First off, let me be honest. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to say when anyone “starts biohacking” – especially if the term biohacking wasn’t widely used around that time! What I can say for a fact is that I started intermittent fasting (or time restricted eating, as it should be called) in May 2013. I believe the IF boom gave rise to popularization of biohacking as well. I started subscribing to Biohakkerin käsikirja (Biohacker’s handbook) newsletter in May 2015 and got the pre-ordered book roughly a year later, I believe. The second-generation Oura ring was unveiled in Slush, October 2017, which I also pre-ordered.
So, I’d say I wasn’t in the first wave of biohackers – which of course was preceded years if not decades earlier by the “quantified self” movement – but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say I was interested in this space before it became as mainstream as it is today. Next, let’s take a look at what exactly I’ve been doing, and most importantly, what I’ve learned.
The best “biohacks” are free
What many people outside of this community don’t know is that biohacking is very tightly connected to the concept of ancestral living. The most obvious example would be the paleo diet: if we eat only the foods our ancestors did – in other words, how human beings evolved to eat – our bodies tend to respond to it extremely well. But more on diets later.
The big three free things anyone can do right now are all things which were staple in our ancestors’ lives: getting sunlight, going barefooted, and being in nature. Breathwork is also free of course – and I’ve done my (almost mandatory) Wim Hoff stuff a few years back – but I’m not experienced or consistent enough with that to really write about it.
Over 40% of Europeans are vitamin D deficient, and similar numbers have been reported from the USA as well. The further north you go, the less sunlight is available annually, so in a country like Finland, we really must make the most out of the couple sunny summer months we have. In practice this means that again this summer I’ve spent my time outside wearing nothing but shorts, whether I’m playing with the kids, working out, or gardening. In September I started D3 supplementation again, which I consider to be absolutely mandatory especially during the darker months. In fact, the Finnish healthcare system encourages parents to give their children 10 µg of Vitamin D3 supplement daily, regardless of the time of the year or the age of the child.
Being barefooted outside has several benefits, yet there is only one downside. I’ve been using barefoot shoes almost exclusively since 2016, the only exception being serious hiking trips where I still opt for the venerable Meindl boots. During these years, my feet and ankles have strengthened. I twisted my ankles badly as a kid multiple times, and as a result they’ve been very weak and loose my whole life. Yet after making the switch to more natural shoes, I haven’t twisted my ankle once. During summer I ditch shoes altogether when I can, which is especially helpful when working out outside in an uneven yard. Suddenly basic kettlebell movements become much tougher as your feet (including toes, which in normal shoes contribute almost nothing!) are constantly fighting for grip and balance. Many people also swear by the power of grounding or earthing, whereby walking barefooted outdoors your body connects to Earth’s electrical charge. Benefits of this practice have been claimed to range from anti-inflammatory effects to reduced stress and cortisol levels. I haven’t investigated this (there’s some preliminary academic research on the topic), so I just consider it as a potential added benefit. The only downside? My feet have grown. Like a European shoe size and a half.
Going outdoors or into the woods has time and time again been shown to reduce stress, and potentially improve other biomarkers and sleep quality as well. Again, going back to the concept of ancestral living: almost as if we weren’t meant to spend all our time in glass-and-concrete cubes, getting blasted by artificial electromagnetic radiation, staring at blue light all day every day? Good thing we have still plenty of woodlands in Finland, even if a lot of it are managed (commercial?) forests.
Regular hiking and camping sure does the trick for me. Even a simple overnighter can be a great way to reset, especially in the middle of winter:
Habits > gadgets
Habits require discipline, and discipline equals freedom. So, habits are not easy to implement – on the contrary – but they can be extremely fruitful (assuming they are good habits, that is). The easiest example of a developed habit is good sleep hygiene.
I’m being as consistent as I can with when I go to sleep and when I wake up (well, as consistent as a father of small kids can be), and I’m maintaining that schedule throughout weekends as well. All our bedrooms have light blocking curtains and don’t have any tech with LED indicators. Gadget-wise I do have quite fancy Ra Optics red sunset lenses that I got through Oura’s referral program, but I haven’t built the habit of using them. So, having a gadget isn’t enough in itself! I do of course have scheduled “Night Shift” mode with maximum warmness setting on my phone, but that isn’t really a perfect substitute for blue light blocking glasses, I know.
All in all, technology can be a helpful tool, especially for measuring biomarkers, but there’s only a couple of things I’ve found useful. I’ve of course written extensively about Oura ring (and its shortcomings), and also compared it to FirstBeat (1, 2). When deciding on which gadget to get to help you on your health and fitness journey, make sure to compare their privacy policies beforehand! Your personal information and health data is valuable, don’t give it away on a whim.
