10 Free and Natural Bio-hacks

10 Free Natural Bio-hacks

The best hacks in life are free. Here Andreas Breitfeld presents the ten greatest gifts Mother Nature has given us, why they’re good for us, how to make the most of them and who knows more about them

Written by Andreas Breitfeld

Published on 04.12.2021 · 6:00 EST

This article is a repost which originally appeared on RedBull

Edited for content. The opinions expressed in this article may not reflect the opinions of this site’s editors, staff or members.

Our Takeaways:

· Exposure to sunlight for 10-15 minutes straight is useful for the body’s production of Vitamin D.

· Sleep is not only important for recovery but also for development and improvement

· “Earthing” can be used to positively charge the body

LIGHT: The conductor for our cells

What’s in it for me?

Our cells, our organs and our whole body can only work in harmony; the liver, lungs, kidneys, heart, brain, skin and muscles do have to know what each other are to make the whole system work. It all needs to be finely tuned, and the body uses hormones and messenger substances for that purpose. But the most important thing is light, which we absorb via the eyes and skin. Light is the most important conductor in our lives; the right light at the right time transforms this chaotic mass of 100 trillion cells within our body into a perfectly tuned orchestra. UV-B light is also the ingredient that our body turns into the vital vitamin D.

What should i do?

Go outside. Absorb natural light morning, noon and night, and do so with as much exposed skin as possible for 10 to 15 minutes in the afternoon. (Tip: your skin forms vitamin D when the sun is higher in the sky than 42°, so if the shadow you cast is shorter than you, all is good for vitamin D formation.) Avoid the blue light of your computer screens and/or use blue-light-blocking glasses. And while we’re on cell interplay, I’ve stopped wearing sunglasses for one reason: wearing them increases the risk of sunburn. The body is receiving two contradictory signals—shade on the eyes yet light on the skin – and just cannot deal with them properly.

Who knows more?

Dr Alexander Wunsch does. He’s the world’s most important photobiologist and there are multiple fascinating podcast episodes about him. Also, be sure to look up his channel on Vimeo. He’s also written a book about photobiology in his native German language: Die Kraft des Lichts [The Power of Light].

SLEEP: The number 1 Biohack

What’s in it for me?

It couldn’t be simpler and we can’t say it often enough: sleep better and you’ll live better. Sleep is the best, most important and most effective agent for relaxation, rest, regeneration and recovery there is. It’s the foundation upon which our performance, health and longevity are built. Sleep makes us wiser because it’s when we sort out the stuff we’ve learned that day. We get stronger and more resilient because we don’t just repair the damage that training has done but we also improve our starting condition; this is what we call the training effect. We get healthier because the lymphatic system cleanses our brain of all the waste products. Cell damage anywhere in the body is repaired, too.

The oft-used comparison of sleep to recharging your mobile battery is incorrect because we humans recharge our own battery, and more than that, we even improve our batteries’ charging capacity. And all we have to do is make sleep our top priority.

“In sleep we get smarter, we get stronger and more persistent, we get healthier. Let us make sleep the number one priority in our lives.”

Andreas Breitfeld pays attention to many small factors to maximize on sleep.

What should i do?

You can actively improve your sleep by not eating anything for the last three hours before you go to bed, switching off stimulating light impulses for the last two hours (as little screen light as possible and wear blue-light-blocking glasses) and avoiding stress in the evenings wherever possible. Your bedroom should be very dark and cool, preferably between 16°C and 20°C. Magnesium works for many people, though not all, as does ashwagandha, but give both a try. Two to three hours before going to bed, I take melatonin, the so-called sleep hormone, which can do so much more than just make us tired. Some doctors advise against it, but current studies claim that your body’s own production of it isn’t affected by you taking it. Melatonin really is worth a try.

Who knows more?

