Biohacking is 2018’s new “dieting.” Biohacking is the process of making subtle changes to your lifestyle to encourage your body’s biology to act differently. Biohacking allows you to transform your body so that you can feel more energized, productive, focused, and, overall, feel like the best possible version of you.
The amazing thing about biohacking is that no pills are involved, no crazy experiments or harsh diets. Instead, it means modifying your daily activities to enhance what your body is already good at – fixing itself.
Now, if you start Googling this, you will come across some sites and blogs trying to sell you gadgets and widgets they say are necessary to biohack yourself. But I prefer the good old-fashioned way: making small changes to your lifestyle, giving your body time to adjust and then seeing how you feel. You stick with the things that work for you and ditch the ones that don’t. After all, when it comes to how your body feels, you’re the expert!
Ready to get into it? Here are multiple ways to biohack yourself.
Elimination Diet Biohack
For those of you who want the biggest bang for your buck, try an elimination biohack – which is simply eliminating certain foods that often result in allergies, trouble digesting, skin issues (eczema/acne), fatigue, etc.
Here’s how it works: for 3–4 weeks, you’ll remove foods that are known allergens, giving any inflammation time to go down and giving you a clean slate. Wheat (gluten), soy, dairy, peanuts, and corn are all foods cut out during this time.
An elimination diet is one of the best biohacks you can do for yourself. Some people don’t understand how good they can truly feel until they remove some of the worst food offenders from their diet.
Eat Lots of Fat Biohack
It’s a known fact that the human body either burns sugar for energy, or it burns fat for energy. When you “hack” your energy systems you’re training your body to exclusively burn fat for energy. Side effects: longer-lasting energy, clearer thoughts/mindset, and the obvious: Fat Burning. In my opinion, the ketogenic diet is the best way to experience this. In the keto diet, you’re moving your body to ketosis (“keto”), a metabolic state where the body burns fat, produces ketones, and uses them, not carbohydrates, for energy. This can only happen when fat, not glucose (carbohydrates), provide most of the body’s calories.
On a keto diet, you’ll seriously restrict carbs and sugar, and instead eat healthy fats like coconut oil, ghee, nuts, non-starchy veggies (goodbye, potatoes) and foods that are high in protein but have little or no carbs, like grass-fed beef, wild-caught fish and eggs.
The keto diet is very effective at promoting weight loss, especially if you are very overweight. It can reduce heart disease markers like high cholesterol and could even fight brain disease. In fact, the keto diet was originally used as a way to manage seizures in people with epilepsy. If you’re already eating relatively well but want to challenge yourself even further, biohacking your diet and going keto could be what you need.
Meditation Biohack
What we feed our minds is just as important as what we feed our bodies. Meditation is the ultimate brain hack. The benefits of meditation are huge: from reducing pain and increasing sleep quality to lowering inflammation and boosting productivity. If you’re suffering from stress or anxiety, meditation can also be a really effective way of naturally dealing with symptoms. Establishing a daily meditation practice is one of the best things you can do for your mental and physical health.
Meditation has been researched many times and is connected to the reduction of everything from stress to heart disease and cancer. The Bible even mentions the importance of meditation: “I will meditate on all your activity and ponder over your dealings.” (Psalm 77:12). If you are concerned that you can’t stop your brain from buzzing long enough to meditate, don’t worry – it’s the same as when you quiet yourself and pray/talk to God.
There are even several guided meditation techniques that can help found on Youtube and dozens of smartphone apps you can use; some will alert you at the same time each day or have specific meditations for different purposes, like starting the day with a clear head or helping you unwind.
Grounding Biohack
How often do you walk barefoot in the grass or feel the sand crunch between your toes? If the answer is “not enough,” may I suggest you introduce grounding as your next biohack?
Grounding, also known as earthing, means allowing your feet to connect with the surface below them and the powerful energy that brings. When we spend time barefoot on the earth, our feet act as electrical currents, allowing the natural electrical charges that the earth produces flow through us. Grounding can improve your sleep, reduce your daily dose of Vitamin D — plus, it’s free!
