While it feels like this year’s media buzzword, biohacking is a concept that’s been around for as long as we have been able to record thought (or, at least 2014, when PBS started talking about it).

Biohacking generally refers to experimental efforts to manipulate our bodies so as to live longer. We generally hear of biohacking as it pertains to trends like ice baths, sleep regulation, biometric tracking, and the like. Similarly, we watch as people play around with different historical remedies and diet shifts (ex. special teas or sipping apple cider vinegar).

Why Biohacking?

A universal truth of life is that it comes with parameters. Regardless of our opinions, inception is inextricably paired with demise.

We may want ourselves to be better so that we can do (some sort of) more with our lives. Relatedly, we may want to live longer out of a fear of what follows.

Regardless of our stated reason, we generally want the chance to live longer and move with less resistance.

How About the Basics?

Common to most biohacking techniques is an effort to push for atypical techniques to expand lifespans beyond what we normally expect. While I find it atypical for people to regularly ice bath, sauna, and red light treat themselves, I find placing deliberate and continued effort to refining basic, everyday tasks to be just as uncommon.

It’s funny how we will go through great trials in pursuit of longer lives, but we will not consider the most essential basics that make day-to-day living better and improve our long-run chances of success.

We want medicines that reduce inflammation and to outlive past generations, but we do not want to put work into understanding ourselves in a meaningful way. We are willing to buy supplements, proteins, and snake oils, but we are unwilling to allocate our time to actively becoming the solution through understanding what our body needs.

Maybe it’s our fascination with a cure-all or super-heroics that people us toward these fantastical remedies, or maybe it’s an aversion to the known hard work we expect from running a tight system at home. I believe that if we do not start with an effective body and home maintenance practice, we are largely adding decorations to a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

Assessing Self Before Experimental Techniques

If people think that their knees are bad and just want to replace them instead of learning how to make them work for longer in their lives, they (and the people servicing the knee replacements) allocate time, energy, and sophisticated work to otherwise avoidable/mitigable problems.¹

A major objective in the construction of this site is to help people recognize basic movements and maintenance processes that will allow them to better understand and care for themselves. As we learn to understand what we typically do and our needs, we improve our abilities to better ourselves. This will help us recognize what to train, where we spend most of our days, and when to rest.

Better care for ourselves helps us do more with less resistance. Why not start there before installing your home sauna?

¹ Note: some people simply need knee replacements. We are not indestructible, and replacements can revolutionize an otherwise movement-restricted life. That said, our bodies will perform better with proper treatment and maintenance.

Basic Maintenance and Biohacking Are Not Mutually Exclusive

Ultimately, if your goal is to better improve how you operate (and how long you can survive), improving your available information is only a benefit. The above critical commentary may sound like a call to avoid all biohacking techniques. However, that would ignore the positive discoveries made by those experimenting with currently understudied (or prematurely rejected) practices (ex. Psychedelics for Navy Seal PTSD, doc on Netflix).

We each occupy our own bodies, and part of the human experience is holding the freedom to do as we wish. I hope you choose to perpetuiate your existence in a way that leads to health and happiness, but it is nowhere near my place to restrict your decision-making to comply with my beliefs.

I do not advise you to pursue an increased understanding of self so as to eliminate all biohacking practices; rather, I hope that with an improved understanding of what you need, you can more effectively determine what is in your best interest.

After all, someone is always listing snake oils on the market.

Avoid Cash Grabs

Yes, there’s money in cash grabs. In fact, I find that people can be disincentivized to find genuine cures for the masses because they can make plenty of money for themselves right now with quick sales, facades, and clever marketing.²

Cash grabs are prevalent and prosperous because people want to live better with the least resistance possible. People generally prefer to pay for a result rather than sinking hours, strain and stress to achieve it. Therefore, others prey on this desire and, in turn, offer solutions that will not require any emotional or lifestyle changes for one low price.

An understanding of self will not eliminate risk from all cash grabs. After all, we humans are clever and spend a lot of time learning to influence others. This understanding will help us improve our awareness so that we can mitigate risks from the salesman and venture on toward our goals while avoiding the big traps along the way.

I want to provide myself as a service for those looking to get better without spending money on nonsense. I agree that there are many things that can improve our ability to get better and understand ourselves, but we need to have an interest and put effort into learning the very basics before we can get the full benefit of these add-ons.

If I try to do anything otherwise, I am no better than the salesman we see in every facet of our modern existences. 

Questions? Comments? Tips for me to start biohacking myself? Let me know!

-G

Want to learn more? Consider reading The Pitch to see what EfficientlyELITE is all about!

² Note: this generally refers to those who enter a market to profit first rather than to accomplish an objective. Those who want to do something first will often target that thing as the primary motivator, rather than selling out for cash.