Austria’s Professor Günther Amann-Jennson has devised the Samina sleep system; it’s expensive but probably the best thing currently on the market. Amann-Jennson, a doctor and psychologist, makes lots of excellent content [in his native German] available for free on his website at einfach-gesund-schlafen.com.

EARTHING: The positive in the negative

What’s in it for me?

This may all sound like esoteric magic, but it is crystal-clear physics. Ion exchange with the negatively charged Earth reduces oxidative stress and the horribly dangerous chronic inflammation processes that come with it because it positively charges our body. (Oxidative stress is, incidentally, a turbo boost for the ageing process.) All we have to do is come into direct contact with the planet and let the electrons flow by walking barefoot in a meadow or going swimming in a natural body of water, for example. Another benefit of coming into direct contact with the Earth: the 7.83 Hertz at which the Earth vibrates is what we call the Schumann resonance and it might even reduce electromagnetic stress.

What should I do?

Take your shoes off and walk barefoot in a garden, in the woods or through a meadow. Leap into a natural body of water every now and again instead of just splashing around in the ice-bath. You can also earth when you sleep, but that’s another topic because it only makes sense to use earthing sheets or other similar items when there’s no electric smog caused by Wi-Fi and the like. Otherwise earthing will turn you into a human antenna – pretty much the exact opposite of what we’re trying to achieve here.

Who knows more?

Austria’s Marco Grosch, the self-titled minimalist bio¬hacker, has excellent knowledge of a broad range of topics in this field. One of those topics is earthing, to which he devotes his German-language website (minimalist-biohacker.com) and his Instagram feed.

BREATHING: Our brain’s remote control

What’s in it for me?

Breathing is an incredibly powerful tool; I can breathe myself into a calm state or breathe myself into a rage and frenzy. No other action has such direct access to my brain and autonomic nervous system. Try box breathing, for example – breathe in for four seconds, hold your breath for another four, breathe out for four, hold your breath for four seconds again. It helps calm the nerves. Wim Hof’s method of breathing can strengthen the immune system and, when combined with the cold, it can even relieve depression. But just by consistently breathing through your nose, not your mouth, every day, you’ve already taken a big step towards improved health.

“The mouth is there for eating, for kissing and—I know that particularly well—for talking. But not for breathing. Especially not to breathe in!”

Breitfeld says to breathe through your nose in everyday life should be the goal

What should i do?

Breath through your nose. I’ve focused a lot on this subject recently, including mouth-taping: by taping my mouth up when I go to bed, I force myself to breathe through my nose, which takes a lot of getting used to but improves my sleep. The mouth is for eating, kissing and – I know this very well – talking, but not for breathing and definitely not for breathing in. The advantages of breathing through the nose are huge. It removes particles from the air we breathe, it moistens and warms or cools it and it means the body gets more nitric oxide, which broadens the blood vessels. Nitric oxide also decreases blood pressure, and some will know that it even helps medication like Viagra achieve success. I recommend that everyone experiments with their breathing. There’s so much to discover, so familiarise yourselves with the ideas of Wim Hof and the still relatively unknown Konstantin Buteyko. It’s really fun and can change your life.

Who knows more?

Kasper van der Meulen is my breathing guru. He offers really amazing breathing training in the Netherlands. He’s an extremely nice guy who is good at what he does. Find out more at kaspersfocus.com or find him at @kaspersfocus on Instagram.

FASTING: Cleanse, don’t eat

What’s in it for me?

Fasting is when the body gets no source of energy from solids or liquids. (Light is also really a form of energy but doesn’t count here.) After a while, the body begins to take the energy it needs from its reserves – and it has plenty of them. Glycogen in the muscles and liver gets depleted first and then, of course, there’s all that body fat, which even thin people have. But it’s all much smarter than the body just using up stored energy. While fasting, the body begins to break down its own cells and uses them to produce energy. The fascinating part is it burns only damaged cells – not fully operational ones. This process, known as autophagy, turns out to be the most efficient form of inner cleansing.

