Live Longer: How Biohacking can combat aging and increase both lifespan and health span

𝘼𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙞𝙨 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙘𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙄 𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙣 𝙩𝙤 𝙗𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙠 (and here's how).

I'll be 64 years old when my youngest graduates high school. Some would say I got a late start but I say I'm just getting started. When I was a kid, there were TV shows where people would be living in retirement homes in their 50's (WTF? I'm 49!).

I remember an actor named Wilfred Brimley, he just looked old, and at the age of 50 years old and 9 months, he starred in the 1983 move "Cocoon". I just found out that there is something called the Brimley Barrier that people can use to gauge how they are aging at 18,500 days, the number of days Brimley was alive when that movie was released. 

Last week I went to see an 80's concert and enjoyed watching Howard Jones, Stacy Q and Wang Chung rock it in their 60's. I'm also seeing Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves and Arnold Schwarznegger still kicking ass in the movies, just like they were decades ago. 

This has gotten me extremely fascinated with aging and longevity because if these people I've followed for so long are breaking the paradigm of aging, then what is possible for me if I set my intentions and develop the High Value Skill of Biohacking to reverse the clock? 

What is Biohacking? 

Biohacking refers to the practice of making intentional changes to your lifestyle, diet, environment, or body in order to enhance your physical, mental, and/or emotional well-being. It's essentially a DIY approach to optimizing and improving various aspects of your body and mind. Biohacking can involve a wide range of techniques and interventions, often combining elements from different fields such as biology, medicine, nutrition, psychology, and technology.

That my friends is why Biohacking for longevity and health is what I consider a very High Value Skill and one that is not taught in school, although many of the biohackers that are helping us understand the science of aging are brilliant scholars, doctors, scientists and biologists that bring this information to us. 

Above photo: 49 years old, this is what just 1 month of cutting out sugar and starchy carbs such as corn, bread, pasta, rice and potatoes did. No change in working out, its been a habit I've had for decades but I did feel so much stronger in week 3 and 4! 

Aging is a disease. 

These scientists, researchers, biohackers and doctors are having breakthrough after breakthrough showing that aging doesn't necessarily just happen (like we've all been taught) but should be viewed as a disease. A big paradigm shift is viewing cancer, diabetes, heart disease, alzhemer's and body degradation as 'symptoms' and manifestation of aging which is the true disease.

Here are some thought leaders to follow when it comes to the topic of aging and longevity that have helped me have a much clearer understanding as well as action items that I am implementing to live longer. 

👉 Harvard researcher David Sinclair in his book Lifespan, says that there will be some people born today that will still be alive in the late twenty second century. He's known for bringing awareness of the diabetes drug Metformin as a possible way to reverse or delay aging, including age related disease. His book is fascinating and talks about some very promising scientific innovations when it comes to gene therapy. 

David talks about aging like a scratched DVD, the DNA information is still there but every time a cell divides, its losing integrity just like recording from a scratched DVD. His work involves finding ways to store that information and send it on to new cells. 

👉 Dr. Mark Hyman, author of Forever Young, looks ripped at 62 and better than he did in his 40's. He's been a long time advocate of 'functional medicine', meaning treating the diseases and not the symptoms (the band aids) that traditional medicine addresses. 

👉 Dr. Peter Attia did a 4 day fast with Chris Hemsworth in the documentary Limitless to demonstrate the power of autophagy, the ability of our body to 'self eat' the zombie cells that cause aging. Peter's book does a brilliant job breaking down the '4 horsemen' of aging and gives very practical advice on how to not just live longer, but live healthier (what he calls medicine 3.0). 

A big insight that he helped me understand is that medicine 1.0 was the evolution of antibiotics and vaccines which saved millions of lives. Medicine 2.0 is about treating age related diseases, chemotherapy would fall into this category. Medicine 3.0 is addressing metabolic diseases, basically getting in front of aging and make better choices with food, exercise and knowledge before these diseases manifesting (when it is too late). 

👉 Tony Robbins is 62 years old and puts out 12k calories per day at his multi-day live events (this is more than a Tour De France cyclist puts out in a day). His book Lifeforce is absolutely incredible and an encyclopedia of ways to extend life, remove chronic illnesses and goes into things like stem cell therapy. 

After spending a great deal of time studying aging and longevity as well as biohacking to take control over my aging, here are some of the common themes and practices that many of these thought leaders are talking about: 

𝙎𝙘𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙗𝙖𝙘𝙠𝙚𝙙 𝙬𝙖𝙮𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙡𝙞𝙛𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙖𝙣 & 𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙩𝙮:

✅ Get 7 to 8 hours of deep sleep per day, opt out of the hustle and grind.

✅ Meditation reduces toxic stress and can increase telomerase (the amino acid that helps DNA from degrading when it replicates).

✅ Time restricted eating, intermittent fasting; allows for autophagy and cell clean up. 16 hour fast with 8 hour window is easier for most people and provides a ton of benefits.

✅ Strength training: A must to keep muscles from wasting away (sarcopenia).

✅ Endurance training: helps your mitochondria manufacturing energy the right way (a big part of aging is mitochondrial dysfunction).

❌ Sugar is probably the biggest culprit of aging and its everywhere. Starchy foods that aren't sweet still metabolize to sugar in your body (pasta, bread, corn, potatoes, rice).

✅ Live a life of passion and purpose where you want to keep going instead of one where you look forward to retiring because you hate your job.

Here is a list of books by the thought leaders mentioned in this article that I highly recommend if you are interested in living longer and living healthier. Take control of your aging. 

I'd love it if you also followed my High Value Skills Podcast available on both Spotify and Apple if you are interested in learning about all the incredible skills that are NOT taught in school that help you live a kickass life of abundance and alignment.