As a naturopath & nutritionist, I’ve taught my clients to biohack their mental and physical health for over 25 years. Biohacking is simply changing your lifestyle, allowing you to “hack” your body’s biology to look and feel your best.
Biohacking Is More Than What You Eat
Biohacking doesn’t just relate to what you eat but instead concerns everything that affects your body, soul and spirit: thoughts, actions, words, movement, WiFi and toxin exposure, what you eat and put on your skin - all such things affect how we behave and react to our environments.
By biohacking your lifestyle, you can transform your mind and body to feel more energised, happier, less stressed, more productive and, overall, like the best possible version of yourself.
I would add here that the best version of you isn’t some pie-in-the-sky unobtainable version. It’s actually about coming home and finding your flow of what works for you.
Biohack Your Wellness x7
The Seven Pillars of Wellness is my framework to help identify your unique health profile. We are all identically different. It is essential to recognise the unique individuality that makes you who you are whilst acknowledging the commonalities that bind us together.
Looking at your health and wellbeing through the Seven Pillars of Wellness helps identify your unique wellness profile, as we all need to ask the same questions to unlock your healing protocol.
To help you fast-track this process, I’ve created the free 5-minute Wellness Profile Quiz to give you your unique profile with your top 3 pillars to focus on. You can take the quiz every six months to check in to see what you need to tweak for the summer and winter months.
The History of Biohacking
Historically, the term biohacking (sometimes bio hacking) was first mentioned in a 1988 article in the Washington Post discussing biotechnology being brought to the masses in the form of “fiddling with the genetic code of a living organism” to manipulate nutrition, sleep, movement, body balance, mindfulness, supplementation and environment to improve one's health.
7 Ways to Biohack Your Health
1. Biohack Your Sleep
Sleep is the first pillar of wellness because sleep's impact on your health is often overlooked. Sleep is vital for your mental and physical health and staying lean and strong.
Most people need between seven to nine hours of sleep each night, which needs to be hacked to determine your optimum amount.
It is critical to honour this wellness pillar. When you sleep well to rest and detoxify you avoid putting yourself at risk for a myriad of health problems, including a higher risk for chronic disease, a weakened immune system, anxiety, depression, brain fog, irritability, increased risk of eating disorders and imbalanced hormones (including fertility).
You need to work out how much sleep you need and how to improve the quality if you intend to biohack your sleep.
Step one is to go to bed at least one hour before midnight. Every hour you sleep before midnight has the same effect as 2 hours after midnight due to the impact on your circadian rhythms.
If you tend to find it hard to get to bed earlier, you need to train yourself with a natural sleep aid like our Bedtime Blend Capsules.
2. Biohack Your Nutrition - Use Food As Medicine
Try an elimination diet by cutting out a few foods and then reintroducing them. Many have trouble digesting gluten, dairy and sugar and can experience skin issues like eczema and acne from eating these foods.
Gluten, dairy and sugar can also tear down your energy levels and affect your mood, making you depressed, irritable and anxious.
Food Hack Elimination DietAn elimination diet is a short-term eating plan to work out if certain foods affect your health issues. Research conveyed in this article in Pub Med shows the benefits of an elimination diet to help you hack what foods make you feel strong and what foods act like triggers and you could be intolerant or allergic to.
I have my clients remove gluten, dairy and sugar over four weeks to allow their inflammation markers to calm down.
At the beginning of the fifth week, you can reintroduce one food at a time, such as gluten and record out of 10 how you feel in these main categories:
- energy
- digestion
- mood
I also have my clients record their heart rates before and after the elimination diet, as any significant rice in your resting heart rate is a telltale sign of foods you’re intolerant to.
Soy, peanuts and corn are other common allergens, remove this food and, in week six, remove dairy. You could try cow’s milk and cheese, and don’t forget goat and sheep products, as many (me included) are way less reactive to these compared to cow’s milk, so factor that in too.
Your body will communicate with you clearly what foods generally agree with you and what foods don’t. You need to take time to listen.
An elimination diet is a powerful biohack because food is medicine, and since we are all identically different, this is an essential biohack that benefits all.
You can do blood tests as well, but over the years, I’ve found that an elimination diet is an excellent tool for putting my clients back in control of their wellness journey.
Note that this doesn’t mean that you can’t have treat food. I take 2 of our natural Rejuv Digestive Support Capsules before meals that contain gluten, dairy and sugar so I can literals have my cake and eat it too.
3. Biohack With Supplements - But Bin The Synthetic
Over 15 years ago, I launched my own whole food plant-based supplement line born out of my desire to get healed from eating disorders and my frustration with the vitamin industry becoming more synthetic, creating products that went straight through the body without any positive health impact. Synthetic supplements are merely an expensive way to generate glowing fluro pee.
