Biohacking for Longevity: How to live a longer and healthier life

It's no secret that tech billionaires are spending fortunes to extend their lifespans, investing in cutting-edge research and experimental treatments.

However, you don’t need a billionaire’s bank account to unlock the secrets of a longer, healthier life.

Enter biohacking: a cutting-edge method of optimising both mind and body by harnessing the power of biology, technology, and self-experimentation, biohacking offers personalised strategies for peak performance.

Biohacking is becoming more widely known, with focus shifting from extending life to enhancing its quality. True longevity transcends the boundaries of physical health; it embraces mental clarity, emotional balance, and overall well-being. Achieving this holistic state of vitality demands a multifaceted approach—one that seamlessly integrates diet, lifestyle, and natural therapies.

Below, we explore some of the latest biohacking techniques that can be woven into your daily routine, to make significant improvements in your health metrics (scientific test measures).

Sauna bathing

Sauna bathing has been used for centuries and originated from Finland for relaxation and now, research suggests that saunas are beneficial for heart health, reducing inflammation and lowering cholesterol.

Clinical Effects of Regular Dry Sauna Bathing: A Systematic Review - PMC (nih.gov)

For the best results of this biohack, aim for a temperature range of 175-195F (80-90C) with 10-20% humidity for a total of 30 minutes (no longer!) and complete three sessions a week. To see if sauna bathing is working for you, you’re going to want to measure blood markers of heart health such as cholesterol and markers of inflammation such as C-Reactive protein (CRP).

Cold exposure – The Wim Hof method

You might know of Wim Hof, often referred to as "The Iceman," a Dutch extreme athlete known for his extraordinary ability to withstand cold. He has gained widespread recognition for his method, known as the "Wim Hof Method," which combines breathing techniques, cold exposure, and meditation to improve physical and mental health. Cold exposure, a key component of the Wim Hof Method, involves subjecting the body to cold environments to elicit various physiological and psychological benefits. This practice can be considered a form of biohacking, as it leverages environmental stressors to optimise the body's functioning and performance. Cold exposure is a controlled stressor that triggers adaptive responses that improve the body's ability to handle future stress.

How to practice cold exposure therapy:

Cold showers: Starting with warm water and gradually reducing the temperature to cold.

Ice baths: Immersing the body in ice-cold water for short durations.

Benefits of cold exposure

Improved circulation: Alternating between cold and warm exposure can improve blood flow and cardiovascular health by strengthening blood vessels.

Enhanced immune function: Cold exposure has been shown to boost the production of white blood cells and increase overall immune function.

Increased brown fat activation: Cold exposure stimulates the production of brown adipose tissue (brown fat), which burns energy to produce heat and can aid in weight management.

Reduced inflammation: Cold exposure can reduce inflammatory responses in the body, potentially alleviating chronic pain and speeding up recovery from injuries.

Enhanced mood and mental clarity: The release of endorphins and norepinephrine during cold exposure can improve mood, increase alertness, and reduce symptoms of depression.

Brain games

There’s research that indicates that playing brain games like sudoku, crosswords, chess or scrabble can help improve cognitive abilities as you age, and there’s a correlation between declining cognition and increased mortality. Combatting the effects of ageing is a common goal for biohackers. Learning something new such as a game, language or hobby can help support neural pathways from decline and improve cognitive processing.

Cognitive Enhancement:

Adaptogens: Adaptogens are natural substances, typically derived from plants, that are believed to help the body adapt to stress, improve resilience, and restore balance. These substances are used in herbal medicine and are often included in supplements or functional foods. Adaptogens are said to work by supporting the body's ability to maintain homeostasis, especially during periods of physical or mental stress.

Examples include Ashwagandha, Rhodiola and Ginseng.

Nootropics: Often called "smart drugs," or cognitive enhancers. They are substances that aim to improve cognitive function, particularly executive functions, memory, creativity, or motivation, in healthy individuals.

Natural nootropics like ginkgo biloba, and mushrooms are popular for their cognitive benefits.

