With a heart rate monitor and stepometer on her wrist and a light sensor clipped onto her jumper, Dr Alka Patel looks like an astronaut preparing for a mission to the International Space Station. But for Dr Patel, this is ordinary. Putting on her collection of wearable tech is simply part of her morning routine, alongside brushing her teeth, doing her hair and applying make-up.
And she’s not the only one – around 3.65 million Brits own a smartwatch. The Duchess of Sussex has even been spotted wearing an anti-stress patch, which claims to slow down the body’s response to stress by sending signals to the parasympathetic nervous system. Wearable tracking devices to monitor our daily steps or activity levels are also proving popular.
The difference lies in the data, as a YouGov survey found just 54% of Brits understand all of the metrics on a wearable device. Now, Dr Patel is on a mission to get people using this information to their advantage as part of what’s being dubbed “biohacking”.
“The hacking bit is about looking at the principles and processes that take place in your body. The bio bit is biology. What you’re doing is finding a shortcut to take over your biology,” she explains.
“I also like to refer to it as biosynergy. That’s about how you integrate your body, brain and beliefs. Nothing in your body works alone. Nothing hurts alone. Nothing heals alone. Everything has to be integrated, so it’s about making everything come together.”
Thanks to the past few years being dominated by a pandemic, national lockdowns and vaccination programmes, Dr Patel believes people have been drawn to the trend.
“Post-Covid, people have realised how fragile life is and they want vitality rather than fragility,” she says. “People want to take control of their health. Rather than not being sick, they want to be healthy. These are two different things.”
But with biohacking sounding like something straight out of computer science, how can we incorporate it into our lives? According to Dr Patel, it can be broken down into four areas…
Testing
While a one-size-fits-all approach may work in other aspects of our lives, people are looking for tailored health advice.
“We do a lot of urine and saliva testing. I also test lots of hormones as well as gut microbiome to look at what’s there,” says Dr Patel. “People want to know their personal data to make informed decisions, like to see if they’re genetically a morning lark or a night owl and alter their schedules accordingly.”
She can also testify about the benefits of testing. “I ran the London Marathon and I never thought I was a long distance runner but my genetic profiling said I had a stronger genetic profile for endurance than I do for strength. When I was running, knowing I was made for long-distance spurred me on.”
Training
It’s all well and good gathering information, but it’s what we do with it that’s important. In some cases, we can respond to the data presented to us by training our bodies to work or respond a certain way.
“Training involves things like high-intensity interval training or sleep training. A lot of people who turn to biohacking do so because they can’t sleep well, so we take a look at how they can hack their natural rhythms to fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer,” says Dr Patel.
“Intermittent fasting is also a form of training your body to eat within a certain window, which is great for longevity, weight loss and your metabolism.”
Tracking
Smartwatches are great at encouraging us to take 10,000 steps a day, but there’s a vast amount of other data we can track.
“Tracking refers to devices that monitor our bodily functions and external environment, such as nutritional and fitness tracking,” explains Dr Patel. From body composition to menstrual health, paying attention can inform what improvements are possible.
“I have a ring that tracks my sleep to see how much I’m getting and what kind of sleep I’m getting,” she adds. “I’ve also got a light tracker that alerts me when I’m in harmful levels of lights and also tells me when I need to get more light, which can help with our sleep cycles. There’s so much data we can track daily.”
Treating
Remedies can be simpler than you may think. “Often people wake up and think they’ve slept really well, but they’ve actually not had high quality sleep at all. If that’s the case we can look at what needs changing, whether that’s pillows, lighting or even being more active.”
But before approaching biohacking, it’s important to understand what results you want to achieve. “You need to really think about what you want, why you want it and how you’re going to get it,” she says. “Once you’ve got a goal in mind, you can think about everything you can hack to achieve it.”
Dr Alka Patel is the host of the Health Hacktivators podcast. For more information on her Hacktivation retreats, visit dralkapatel.com/retreat
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