Biohacking intro

Biohacking

Biohacking is a (perhaps too) broad name for a set of practices whose aim is optimizing performance and capacity by consciously tinkering with bodily inputs and environmental stimuli. This starts at its most mundane and unintrusive with things like simply drinking a cup of coffee for a boost of energy and moves all the way up to extreme practices like gene editing and surgical modification.  Science supports many practices lumped under the overarching category of biohacking, while it rejects others.  Read ahead to see some biohacking tips that are tried and true, proven to improve your energy levels and general well-being. This blog will focus primarily on some of the simplest and most accessible biohacks, mainly in the form of popular nootropics and elementary modification of external stimulus in the form of temperature and exposure to light. 

Everyone is a biohacker

Even if the term comes across as an impressive but intentionally cryptic buzzword, the truth is that everyone is a biohacker to some degree. If you’ve ever brewed a cup of coffee for a jolt of energy or steeped a cup of chamomile tea to take the edge off after a long day, congratulations, you’ve already tried your hand at basic biohacking. Let alone if you’ve ever taken an ice bath after a sport or deliberately exposed yourself to UV during the winter. The only thing separating you from a true biohacker is methodology – adjust your dosage levels, change the time of day, note potential amplified or reduced effects, especially when combined with other inputs (food, exercise, potential dietary supplements, other strict nootropics, etc.), and, most importantly, track your results to optimize gains. 

Nootropics and nootropic stacks

From the Greek word νόος or “mind”, nootropics are substances known as cognitive enhancers. Some target concentration, focus, and attention, others memory and mental clarity, and others still purely on energy levels.  When taken together explicitly with another nootropic, the mix is referred to as a nootropic stack. 

Caffeine and/or L-theanine

Caffeine is perhaps the world’s best-known nootropic, so ingrained in our daily lives that most people don’t even consider it a psychoactive substance. But the spike in energy after a cup of Joe is the whole essence of biohacking: controlled ingestion of something that’s not strictly food in order to benefit from a change in mood, energy level, or other biochemical response. Studies especially highlight the synergistic effects of caffeine when combined with L-theanine, a non-protein amino acid commonly found in black and green tea. As perhaps the most well-researched nootropic stack, multiple studies have shown that caffeine and L-theanine work wonders in tandem, enhancing focus and memory and reducing reaction times, while at the same time preventing mental fatigue.  

Creatine

Creatine is most well-known for its role in building muscle mass, but it’s also well-documented as a nootropic. Its key mechanism is in boosting the production of ATP (adenosine triphosphate), which leads to a whole range of positive effects in the brain. ATP is basically brain fuel and higher stores facilitate the work of cerebral mitochondria, reducing mental fatigue, extending cognitive endurance, and improves working memory and fluid intelligence. Creatine is especially useful for vegetarians and vegans, whose diet tends to be lower in natural creatine levels than meat eaters (Effects of creatine supplementation on cognitive function of healthy individuals: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials - PMC). 

L-arginine

Studies have also shown initial results that L-arginine produces nootropic effects. As a natural precursor to nitric oxide (NO), its benefits include increased flow of blood to the brain. Next to ATP, having sufficient oxygen levels is the single most important thing for ensuring nutrients are delivered to neurons. Further results indicate that arginine may help combat the impact of mental stress and sleep deprivation, demonstrating its usefulness for tasks requiring cognitive endurance. 

External stimuli  

Another popular avenue of biohacking experimentation is in controlling the body’s response to external stimuli. This can take the form of modified amounts and intensities of light, temperature, or even sound.   

Light

The most familiar effect of light on the body is that of sunlight. Getting at least 5 minutes of sunlight within the first 30 minutes after waking up helps keep your circadian rhythm in check and gives your body the dose of cortisol it needs to face the day. Other types of light have different neurophysical effects: blue wavelengths keep you focused and alert, and so are good for you in the morning but disruptive in the evening.  Red light, meanwhile, stimulates your mitochondria and allows the brain to recover from stresses. For best results, get some sunlight immediately after waking up, charge yourself with blue light during the day, and switch to red wavelengths in the evening (The cognitive impact of light: illuminating ipRGC circuit mechanisms | Nature Reviews Neuroscience). Absolutely avoid blue light (this means screens) before hitting the hay. 

Thermal therapies 

Another increasingly popular trend in biohacking is heat therapy, on both ends of the thermometer. Studies have shown several advantages for cryotherapy, both in everyday routines as well as specifically for regeneration after strenuous sport. In general, cold treatments have been shown to activate brown adipose tissue, more commonly known as brown fat. This brown fat functions as our body’s heater, burning calories for heat instead of storing them for long-term energy. After strenuous exercise, cryotherapy can play a dual role: immediately after exercise, cold treatments can constrict blood vessels and thus limit inflammation. Under different circumstances, the opposite end of the mercury can work wonders, too. We hardly need to remind the reader of the popularity of saunas, but we should take a moment to highlight the benefits scientifically: namely, regular sauna users (4–7 times per week) have been found to be far less at risk of cardiovascular illness and cognitive decline, including Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia (Sauna use linked to longer life, fewer fatal heart problems - Harvard Health). But even those not at risk of heart disease or dementia can benefit from sauna use, as using the sauna after a workout has been shown among athletes to increase plasma volume and the count of red blood cells, both contributing to athletic endurance (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10286597/) . 

Keep track of your results 

The point of biohacking isn’t just throwing back an extra shot of espresso during a random sauna session and calling it a day. If you really want to benefit from the results of your experimentation, you’ll need to make at the very least a mental note of amounts and durations, time of day and month for women, and potential synergistic effects of e.g. nootropic stacks or specific orders of ingestion and environmental manipulation.   

Wearables 

These days there are plenty of convenient technological solutions to help you maintain oversight over the ways you try to improve your health and well-being. With smartphone apps and watches that record everything from heart rate to REM cycles, there has never been an easier time to be in control of how your body is feeling. Try out a solution and spend a couple weeks seeing if there are any patterns to how much better (or worse) you feel after a certain input or environmental stimulus. Once you detect a pattern and take steps to optimize what makes your body feel the best, then congratulations: you’re a biohacker.