plastic and changeable in all the best sense of the words. They say what fires together wires together. So the more we try doing something differently on a consistent level, we can build new pathways for them to become habitual.
⑮ Stack up your spine. Long neck.
One of my favourite parts of yoga or other classes is when the instructor tells us to stand up slowly. We come from a sitting position and ever so slowly, we stand up and uncurl ourselves, one vertebrae at a time. This feels so good, with an intentional expansion of our spine.
⑯ Be in the flow.
Rediscover the natural flow of your body. Respect and honour the time to pause and yield. We all have both masculine and feminine energies and there is a time for dynamic and magnetic actions. Understanding what is called for in the moment, be it in the way we physically move or emotionally respond reflects integrative well-being.
Breathe
① Breathe deeply. Direct the breath and prana throughout your body.
Most people tend to breath into their upper lungs rather than fully into the abdomen. We can also breathe through our toes. We can direct our breath and life force throughout the body. The nervous system resets, the immune system gets a friendly boost, and your brain just works better when oxygen is freely available.
② Take 3-Deep-Breath breaks throughout the day.
Taking pauses throughout the day gives us more opportunities to be mindful of where we are, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Each pause can serve as a reset and a rebalance. This practice helps us to deepen global awareness.
③ Meditate – this is rejuvenation on the physical level (Thanks Steve R).
Meditation rewires your brain and changes how your genes are expressed. Deepak Chopra: 10 minutes of meditation a day for 30 days changed 516 genes.
④ Think good thoughts. Leverage the placebo effect.
Some people feel that a placebo effect is cheating. Even a doctor in a white lab coat can have a placebo effect! Less well-known perhaps is the nocebo effect.
At the end of the day, our mind determines much of how we feel. Changing our perspective can change our entire life. In the Course of Miracles, a miracle is merely a shift in consciousness.
⑤ Find a good teacher and learn pranayama.
The science of pranayama provides us with ancient knowledge to direct our breath and life force around our body. There are many techniques including alternate nostril breathing.
⑥ Use earth-friendly and non-toxic cleaning products.
We often talk about what to eat and what not to eat to detox. Part of the health equation is the personal health care and cleaning products we use. We now have available a wide range of greener commercial cleaning products. Better for us, better for the environment.
You can simply make your own using baking soda, lemon, vinegar, and essential oils. For a clogged sink, put some baking soda down the drain, pour some vinegar in. Wait a few minutes and pour boiling water to flush it out. It works.
⑦ Have more plants in the house.
Indoor air quality is not always great. Instead of using synthetic perfumes to mask the odour, use plants and high quality essential oils to purify the air. Have pets? Make sure they are non-toxic for animals.
⑧ Diffuse essential oils to ramp up indoor air quality.
Studies show that the essential oil blend thieves can purify the air. Thieves includes the very potent clove oil. Several companies offer this oil blend. It is a hot oil so take care not to get into your eyes or other sensitive areas.
⑨ Understand stress and find your ways to release it.
More Relaxation Response. Less Stress Response. We can also transform the threat response to a challenge response. This means instead of seeing a situation and body arousal as stressful, we can learn to see it as a challenge. We can view the body’s response as being energized and supportive to rise to the challenge.
Chronic stress is debilitating and has unhealthy effects on our telomeres. These are the non-coding DNA at the end of our chromosomes that shorten with each cell division and has implications on aging. Studies however show that mindfulness practices can even lengthen the telomeres, contrary to what we previously knew.
⑩ Exhale. Let go.
Holding on can be seen in several ways – not actually physically letting go of the breath and exhaling completing, hoarding, not forgiving… Holding on is a source of physical, mental, and emotional tension which blocks the natural flow of energy and life force. You can support your lung and large intestine functions to help balance your ability to let go.
⑪ Hit the pause button.
What’s yours? We all need to pause and rejuvenate. What works for us is very personal. Find what is your pause button. This does not mindful distraction in front of the TV or playstation. Healthier pause buttons include deep breathing, walking in a green area, and doing nothing.
⑫ Use a dehumidifier to control mold level.
Air test if necessary. Use a HEPA filter in your vacuum. Dust often – use a mask.
⑬ Get a massage. Get a foot reflexology.
Massage is not only a beauty ritual. It helps improve circulation, release muscular tension, and reduces stress. Lymphatic massage also improves lymph flow. Foot reflexology works on the different organs. Many kinds of massage are available to meet your needs.
⑭ Take a half- or full-day off.
Disconnect and recharge. Have a digital detox – turn off your phone, iPad, computer, router, and all electronics.
⑮ Try Buteyko for asthma.
Train yourself not to cough too much. Buteyko is a drug-free approach to manage asthma and other breathing difficulties. I first learned this while living in Hong Kong and due to the air pollution, I needed to use an inhaler from time to time and developed a persistent cough.