The Key Differences between Adaptogens and Nootropics:

	Adaptogen	Nootropics
Primary Function	Focus on stress adaptation and overall health maintenance	Focus on cognitive enhancement and mental performance
Mechanism	Modulate stress response systems and hormonal balance,	Target brain chemistry and cognitive processes
Application	Often used for long-term health benefits and resilience to stress	Often used acutely or periodically to enhance cognitive performance

There can be some overlap, as certain adaptogens such as Rhodiola may also have mild nootropic effects by improving mental clarity and cognitive function indirectly through stress reduction and improved brain circulation.

Blood tests

Blood tests are considered a form of biohacking because they provide detailed insights into an individual's internal health and physiology, enabling more precise and personalised optimisation of diet, lifestyle, and supplementation. In biohacking, the goal is to enhance physical and mental performance, health, and well-being by making data-driven decisions. They also allow you to track progress and fine-tune your interventions to avoid the need for guesswork.

	Why?	Result Range
Glucose (HbA1c)	Fasting glucose and HbA1c levels are crucial for monitoring blood sugar management	Below 42
Vitamin D	Essential for bone health, inflammation control, muscle mass, and immune health.	Above 50nmol/L
Ferritin	This is a protein that stores iron and supports energy metabolism, helps produce immune cells, and low levels increase the risk of injury, lead to physical and mental fatigue, and correlate with a high exercise heart rate.	Above 30mcg/L
Cortisol	This is a hormone that responds to physical or mental stress. Chronically high cortisol levels are linked to fatigue, high blood sugar levels, and poor sleep.	119-618nmol/L - Tested at 9am
Magnesium	A mineral that supports healthy blood pressure, blood glucose, muscle function, and sleep quality	0.7 – 1.0 mmol/L
LDL Cholesterol	This is commonly known as the “bad cholesterol” since it can build up in arteries and lead to blockages	Less than 1.8mmol/L

Nutrigenomics

Have you ever wondered why some people react differently to certain foods? Nutrigenomics is the scientific study of the interaction between nutrition and genes, with the goal of understanding how specific nutrients affect gene expression and overall health. By examining the genetic variations that influence individual responses to different foods and dietary patterns, nutrigenomics aims to provide personalised dietary recommendations to optimise health and prevent chronic diseases.

This field holds significant potential for promoting longevity by identifying the optimal diet for everyone based on their unique genetic makeup. By tailoring nutritional interventions to your genetic profile, it is possible to enhance metabolic efficiency, reduce the risk of age-related diseases, and improve your overall health span. 

Sleep

Sleep is the simplest biohack we can incorporate into our lives, however, with commitments, stress and worry, it can be hard to utilise. We all sleep but we don’t always sleep well.

Quality sleep is linked to improved blood sugar control and reduced stress. Poor sleep, on the other hand, is associated with increased inflammation, impaired immunity, and a higher risk of heart disease, obesity, and type 2 diabetes.

Because of its significant role in health and disease prevention, sleep has become a key target for biohackers. And now, you don’t have to guess how well you’re sleeping. Wearable devices like Whoop, Oura Ring, Fitbit, Apple Watch, and Garmin smartwatches can easily track sleep data like sleep duration and time spent in REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep.

	What Happens	How Long?	Benefits	How to Improve?
Stage 1	This is the transition period between wakefulness and sleep.	Lasts for a few minutes.		Create a relaxing bedtime routine and comfortable sleep environment.
Stage 2	The body begins to relax further. It is characterised by decreased body temperature, and heart rate and there is a decrease in conscious awareness.	Makes up the majority of a normal sleep cycle (about 45-55%).	Associated with memory consolidation, cognitive function and brain protection.	Maintain a regular sleep schedule.
Stage 3	Deep sleep stage.	Represents about 15-25% of sleep.	Important for physical restoration to repair tissues, cognitive function and immune function.	Avoid heavy meals too close to bedtime and avoid stimulants such as caffeine late in the day. Minimise noise disruption.
REM (Rapid eye movement)	The stage where most dreaming occurs.	Initially brief (around 10 minutes), but increases with each sleep cycle, comprising about 20-25% of total sleep time.	Important for emotional processing and cognitive function.	Manage stress and anxiety. Limit alcohol and nicotine close to bedtime.