I’m a big believer in red light therapy and do have a red light panel myself. These things took the biohacking community by storm in 2017-2018, and for a good reason. My panel has both red and near-infrared (NIR) LEDs and I use it mainly for muscle recovery. I’d definitely like to get a full body panel, but they’re still quite expensive despite becoming much more commonly available in recent years.
And remember: there’s no one gadget, one pill, one anything that can fully reverse the health impacts of our bad habits!
Fasting and diet
The benefits of intermittent fasting have been covered so widely for so long, that I’m not going to go into details of those. For me personally, it’s just convenient that I don’t have to worry about breakfast, and as we tend to have dinner around 17:00-18:00, I know that a heavy meal won’t affect my sleep negatively either. I’m not counting hours or calories.
Intermittent fasting is not some magical tool to lose weight. This needs to be repeated here, as many people still think that. What I believe happens when people do lose weight when starting IF, is that they simply consume less calories by accident. Also, for a lot of folks a “healthy” breakfast consists of cereal, toast, orange juice and other clichés, which are pretty much just carbs and empty calories anyway. During my years of intermittent fasting, I’ve gained and lost around 10 kilos, and now for the past three years or so I’ve been quite constant ±3kg every week. Your body composition will always be more important than the number on the scale. I try to measure my weight once a week, but only because I’m a sucker for good stats and I have historical data of all my workouts and weight since late 2010.
The longest real fast I’ve done was three days on nothing but water and salt. It’s amazing how easy it was after the first day. That taught me how much of my “feeling of hunger” is actually just tied to a certain time of the day and not so much my body’s actual need for nourishment. A good lesson for anyone to go through, I believe. Getting “hangry” is a ridiculous concept.
Agriculture is a relatively new invention. It did contribute to our shift from wandering hunter-gatherers to settlement and civilization builders, but our biology hasn’t adapted as fast as our environment and diets. And don’t even get me started on the current topsoil ruining, pesticide and herbicide filled, monocrop, industrialized, GMO-riddled farming.
That said, I don’t follow any particular diet, I just aim to prioritize my protein intake and minimize processed foods. Both things sound really simple, but in the end when you really start looking at those nutrition labels and ingredient lists, it turns out to be a lot more challenging in today’s grocery store environment than you might realize! I’m a bit bigger dude so hitting the adequate protein amount with just two meals and some beef jerky can be tough, too.
Oh, and I haven’t eaten candy or chocolate for close to 20 years. But that has nothing to do with biohacking, it’s just a personal choice I made a long time ago.
What about my supplement stack? Every self-respecting biohacker must have a stack, right? Honestly, it’s not that exciting:
- L-theanine (with black coffee in the morning, recommended dosage is 2:1 caffeine to L-theanine)
- 94-282 mg of magnesium (malate, glycinate and taurate)
- 50-100 mg of zinc (picolinate, bisglycinate and monomethionine)
- 60-240 mg of Vitamin C (bundled with zinc)
- 2-8 mg Vitamin B6 (P-5-P, bundled with zinc)
- 125 mcg Vitamin D3 + 100 mcg Vitamin K2 (not during summer)
- 5-7 g creatine
- 45-90 g whey protein (stevia flavored)
Sometimes if I feel like my recovery could use an extra oomph, I take for a few days a premade mix of 5g collagen, 200 mg Vitamin C and 1g MSM. Often, I also have one of those water soluble vitamin tablets during lunch just to enjoy a carbonated drink, but honestly how bioavailable the supposed multivitamins in those tablets are, is questionable.
“I’m feeling fine and magnetically alkaline.”
Many associate biohacking with wacky gadgets and woo-woo healing practices, which despite being unfortunate, does hold a kernel of truth. A good way of thinking about this community is that they are people who are constantly at the fringes of health and fitness, pushing the boundaries and finding which alternative methods work (and which don’t), and why our current systems and traditionally accepted concepts for diets or training might be outright harmful for (most) humans. They’re proud of being “n=1”, and eager to share their experiences with everyone.
My experiences in these fringes are very limited at best. I’ve dabbled with adaptogens, did a neurofeedback session, sweated in vacuum pressure training for a few times, used an acupressure sleep mask, tried carnivore diet – you know, pretty basic stuff. I’m intrigued about Jawliner and similar products, although I do find it simultaneously funny and sad that we have to compensate the softness of modern food with gadgets to build our facial structure to the same shape our ancestors would’ve had it by default.
If you made it all the way here, I thank you. Here, take a look at this video by the always brilliant Andrew Rousso. It certainly made me chuckle!
“Pseudoscience” you say…
Joel Latto 