“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” —Buckminster Fuller
I like changing my existing model. Frequently. I live for dynamic transformation. Maybe even a fair bit of chaos. It’s no coincidence that my perfume choice needs to smell like wind; stasis is antithetical to my nature.
Because of this, I excel at change. I can bring a high degree of focus to a desired task and progress quickly.
BUT, the stronger the focus, the narrower the scope. I can usually only bring an effective, sustainable focus to no more than three things at a time.
For the past year and a half, my laser beam has been targeted on my fitness and nutrition, with tremendous results: an incredibly disciplined lifestyle, boundless energy, and a body that can do increasingly more athletic things. In the past two months, though, I have struggled keeping fitness at my center because my focus has been drawn to writing, my social life, and my motorcycle (and, well, bike life in general).
The problem is, I want to be able to focus on ALL these things. And more. I need a way to help me do that. I need a laser beam that can focus on more things at once… something that can optimize my habits so I can do this.
Fortunately, I stumbled upon biohacking.
To me, that word is a bit jargony, but let’s go with it because a) we all love shortcuts (hacking) b) we would rather call it ‘bio’ than refer to it as anything having to do with spirit (me included, though I think biohacking has more to do with spirit than it appears).
According to some, biohacking is the art and science of optimizing your body/mind/performance with systems thinking, biology, and technology. Many biohacks focus on nutrition, which I am exploring, or smart pills, which I am not really interested in. Other types of biohacks are simply behavior modification techniques that allow people to optimize through managing their focus.
From the avenues I’ve started pursuing, biohacking techniques seem to boil down to modern ways of recognizing and engaging with the interference pattern between spirit and matter–the critical element responsible for creating our physical reality. Biohackers aren’t calling it that, but that’s what I recognize it as.
Example–researchers looked at the unique brainwave patterns of Tibetan monks. In “hacking” why their brainwaves were so different (particularly gamma waves oscillating as high as 40 cycles per second), they eventually found a high correlation between powerful gamma activity and the aspect of unconditional compassion and radical forgiveness. Extrapolating from that, neuroscience research into how forgiveness impacts human physiology is compelling. Thanks to neuroscientists hacking ancient knowledge, we don’t have to go through years of meditation to realize that forgiving is a key to unlocking and accessing potential energy. Religious traditions and good parenting probably already told us this, but the science backing it up somehow makes it more compelling…Even if we already intuitively knew it to be good to forgive.
Another example, and one that is simple to employ, is understanding the role breathing has in helping you regulate your brain’s ability to respond to stressors. Dr. Alan Watkins, honorary senior lecturer in neuroscience and psychological medicine at Imperial College, posits that coherent breathing can significantly help you subdue the lower aspects of your triune brain to allow your neocortex to function more efficiently.
These examples led to other examples and other techniques, which I have been eagerly diving into. In just a few days, I have already experienced significant shifts happening. A few biohacks in and already my existing model is starting to change.
Progress report pending…