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Confession: I think I’m sort of late to learning about biohacking. As someone who has long been obsessed with tools for improving mentally, physically and spiritually, this is arguably a major oversight. In short, I was pretty much the target audience for the term.
For those who were as flummoxed as I was when they first heard the word, the Wikipedia definition is “do-it-yourself biology, a social movement in which individuals and organizations pursue biology and life science with tools equivalent to those of professional labs.”
Sounds freaky, right? Like a group of people who inject frog poison and insert magnets into various parts of your body? Well, yes, some established biohackers try those things but biohacking is also, as I gleaned from this past weekend’s 4th Annual Bulletproof Conference, so much more. The conference was thrown by arguably the world’s best known biohacker, Dave Asprey (he of Bulletproof Coffee method—that is, the trend he launched, headfirst, into the public consciousness two years ago that involves dosing your morning coffee with a healthy scoop of butter and oil). Since 2009, when Asprey first blogged about how the Bulletproof method could trigger weight loss, remove cravings and increase cognitive functioning, his company has become something of a movement, with an array of products, a hit podcast and such events as this past weekend’s Pasadena-held conference.
Whether Asprey brought about this obsession with using hacks to make your body and mind function more efficiently or just had perfect timing in terms of jumping onto an already rolling bandwagon is something of a moot point; he is clearly the face of the movement and nothing could prove that more effectively than the thousands who gathered together to listen to an array of experts and browse through a succession of booths overflowing with demonstrations and products for sale.
While not all of the booths offered the yummiest concoctions (medicinal mushroom tea, which is filled with antioxidants and vitamins, tasted somewhere between a stomach-churning concoction of herbs and a cream of mushroom soup sans the delicious cream), nearly all of them offered concepts and ideas that could appeal to anyone who wants to live in the best physical if not mental and spiritual health.
There were booths for the Theragun (the heaviest duty massager you can imagine, typically used by trainers and doctors), Zeropoint Compression (socks that add compression in order to increase blood flow when you’re working out), Sunlighten Infared (booths that can be installed in your home to help with all sorts of ailments), Samina (beds which start at $10,000 and consist of four layers, one of which is made up of wooden slats to conform to your body), Fatco (Paleo-certified beauty products) and more. For good measure, there was even a woman handing out flyers for One Taste orgasmic meditation, who insisted it was only a matter of time before this trend caught on the way yoga has.
Among the standouts, for me: KnotOut (non-flat rollers to release tension in muscles—for the record, this is the only product I bought at the conference because once I tried it, right there on the convention floor, it felt so amazing that I vowed never to go back to a flat roller again) and former ESPN anchor James Swanwick's product line, which included Swannies blue-blocking glasses, that it seemed everyone at the conference (even, interestingly, young children) had on.
Among the speakers (in addition to Asprey) were Neil Strauss (the New York Times bestselling author who transitioned from pick-up artist to relationship guru) and Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus author John Gray, whose talk zeroed in on how to biohack your relationship. Gray’s theme, perhaps unsurprisingly, was focused on how men and women can better understand each other, and the bulk of his talk consisted of biological explanations for male-female skirmishes. (The most useful info, in my opinion, and one that provided me all sorts of comfort: Women, Gray said, have eight times the emotional reaction to stress that men do). He also offered an array of tips: An act of love only causes a six-second surge of oxytocin in a woman no matter how large or small the act of love, so you’re better off giving her a flower every day for 100 days instead of 100 flowers one day.
In the end, it’s hard to say that the conference transformed me into a full-fledged biohacker (I just don’t see myself as the frog poison injecting type). But after two days of rolling out my overly-active-from typing hands on the KnotOut and starting my morning with Bulletproof Brain Octane Fuel in my Bulletproof Coffee, I can’t deny that I feel more energized and serene than usual. Cynics may call this change a placebo but I say if the placebo fits, wear it (though I don’t need to wear the compression socks, thanks).