What should i do?

I eat O.M.A.D.—one meal a day—usually a very early dinner. Strictly speaking, I’m not fasting at all because I have coffee with butter and MCT [medium-chain triglyceride] oil in the morning and before noon. Fasting covers a fairly broad spectrum. For some it’s enough to avoid carbohydrates and protein, while others are more radical and think that even drinking tea or coffee or taking vitamins or magnesium would break the fast. But however you define it, start by skipping breakfast a couple of days a week (water, black coffee and unsweetened tea are fine). In step two, don’t eat the first meal of the day until at least 16 hours have passed since the last meal the day before.

Who knows more?

Julia Tulipan, of Vienna, Austria, is one of the top experts in ketogenic nutrition. The keto diet is sort of preliminary fasting, and Julia and her husband have brought their own Tulipans range of keto convenience foods to some supermarket shelves. Her website, juliatulipan.com, and Instagram feed, @paleolc, provide a lot of free German-language content and her Evolution Radio Show podcast [also in German] is fascinating listen.

FOREST: Green bathing

What’s in it for me?

The term ‘forest bathing’ has really taken off of late. It sounds spectacular, perhaps, but all it means in reality is going into the woods on a regular basis for a very slow and deliberate walk. What can that give a biohacker? Much more than you might think. The forest air contains thousands of terpenes, aromatic plant-based substances that fire our immune system and could even lower the risk of some cancers. The green of the forest and the natural calm reduce stress hormones—and not just during your forest bath because the reduction is still detectable for several days afterwards. Thorough research into forest bathing has been carried out in Japan and South Korea, where it’s applied as a recognised form of medicine. So in future, perhaps GPs will be telling their patients to take a hike, and I think that’s wonderful.

“In Japan and South Korea, doctors send their patients out for walks in the forest. ‘Shinrin-Yoku’, forest bathing, is a highly effective therapy.”

Aromas in the forest are even said to reduce the risk of cancer.

What should i do?

Walk through the forest for an hour or two a week, preferably alone and, importantly, without your mobile or any other electronic devices. It does everyone good. Ideally take a few steps barefoot or, if nobody is looking, hug a tree every now and again for the earthing and ion exchange, as mentioned above. But if you want to make your trip to the forest even better, the greatest concentration of terpenes occurs during misty or rainy weather. We humans have a need for nature. And once you learn—or relearn—to tune into it, you understand that your body has a sort of level indicator to show whether we have absorbed enough nature or not.

Who knows more?

Rolf Duda, aka Peakwolf, from Switzerland, is a former management consultant and a hero among biohackers. He has a soft spot for nature and the forest, but whatever he talks about, it’s always well-founded, intelligent and entertaining. I’m a true fan. His German-language website (peakwolf.ch) is a good introduction to Rolf’s world—from there you can go to his blog, podcast and Instagram feed.

WATER: 99/100

What’s in it for me?

Only every 100th molecule in our body isn’t a water molecule. Yes, you read that right. 99 out of 100 molecules in our body consist of two hydrogen and one oxygen atom. We humans are a (cleverly structured, admittedly) watery solution. So water is a prerequisite for everything working —every metabolic process, every detox, every nerve impulse, every thought, every emotion. Just a couple percent too little water in the body—I’m speaking one or two litres here—and our capacities are radically decreased.

What should i do?

Drink water. Personally, I drink filtered and revitalised water but in most countries you can mostly drink the tap water without a second thought. How much should you drink? Anything under 0.3 of a litre per 10 kilos of bodyweight is actively harmful to your performance and health. If you weigh 70 kilos, 2.1 litres a day is enough if you don’t work out, have almost no stress and don’t go to the sauna. But 0.3 litres per 10 kilos of bodyweight is the minimum. Make sure that you really drink enough for a full week. (Mostly in the morning so that your urine is very clear by noon.)

Who knows more?

