THE LOW-TECH BIOHACK
Cold water, morning light, stronger muscles and a few other ways to tinker with the machinery.
There was a time when being healthy was a fairly low-tech affair. You ate your vegetables, went for a walk, attempted not to smoke forty cigarettes a day and, if particularly committed, owned a bicycle.
This was admittedly an imperfect system. But it did have one considerable advantage: you could go to bed without receiving a performance review in the morning.
Now the first thing a certain kind of person does upon waking is consult a ring.
The ring knows things. It knows how long you slept, how deeply you slept, how efficiently you slept and whether, despite believing you slept rather well, you actually slept terribly. It has examined your heart rate, temperature and movement during the night and concluded that you are only 63 per cent ready for Tuesday.
You had felt fine until this point.
Welcome to biohacking, the increasingly elaborate business of attempting to improve the human body through data, technology, nutrition, temperature, light, supplements and occasionally doing something deeply unpleasant before breakfast.
The term covers an enormous spectrum. At the sensible end are things your grandmother might recognise: sleep properly, exercise, eat nutritious food, get outside. Further along come continuous glucose monitors, red-light panels, saunas, cryotherapy, nootropics, carefully timed eating, wearable trackers and supplement regimes requiring the sort of weekly pill organiser previously associated with retirement.
At the extreme end are people spending millions trying to slow biological ageing.
This is where things become interesting.
Because biohacking isn't really just about health. It is about something humans have been preoccupied with for thousands of years: control.
We simply have better equipment now.
The ancient Greeks had elaborate ideas about diet and exercise. Romans built baths. Medieval physicians worried about the balance of bodily humours. Victorians developed health resorts, hydrotherapy and a tremendous enthusiasm for restorative sea air. The twentieth century gave us vitamins, jogging, aerobics, wheatgrass and men in Lycra cycling very seriously on stationary bicycles.
Every generation believes it has finally cracked the body.
Ours has an app. Buying a device feels like action. Following a protocol feels sophisticated. Taking a capsule requires less negotiation with oneself than going for a walk every day for the next thirty years.
Technology can undoubtedly help us understand our bodies better. Some of today's strange-looking experiments may become tomorrow's ordinary medicine. There is nothing noble about refusing useful science merely because it arrives attached to Bluetooth.
But there is also something worth protecting from all this optimisation.
Dinner that goes on too late. A second glass of wine. Sleeping without knowing your score. Going for a walk without counting it. Eating something because it is delicious rather than because it produces an admirable graph.
The point of having a healthier body, presumably, is that it allows you to have a life.
It would be unfortunate to optimise all the fun out of it.
Ten small things that may actually make you feel better.
01. FINISH YOUR SHOWER COLD
You don't need an ice bath in the garden. Turn the shower cold for the final 30 seconds and gradually work up to a minute or two if you enjoy it. Cold exposure can feel invigorating, but consider this optional rather than a longevity miracle.
02. WALK AFTER YOU EAT
Ten or fifteen minutes will do. A short walk after a meal can help moderate the post-meal rise in blood glucose, and it has the additional advantage of getting you away from the washing-up.
03. GET OUTSIDE IN THE MORNING
Open the curtains, then actually leave the house. Morning daylight helps regulate your circadian rhythm and, consequently, sleep later that night. Your phone does not count as sunlight.
04. SIT LESS
You don't need to replace your desk with a treadmill contraption. Stand while taking a phone call, walk to the shop, take the stairs, potter around the house. The human body was not really designed to spend nine consecutive hours folded into an office chair.
05. LIFT SOMETHING HEAVY
Strength matters increasingly as we age. Weights are excellent, but so are resistance exercises and carrying heavy shopping home. Muscle is useful stuff. Keep some.
06. DRINK SOMETHING WARM IN THE MORNING
Hot or warm water can be a pleasant way to rehydrate after sleep, especially if it encourages you to drink more. Lemon is optional. It is not performing a secret detoxification ceremony. Your liver has that department covered.
07. EAT PROTEIN AND PLANTS
Before constructing an elaborate supplement drawer, get the boring foundations right: enough protein, plenty of vegetables, fibre, nuts, seeds, pulses, good fats and foods that still vaguely resemble what they were originally.
08. MAKE SLEEP BORING AGAIN
Dark room. Cool temperature. Similar bedtime. Less bright light and scrolling immediately beforehand. You do not necessarily need to know your sleep score. Occasionally simply sleeping is enough.
09. USE A SAUNA, IF YOU LIKE ONE
There is interesting research around regular sauna use and cardiovascular health, although it isn't a substitute for exercise and the evidence doesn't justify treating it as immortality in a wooden box. Mostly, it feels wonderful on a cold afternoon.
10. SEE PEOPLE
Possibly the least glamorous biohack and one of the most important. Have dinner with friends. Call somebody. Join something. Walk with another person. Strong social connection is consistently associated with better health and longevity, yet nobody has managed to put it into a capsule.
The Cutler protocol: Get some daylight. Walk everywhere. Eat properly. Stay strong. Sleep in the dark. See your friends. Take the occasional cold shower if you insist. Repeat.