What is biohacking? As I understand it, biohacking is having the curiosity to explore your own biology and self-experiment in a personalized way to optimize your health, achieve peak performance, and improve your overall wellbeing.
Biohacking is utilizing science and technology to optimize our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health to become a better version of ourselves. We have the ability to maximize our biological and mental performance by controlling external variables such as nutrition, sleep quality, stress, environmental toxins, dietary supplements, exposure to sunlight and artificial light, medicinal plants, etc.
The objective is to work with Mother Nature, not against her, taking the reins of our health and wellbeing, creating natural and sustainable health in the context of the unnatural environment we live in.
Most people get into biohacking as a consequence of having serious health issues that traditional medicine wasn’t able to help them with (or at least not without even worse consequences). I got into biohacking through a slightly different and non-traditional path: mainstream science.
After finishing my PhD in Biochemistry, I started working in science communication, and -almost randomly- had the opportunity to become the Chief Science Editor of SelfHacked, to write, edit and share content about hacking your own biology to optimize your health. This was a dream come true for me! Finally, my professional background and skills and my personal values aligned.
Six months into the job, I was invited to join Joe Cohen, CEO and founder of SelfHacked, to attend the Biohacker Summit in Helsinki, Finland. That was my first date with biohacking. Those days at the summit determined a turning point in both my professional career as well as my personal life. Before that, I knew a lot of theory about biohacking but never applied it to myself. During the summit, I learned the Wim Hof Method and took my first ice bath guided by the well-known instructor and author of Mindlift: Mental Fitness for the Modern Mind Kasper van der Meulen, tried my first (of many) Bulletproof coffee, got my first Oura ring, attended the upgraded dinner that combined tasty recipes with the finest, nutritious and organic ingredients and superfoods, tried several food supplements and medicinal mushrooms like chaga, reishi, cordyceps, and lion’s mane, learned about the keto diet and its multiple benefits, and underwent my first 23andMe genetic testing.
Meeting amazing biohackers like Ben Greenfield, Teemu Arina, Karima Jam, Patrick Leddy, Inka Immonen, and Siim Land shaped the path of my future career and lifestyle. Attending the Biohacker Summit, having so many new experiences, and meeting all these amazing people opened a door to rethink my diet and lifestyle, learn more about my biology and self-experiment to improve my health and performance.