Thomas Hartwig. His Berlin start-up Leogant creates perfect water filtration and treatment systems. Thomas is a water philosopher. The best sources of knowledge are the podcasts he has appeared on, such as the Flowgrade Show, with my friend Max Gotzler.

MEDITATION : The brain improver

What’s in it for me?

There’s not much more to add to what thousands upon thousands of studies confirm; meditation makes us smarter, happier and more creative. It’s probably the best and simplest thing we can do for our brain health. Meditation is something like the continuation of breathing and sleep’s little brother. There’s no right or wrong in meditating, and the only mistake you can make is not meditating regularly.

What should i do?

During my summer holiday last year, I did a sort of huge mindset reset where for two weeks solid I meditated my back side off for literally four, five, six hours a day. In my daily life, I now very consciously take a couple of minutes out, where I close my eyes, breathe in calmly and breathe out more calmly still, focusing solely on my breath. I really like playing around with the Muse headband that supervises how deep my meditation goes. There are some incredible meditations apps out there – and the best one that’s free of charge is Oak.

“If you want to take advantage of digital support: The best free meditation app is ‘Oak’, the best German-speaking one is ‘7Mind’.”

Apps and gadgets can be helpful meditation tools, according to Breitfeld.

Who knows more?

Germany’s Manuel Ronnefeldt, who founded the 7Mind meditation app – take a look at 7mind.de/en, where you’ll find a lot of free and detailed information.

HEAT: The life-lengthener

What’s in it for me?

Heat for free? Yes, by sitting in a thermal spring or going out in the blazing sun in the summer. Where I really like to go is the sauna. All types of sauna work, even though the effects differ depending on whether you’re using infrared or heated rocks – but the principle is the same. The main benefit is that sweating cleanses our bodies via its largest detoxifying organ, the skin. The second and third most important benefits (and there are a whole lot more besides) are an improved cardiovascular system and the so-called heat shock proteins the body forms. The sauna is, to put it simply, a boot camp workout for our cells. There are mind-blowing studies from Finland about how effective regular sauna visits are. The result is up to 40% lower mortality rates. In other words, during the reference period – the study ran for more than 20 years – regular sauna-¬goers reduced their risk of death by almost half.

What should i do?

My lab has an infrared sauna that I use several times a week. Sometimes I treat myself to a hot bath one to two hours before going to bed as perfect preparation for a good sleep. But, beware, heat and digestion do not make good bedfellows. Don’t go to the sauna for two, or even three, hours after eating. Heat means stress for the body, and you don’t digest well when stressed.

Who knows more?

Johannes Kettelhodt, the mastermind behind the Clearlight infrared cabin. He and his team have achieved something special. They make their saunas without creating any electric smog. That is a significant help as the body detoxes.

COLD: Inflammation’s natural enemy

What’s in it for me?

Inflammation can be a good thing because it triggers an alarm signal in the body at the start of a healing process. An injury doesn’t heal despite the inflammation; it heals because of the inflammation that forms around it. But inflammation can do serious long-term damage if it goes on too long. Low-threshold inflammation is definitely not something you want to have in your body, and the cold helps reduce it, while accelerating regeneration after sport and injury and improving the immune system. it stimulates the vagus nerve and with it our heart rate variability and ability to relax.

What should i do?

I take a five-minute ice-bath where the water is about 3°C almost every day in a repurposed deep-freeze in my lab. But how to get started? The easiest tip for beginners is to alternate your showers. At the end of your morning shower, just let the water run cold for 30 seconds and then do another 30 seconds in warm water. The hot-cold alternation is also very effective for recovery after sport. A little tip for amateur bodybuilders: taking a cold shower for longer than ten minutes (in 10°C water) or an ice-bath for longer than three minutes (in 3°C water) after training will make you recover more quickly, but it will also slow down muscle growth quite a lot, so take a shorter cold shower or only do the next cold therapy the following morning.

Who knows more?