Like each of the Seven Pillars of Wellness, you must determine what works for you. As a good start, you want to choose ingredients from whole foods, not just a list of vitamins without origin on the back (vitamin B, Ascorbic Acid, Zinc etc.).
When you look at the supplements that I’ve formulated for Rejuv Wellness and WelleCo. you’ll see actual plants listed as the ingredients, such as nettle, artichoke, moringa, ashwagandha etc.
Supplements Are Essential In A Toxic World
We all need to supplement these days due to over-farming and the world becoming more toxic. Since we are all unique, you can order and complete one of our Home Urine Test Kits. This kit allows me and my team to determine exactly what supplements you need.
4. Biohack Your Body Balance
Get the grass or sand between your toes and get grounded to reset and recharge your electrical circuits. The earth is filled with negative ions, and humans need these ions to thrive.
Re-wilding is another biohack to balance your mind and body to move away from our current “domestication” surrounded by WiFi and electricity. Instead, spend more time outside, eat less processed foods, drink better water, be exposed to sunlight and embrace nature.
Regular bodywork such as acupuncture, massage, physiotherapy, osteopathy, and reflexology is also remarkable, for it helps your skeletal system start strong, encouraging good posture. Hence, your organs have space to function correctly.
5. Biohack Your Movement
Your mental and physical health needs movement; this is not a luxury but a necessity.
Biohacking the best time of the day is vital to creating a long-term habit, and for me, it is morning, but for many of my clients, it is the afternoon. Please choose a time that works for you, and it may be different each week, but we all need to move most days.
It can be as simple as a 30-60 minute walk four times a week as a great start, but the key is to enjoy and make it fun.
Boosting your incidental exercise each day is excellent, as many of us spend an extraordinary amount of our lives seated. All that sitting has now been linked to being as dangerous as smoking!
You don’t need to invest in a standing desk (although it’s helpful!), but how often we stand, not how long we stand for, is critical. Set the alarm and walk or run around your workplace for a few minutes each hour or two. This will significantly improve your health.
6. Biohack Your Environment - Say No To Toxins
The average person puts hundreds of chemicals on their skin daily in their everyday hygiene routines.
It is not enough that the product is vegan. You need to be looking for PCBs, Dioxins etc. Choose organic hygiene products, including deodorants, to not overload your toxic cup.
None of us can be perfect with this, but here are a few ideas:
- Swap your retail brands for rock salt deodorants
- Choose organic body wash and shampoo
- Use SPF made with zinc instead of chemicals
- Invest in a water filter to reduce the amount of bottled water you drink
- Spend more time in the sea and nature to help your body oxygenate and detox
As a skincare line, I use KORA Organics. I use Salt Rock deodorants, Earth-friendly cleaning products, and I choose local organic body washes to support small local businesses.
The huge toxic load we are exposed to each year is why we encourage you to do a Seasonal Cleanse or Detox once or twice a year. You wouldn’t drive your car for 30+ years and not take it in for a service.
We have Seasonal Cleanse and Detox packs with complete wellness protocols to help you easily move through a detox.
7. Biohack Your Mindfulness - Get Your Head In The Game
All the first six hacks to support the 7 Pillars of Wellness will have the desired impact if you get your head in the game.
External triggers and your inner critic can leave you in emergency mode, shutting down healing and your 11 systems.
I’ve seen many clients have all 6 in place and still end up in a crisis with their health. I’ve had seasons when I’ve had all six pillars sorted, but my stress and inner critic were out of control.
As a workaholic, over- and critical thinker, you name it, I ended up with a breast cancer lump. For me taking a step back and treating myself like I would my best friend, and adding prayer and meditation was essential.
We all have our own spiritual beliefs to practise but carving out even 15 minutes each day for you is essential. You might prefer walking meditation or sitting still. You need to hack this to work out what is right for you.
Training my body out of addictive stress was also essential, and that is why I formulated our Adrenal Complex with adaptogenic herbs to calm my nervous system. It helped me leave the hamster wheel of life behind by choice.
Being mindful of taking on other people’s negative energy was also essential. This is why I tell my clients to learn to PER - Pause-Exhale-Respond if their inner critic or an external issue to person triggers them.
Create Your Biohack Road Map
Finally, invest five minutes in your health and long-term wellbeing - complete your free Wellness Profile Quiz to give you your unique profile with the top 3 pillars to biohack and gain your first victories.
Visit wellnessprofile.me now to unlock your profile as a map to start biohacking your biology for optimum health!
