Forget Biohacking: The Simple, Elegant Practices That Actually Work

When Silicon Valley sells shortcuts, ancient wisdom still holds the keys.

Sep 21, 2025

circuit board patterns in teal and bright red cog-like symbols surrounding a central core. — *Man and machine*

“Biohacking.”

It’s the kind of word that makes tech bros light up and wellness brands salivate. It sounds cutting-edge, futuristic, revolutionary. But let’s pause.

Hacking basically means chopping into a system, forcing your way in, breaking things apart. It’s a very masculine approach to health.

Do you really want to treat the most intelligent system you will ever inhabit — your own body — like code to be slashed through with quick fixes?

The Birth of Biohacking

The term “biohacking” started circulating in Silicon Valley in the early 2000s. It was coined by self-experimenters who blended technology, supplements, and DIY biology. But let’s be real: it was never about living in harmony with life. It was about selling an idea — that you could shortcut nature, optimise yourself like a machine, and become superhuman.

It’s slick marketing. It’s sexy branding. But it’s not truth.

The False Promise of “Hacking” Life

Biohacking sells the illusion of control. Numbers, metrics, data. It feels like progress, but it’s really just a distraction — outsourcing wisdom to gadgets instead of cultivating the awareness that’s already built into your being.

You don’t need to hack your biology. You need to listen to it.

Nature Doesn’t Hack—It Harmonises

Nature has always been the best teacher. The most powerful methods either use nature directly or mimic its patterns. There is nothing forced, nothing “hacked” about it.

Years ago, I met Clint Ober, not long after he published his groundbreaking book Earthing. His simple insight? That connecting directly with the Earth’s natural currents allows the body to heal. The earthing sheets he developed were low-tech, elegant, and profoundly effective.

Earthing wasn’t a hack. It was a remembrance of what had always been true.

Clint was ridiculed, called a fraud, dismissed by mainstream voices. Yet his work went on to influence the likes of the NBA, and Tour de France athletes who require fast recovery times.

The science of Earthing continues to stand precisely because it wasn’t built on hype but on truth. He received a download from his Higher Self — “become an opposite charge.”

Simple, natural, elegant.

And, of course, you don’t need a bedsheet if you’re lucky enough to be able to walk on a beach nearby, or put your feet on the soil.

Ancient Wisdom: The Original Path

Long before “biohacking” became a buzzword, yogis, mystics, shamans, and healers were refining practices to optimise health, energy, and clarity. Breathwork. Fasting. Meditation. Plant medicine. Yoga. Prayer. Chant. Stillness.

These weren’t “hacks.” They were relationships — with the body, with nature, with spirit. They honoured the intelligence of life instead of trying to dominate it. They treated disease as imbalance, not as a bug in the system.

And guess what? These ancient ways still work. They’ve stood the test of millennia because they address root causes, not surface symptoms.

Take the current craze for ice baths. Many call it a “biohack,” thanks to Wim Hof popularising the practice. Yet Hof himself drew on ancient yogic breathing and cold-exposure methods that monks and mystics have used for centuries to master mind over matter. What’s sold as a modern hack is really just ancient wisdom dressed in new clothes — or better said, undressed.

Conscious Choices Over Quick Fixes

I’ll be honest. I enjoy some of the tech tools that get lumped into the “biohacking” world. I love to run and monitor my speed, heart rate, and even my sleep cycles using my Apple Watch. And I choose to take a magnesium supplement after yoga to relax sore muscles and calm my nervous system.

But here’s the difference: I don’t practice reductionism. I don’t rely on the gadget or the supplement alone — I use them as small supports, not as substitutes for real awareness.

Because real health isn’t found in a hack. It’s in how consciously you live.

Recently, a page on social posted a so-called “scientific article” that claimed caffeine repairs DNA, and we should drink lots more of it. Of course, caffeine drinkers immediately resonated with thousands of likes and shares. It was an easy article to go viral.

Who paid for that study, I wonder? It was total garbage.

If you purify your system over time — through yoga, fasting, juicing — and then reintroduce caffeine, you’ll feel its psychoactive effects immediately. You’ll notice the immediate high and the crash. You can, if sensitive enough, literally feel the burning out of your adrenals as you ‘get high’ on the rush.

My body, after years of energy medicine and yoga practices, has become highly attuned again. The other day I made the mistake of having a second coffee… God knows why! I felt flighty and jittery for hours, even though I decided to use that energy and go for a long run. Normally, I limit myself to one latte (with only one shot of espresso), just three times per week, and always before 10am. I like the taste, but I don’t use caffeine to “push through” or alcohol to “calm down.” I’ve been tea-total for decades, in fact.

But many people are stuck in exactly that loop — coffee to wake up, alcohol to wind down, slowly eroding their life force and health.

If we’re going to talk about “hacking,” let’s use the word differently: hacking means staying conscious. Alert. Aware. Checking the body’s subtle responses. Taking a break from the patterns and conventions society tells us are normal — and finding your own truth.

The Elegant Alternative

To me, “biohacking” is an ugly word for an ugly idea: that you can force health from the outside in.

I’m not against embracing technology to elevate awareness — but using it as some kind of shortcut, or quick fix, is a bad idea.

The elegant alternative is to live in harmony with your biology, to restore rhythm, to move with life instead of cutting into it. Real transformation doesn’t come from hacking life open — it comes from aligning with it.

So next time someone offers you the latest “hack,” remember: the ancients already gave us the keys. And they didn’t cost £500, or need Wi-Fi. They only require you to show up, breathe deeply, and remember the wisdom that’s already inside you.

💬 Join the Conversation

I’d love to hear your reflections. Have you tried any so-called “biohacks”? Do you lean on nature, or a mix of both? Drop a comment below and let’s open this up.