Josephine Worseck, a doctor of molecular biology from Berlin, Germany, who specialises in the Wim Hof method. She’s also the author of a groundbreaking German-language book—Die Heilkraft der Kälte [The Healing Power of Cold]—which I thoroughly recommend, along with her workshops. There’s also a lot of content on Josephine’s website at: josephineworseck.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Put a Giant Red Light on My Balls to Triple My Testosterone Levels

I Put a Giant Red Light on My Balls to Triple My Testosterone Levels

I tried red light therapy, a radical (and expensive) alternative treatment, on my testicles— and honestly, I’ve never felt better

By Ben Greenfield
Oct 26, 2017

This article is a repost which originally appeared on Men’s Health

Edited for content.

I’m not really a nudist kind of guy. The last nudist beach I visited primarily featured lots of curly hair, very unattractive gonads, and a disturbing volleyball game spectacle, so ever since, I’ve tended to stay away from nudist beaches and bars. But three months ago, while on a camping trip, I decided to sunbathe nude in the forest. I lay out in my hammock with my drawers tossed to the forest floor, my crotch proudly displayed to the bright, blue sky, basking in the glorious feeling of warmth on my balls. I pondered whether this was some kind of little-known biohack I was tapping into. After all, enough people expose their crotch to the warm rays of the sun that there must be some benefit to it, right? I had to find out.

As a man on a constant quest to optimize my brain and body (including my own balls), I decided to actually look into the health effects of UV light on the genitals. To my surprise, some studies have actually demonstrated that exposing the torso or the testes to light can potentially increase testosterone. In fact, studies on the effects of light on the testes go way back to 1939, when researchers exposed various parts of men’s bodies to UV light. They found that men’s testosterone levels went up by 120% when the participants’ chests were exposed to UV light, and they went up by 200% with UV exposure to the genital area. (This was the same study former professional baseball player Gabe Kapler cited back in 2015, when he advocated for tanning your testicles in a blog post that later went viral.)

To be fair, the results of the 1939 study are nearly 80 years old, so it’s possible that the effects of sunlight on your nuts have been overstated. But assuming it is good for you, there’s one major problem with it: most dudes don’t have the time, desire, or year-round exposure to sunlight to step out into the backyard buck-naked. (Not to mention that most guys have something called “neighbors,” many of whom have access to phones and can call the police.) Ultimately, moseying through the neighborhood on a sunny day with your pants jacked down isn’t a practical way of getting your daily dose of testosterone.

So I delved back into the research, and messaged the one guy I consider to be an expert in all things testosterone and sperm-count related: my Finnish friend and physician Dr. Olli Sovijarvi, who studied at the University of Helsinki. I originally met Dr. Sovijarvi when speaking at a biohacking conference he hosts in Finland. Turns out that since those initial sunshine studies, many more studies have investigated the effects of direct sunlight exposure to the torso, which increases a human male’s testosterone levels by anywhere from 25% to 160%, depending on the individual.

Sunlight exposure directly to the testes reportedly has an even more profound effect, boosting production in Leydig cells (the cells that produce testosterone) by an average of 200%. Olli went on to inform me that some animal studies have linked light, particularly a special form of light called “red light”, to increased testicular function. (It’s important to note, however, that this is not exactly proven science: one red light study conducted on rams, for instance, was inconclusive.)

If you haven’t heard of red light, or if your only experience with red light is a streetlight or strip bar, you’re not alone. But basically the theory is this: while sunlight has many beneficial effects, such as vitamin D production and improved mood, it is not without its downsides. Too much exposure to sunlight, particularly to sensitive areas like the skin around your precious ball sac, can create sunburn, excess radiation, inflammation and damage. And let’s face it: you don’t want a shrunken, shriveled, dehydrated dick, no matter how impressive the tan.