⑯ Come back to the breath.
When you are scared, distressed, stressed, confused, in pain…always come back to the breath. This helps us anchor in the moment, be more grounded, and allow life force, oxygen, and energy to be available for us to rise up to the challenge.
Glow
① Be in the Sun more. Safely.
Make more Vitamin D (just don’t shower right after sunbathing). Still deficient? Supplement. Vitamin D is best taken in the morning. Get tested to know your levels.
Use safe chemical-free sunblocks driving or sitting behind glass which filters out UVB rays (what we need) but not the UVA rays. Good levels of Vitamin D and fats = sun-protective.
For non-toxic sunblock suggestions, check out the Environmental Working Group website. It rates products on a scale of 1 (low health concern) to 10.
② Give more hugs. Get more hugs.
Touch is essential to survival. Babies need touch to thrive. It helps release the love hormone, oxytocin. Find out why hugs are good for us.
③ When in doubt, smile or laugh.
A good cry is good too.
④ Get good sleep.
That’s when your body does its repair work. Sleep is essential. We need deep restorative sleep, defined in Psychology Today as “a time of nearly complete disengagement from the environment”. In deep or delta sleep, many physiological processes occur, such as the release of human growth hormone which promotes cellular repair. Deep breathing, good sleeping habit and hygiene promote more deep sleep.
⑤ Minimize EMF and Dirty Electricity exposure.
Remove radio clocks, mobile phones, wifi routers, cordless phones and other electronics from at least a 6-feet radius from your body, especially during sleep. EMF mucks around with melatonin.
Log off your computer and turn off your phone, router, and TV at least an hour before bedtime. You can purchase glasses that block blue light and download the free program f.lux that changes the computer’s colour display to reflect the time of the day. The screen will become progressively more orange as the day wanes.
Consider using EMF filters. Remove dimmers. Get a device to measure dirty electricity. Try these tips to minimize EMF radiation.
⑥ Ground.
Enjoy the benefits of earthing by going barefoot on grass, wet concrete, sand… You can also purchase earthing footwear or wear shoes with soles made with leather, cotton, and other natural materials.
⑦ Connect with your Heart.
The decades of research by Institute of HeartMath shows what heart intelligence means and how connecting with our heart can enhance our health and well-being in an abundance of ways. Our heart is a magnificent generator and with each heart beat we radiate a wave of emotions. It’s our choice what emotions we send out to the world.
⑧ Massage your lymph nodes.
Lymphatic Drainage Massage is not the massage you think it is. Designed to stimulate drainage, this massage is not meant to release muscle tension. Supporting lymph flow, we can improve our immune system and natural detoxification.
⑨ Practice Gratitude.
Gratitude is so important to our health and well-being. Generating an intentional positive emotion such as gratitude helps us to move into greater coherence. It is a connector and builds community.
⑩ Get your Omega-3s.
Krill Oil and wild-caught salmon.
⑪ Deworm your whole family, family pet and all.
Twice a year or more. Check out this wormwood complex. Regular garlic is also a good way.
⑫ Detox and Declutter
A 360 detox is not just about a dietary cleanse to rest our organs. A 360 detox looks at us globally and it is about eliminating or at least minimizing anything that is unhealthy for us, including limiting beliefs. Part of this process is declutter, letting go of the past, of what may have been once. In the KonMarie Method, decluttering is connecting with what sparks joy for you. It is an intentional life you choose for yourself.
⑬ Go organic with your cosmetics, skincare, and personal care products.
Go natural with coconut oil for moisturizer, papaya for mask, castor oil to grow your eyebrows and lashes, and cleanse with a few drops of Argan or Olive oil on a moistened organic cotton pad. Deodorant? Lavender essential oil! Anything we place on our skin is quickly absorbed into the bloodstream. Changing our personal care products is an easy way of biohacking to lessen burdens on our body.
⑭ Always forgive.
When we hold onto the past, every time we think about it, we relive it, with all the emotional charge. By letting go of the past, we can live in the moment and that’s where the joy and what Colin Wilson in Beyond the Occult calls “a kind of continual peak experience.”
Forgiveness is a powerful way to let go of the past. It isn’t to condone what was done. It is to let yourself out of a miserable prison.
⑮ Show up in your own life.
Hang out more with people who make you laugh. Know and respect your boundaries.
⑯ More pleasure. Always more pleasure.
These are only a few biohacking suggestions to enhance our health and well-being. It is always more simple than we think. Start where you are. Get back to nature, and where nature is not so natural anymore, supplement with superfoods. Check out biohackers Dave Asprey, Tim Ferriss,Dan Pardi, Josh Whiton, Jolly, Abel James Bascom, and Darryl Edwards.