A complete sleep cycle consists of all stages and REM sleep, typically lasting about 90-110 minutes. Throughout the night, individuals go through multiple cycles, with each subsequent cycle having a longer duration of REM sleep.

Natural Remedies such as Magnesium, chamomile, and lavender are well known for their calming effects and can help improve sleep quality.

Controversial biohacking

More controversial interventions have been explored by some well-known billionaires, experimenting with physical modifications to the body, such as implanting chips, magnets, or other devices to enhance physical and mental capabilities or integrate technology more closely with the human body.

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is primarily known for his ventures in technology and space exploration, but he has also ventured into the biohacking space, particularly through his involvement with Neuralink. Founded by Musk in 2016, Neuralink aims to develop advanced brain-machine interface (BMI) technology.

The goal is to create devices that can be implanted in the brain to facilitate direct communication between the brain and computers. The technology is intended to help people with neurological disorders, enhance cognitive abilities, and even enable symbiotic relationships between humans and artificial intelligence. In 2020,

DIY gene therapy

Another intervention is gene therapy is one of the newer forms of biohacking using something called CRISPR. This stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats and it is being used to alter genes, predominantly to alter their physical features to their own tastes. Alternatively, this could be used to edit genes which are known to cause disease, however altering genes is a risky process, and the slightest error can be catastrophic.

Bryan Johnson

Then there is Bryan Johnson, 46-year-old the tech entrepreneur trying to live forever with several different hacks in place calling his mission Project Blueprint. He has 30 doctors at his disposal and spends $2 million dollars a year on his anti-aging lifestyle. This includes 30+ supplements every day, a rigid 1-hour exercise regime daily and strict vegan diet. Johnson revealed in 2023 that he’s injected himself with his 17-year-old teenage son’s blood to help keep him young. The goal is to get his 46-year-old organs to look and act like 18-year-old organs. Johnson says the data compiled by his doctors suggests that Blueprint has so far given him the bones of a 30-year-old, and the heart of a 37-year-old.

How do these futurist interventions make you feel? Do you think it is a great advancement in healthcare technology or a scary future that has crossed a moral line?

How do I choose which biohacking techniques to try?

Describe the problem you want to address

Using observations about your current health status and where you would like your health and wellness to go, identify a problem area you want to address.
For example, a problem could be, “My cholesterol is high. I want to improve my cholesterol levels.”

Create a hypothesis

Now it’s time to figure out what diet, lifestyle, exercise, or supplement interventions may be suitable to address your defined problem. This step requires some research. After some digging, select an intervention and make a hypothesis on how it will impact your health. Going off the cholesterol example, an example of a hypothesis for that problem could be, “Based on research, I predict that if I take Metabolic Gold for four months, my cholesterol will go down.”

Get a baseline measure

To know whether an intervention was successful, you need to know where you started. It’s important to get a baseline measure of the outcome you’re wanting to improve before taking steps to improve it. If you want to lower your cholesterol, you need to figure out what your baseline cholesterol is. This can be done by getting a blood test to find out your total cholesterol, LDL and HDL levels.

Test the hypothesis

Now you’re ready to implement the intervention! If you’re testing out Metabolic Gold, you need to include it in your daily routine. You could set reminders on your phone to alert you initially to consolidate the new behaviour.

Evaluate and measure results

The only way to tell if the intervention is working is to measure it! Compare the data you collected before beginning the intervention to your new set of results to see the true change.

Refine the biohack

If the intervention or biohack you implemented worked, great! You can either refine it or keep going and try for greater improvements. Or you can try out a completely different biohack. Introducing one intervention at a time can help pinpoint what works and doesn’t work for you.

Charlotte Parker- Lennox 

Charlotte is a pharmacist with 6 years of experience working in retail pharmacy and integrated urgent care (IUC) alongside nurses, paramedics and doctors. She has changed the direction of her career to support people with a holistic approach to wellness by treating the root cause of your health concerns. She enjoys an outdoor challenge, completing marathons and cycling adventures around the UK.