The 6 step morning and evening routine of a bio-hacker

Biohacking is a loosely defined field that includes everything from ancient health optimisation strategies like ice baths, breathwork and fasting to fancy new technologies like Hyperbaric Oxygen chambers and NAD+ IV infusions. In my mind, it is about wanting to take control of your health for longer. It is an approach that focuses on healing root causes rather than symptom management as well as increasing health span rather than life span. In this article, I am going to give you a snippet of my morning routine, and you can see if there is anything worth integrating into yours.

The term biohacking only entered the dictionary in 2017, so it is still in its nascent stages. As I am working on my PhD, I get access to all the top academic journals. This means I can go straight to the source to dissect this information for you. I am going to give you a little template of a good morning and evening routine. I will focus on some of the free hacks and sprinkle in some of the pricier gadgets too. I am also going to assume that you know the basics like, don’t eat pop-tarts for breakfast and do some exercise.

Morning Routine

1. Get direct sunlight in your eyes:

• Two to ten minutes of exposure if it’s sunny. Thirty minutes if it is cloudy.
• This will trigger the release of cortisol to wake us up. It also signals the body to stop producing melatonin (the sleep hormone) and sets a timer to start producing it again in the evening.
• No sunglasses or windows — windows reduce the brightness by up to 50%.
• Good sleep hygiene starts first thing in the morning, not just at night.
• This practice has also been shown to help with boosting mood and alleviating depression symptoms (Benedetti et al., 2001).

2. Get grounded.

• While you’re allowing sun into your eyes outside, you can stack your hacks by taking off your shoes and socks and grounding (standing on the ground outside barefoot).
• When your skin comes into contact with the earth, an electrical reaction happens that has been shown to reduce inflammation, boost immunity and speed wound healing! (Oschman et al., 2015) .
• The earth emits a frequency (usually around eight hertz) called the Schumann Resonance. Rubber-soled shoes and tarmac will block the electric current, so you need contact with something like grass, soil, sand, or rock.
• You can even buy sandals with a conductive strap called Earth Runners that allow you to benefit from grounding without being barefoot.

3. Drink a big glass of filtered water with salt.

• Yes, you may be lucky enough to live in a city with a glowing tap water contaminant report…but have you tested the water in your pipes? That water has to go a long way from the filtration plant to your glass.
• Additionally, if you are a highly stressed person, your adrenals will be craving salt first thing. A good quality salt, like Celtic or Himalayan, is the way to go. They will not affect blood pressure because the balance of minerals in natural salt regulates fluid balance.
• ¼ tsp is enough.

4. Drink molecular hydrogen.

• AKA hydrogen-rich water — hydrogen is the smallest atom; hence, it can squeeze into parts of the body that other antioxidants can’t. It has many therapeutic and preventative uses that include providing energy to get sh*t done. (Ohta, 2014).

5. Avoid caffeine for at least 1 hour after waking up.

• The body produces its own cortisol to wake you. This clashes with caffeine, which also affects cortisol (Debono et al., 2009).
• So, give your body a chance to wake itself up before adding the caffeine boost.

6. Don’t check your phone until 1 hour after waking up.

• By checking your phone, you skip the theta and alpha brain wave states and go straight into beta. This primes your brain for distraction, ADHD-type symptoms, and edginess for the rest of the day (What Is the Function of the Various Brainwaves?).
• And if you are checking your phone in bed, you are training your brain to associate your bedroom with these awake and alert states. This could contribute to insomnia-type issues.
• Leave the phone outside of the bedroom and get a good old-fashioned alarm clock if you can.

7. Breathwork.

• For my PhD, I am conducting a clinical trial on breathwork and anxiety, so I have to give breathwork a mention here.
• Moreover, a recent study conducted by Andrew Huberman and his colleagues at Stanford showed breathwork to be more effective than meditation for reducing anxiety and improving mood (Balban et al., 2023).
• The technique I use in my morning routine is called Conscious Connected Breathing…. stay tuned for the results of my trial.

Evening Routine

1. Finish eating at least 3 hours before sleep. Studies show that eating closer to bedtime leads to more nocturnal awakenings (Chung et al., 2020).

2. Two hours before bed, put on blue-light-blocking glasses.

• Wearing amber or red glasses helped to maintain elevated melatonin levels (the sleep hormone) and decreased subjective alertness in one trial (van der Lely et al., 2015).
• Additionally, high levels of blue light exposure — from the likes of LED street lights and advertisement billboards, are associated with “a 60% increased risk” of bowel cancer as well as an increased risk of breast and prostate cancer (Garcia-Saenz et al., 2020).

3. Turn off your mobile phone and Wi-Fi an hour before bed.

• Electromagnetic Frequencies (EMFs) have been shown to increase oxidative stress and impair our antioxidant system.
• This can lead to harmful reactions, such as damage to proteins, lipids, and DNA (Kıvrak et al., 2017) .
• Plus in one trial, bedtime mobile phone use led to longer sleep latency (time to fall asleep), later rise times, higher insomnia scores and increased fatigue (Exelmans & Van den Bulck, 2016).

4. Sleep in a dark room.

• Using an eye mask has been shown to improve sleep quality (Daneshmandi et al., 2012)
• Sleeping in a room with moderate amounts of light increased heart rate and insulin resistance compared to sleeping in a dark room.

5. Sleep in a cold room.

• Being too warm in bed prevents the body from entering deep sleep (Okamoto-Mizuno & Mizuno, 2012).

6. Go to bed at the same time every night.

• Sleep consistency has been shown to be more important than sleep duration in measures of health (Okano, 2019).

7. Read a book

• People who read books have improved sleep quality, according to a trial by Finucane et al. (2021). A simple ending to our routine.

I hope you have learned something new from this list. You certainly don’t have to do all these steps to benefit. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good! I also hope you haven’t been freaked out by all the health challenges we have to contend with in our modern world. Taking control of your health can feel empowering. And the stress of worrying about all these things can be detrimental to your health, so stay positive!

Phew! There is so much more I want to share with you! I haven’t even gone into some of the staples of the bio-hackers tool chest, like ice baths, sauna, hyperbaric oxygen, breathwork, community, nootropics, bulletproof coffee, and vitamin IVs!

If you want to keep learning, you can find me on Instagram @The_Breath_Geek or book a workshop through The Wellbeing Agency!