Red light, however, is different than sunlight. Red light is comprised of light wavelengths in the range of 600-950 nanometers (nm). According to red light therapy proponents, red light works to stimulate ATP production, increase energy available to the cell and in particular, increase the activity of the Leydig cells in your testes, which are the cells responsible for testosterone production.

It’s important to note that there are currently no light therapy devices on the market cleared by FDA for the enhanced production of testosterone LED-based therapy. That said, the treatment is generally considered low-risk, so the products like the one I tried do not require FDA clearance. (A few treatments like LED red-light beds, however, have been approved by the FDA for very narrow indications, like wrinkle reduction, etc.) It also should be noted that most (but not all) of the existing clinical research related to testosterone production and sperm mobility stems from animal studies, not studies involving humans.

There is also another caveat to this — and this is the part where Olli just about scared my pants off (or more appropriately, back on). Many types of lamps and bulbs sold for red light therapy (such as incandescents, heat lamps, infrared lamps that generate red light at greater than 1000nm) give off a significant amount of heat and can actually fry your testicles. So apparently, you have to be careful when you use red light therapy, unless self-castration with a red heating lamp from Home Depot is on your wishlist.

The good Dr. Olli then went on to inform me that each night he lays down on his couch, pulls down his pants, and hugs a big long panel of red infrared light from an LED source at 600-950nm. It sounded just like hugging a giant, warm teddy bear (a very hard and uncomfortable teddy bear, plugged into a wall outlet and generating enough red light to turn the entire room into a video arcade).

I was convinced. The morning after my conversation with Olli, I ordered something called a “JOOVV” (pronounced “Joove”) light. This was the red light he personally recommended and used himself, and I didn’t want to play around with frying my balls to a crisp with a cheapo knockoff, so I spent the big bucks (a grand total of $995) for what the website described as a “full body LED red light therapy device”.

When my JOOVV arrived the next week, I hoisted it downstairs to my office, leaned it against my stand-up desk, pulled down my pants and flipped it on.

I jumped back as best I could with my underwear wrapped around my ankles. Holy hell. Not only was the red light panel itself as wide as my torso and nearly five feet high, but the light coming out of this thing was freaking blinding. I fumbled for the little sunglasses that were included with the light panel and slapped them on. There, much better.

No longer feeling like I was staring into the depths of a semi-truck’s red brake lights, I simply stood there, naked. I replied to a few emails, then checked my watch. Five minutes. That should be good. After all, according to good ol’ Dr. Olli, five to 20 minutes is the sweet spot for red light exposure to your gonads, and I didn’t want to overtrain or excessively fry my little fellas on their first foray into the wonderful world of red light.

The rest of the morning, my crotch felt warm. Alive. So I did it again. Glancing out my office window to make sure the lawnmower guy wasn’t tooling around in the grass, I pulled down my drawers and bathed myself in the heavenly, warm, tingly glow, this time for eight minutes.

That night, my wife and I made love. Admittedly, I felt – well – a unique heavenly, warm, tingly glow in my crotch. Nice.

Two days later, I waited until the evening, then wandered downstairs. I rubbed my hands together, took a deep breath, and flipped my JOOVV on. I called my mom to see how her day was going mom (she had no clue what was going on below the phone). Ten minutes. I read a blog post. Fifteen minutes. My crotch grew more and more warm, but in a pleasant, day-at-the-beach sort of way. I finished an email. Twenty minutes. Mission complete.

That night was date night, and I was a rock star.

I sat at dinner, horny, my penis pulsing, staring across the table at my wife and feeling as though I’d popped a couple Viagra. Later, I blew the biggest load I could recall in recent memory.

And from that point on, for nearly the past seven months, I’ve stuck with twenty minutes of red light exposure on my crotch each day. Actually, I’m afraid to do more. I suspect there must be a law of diminishing returns, and I don’t desire to wind up with my dick looking like a leather handbag. But in the meantime, it is now a daily habit to pull down my pants at my desk, flip on my JOOVV and get my red light on.