If you haven’t heard of ‘biohacking’ you’re not enough of a nerd. But chances are in the coming months you’ll start seeing the word more frequently. In fact, biohacking may become an important player in the future of personal healthcare and is already pushing the use of biometric testing devices.
Based on the philosophy of personal responsibility, biohacking is a new approach to health and wellness that includes self-study and the use of various analog and digital devices to measure, monitor and tweak important health parameters. Biohackers collect data about themselves… anything from calories to salt intake, exercise and blood pressure to cortisol levels and daily supplement intake.
According to Glen Martin of the San Francisco Chronicle, biohacking refers to “managing one's own biology using a combination of medical, nutritional and electronic techniques.” His article, Biohackers' mining their own bodies' data, is a good place to begin learning about the trend http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Biohackers-mining-their-own-bodies-data-3668230.php.
Here’s the theory: measure yourself, because what we measure improves.
As Martin’s article says, we're now capturing more data on what it means to be a human being than at any time in history and what we're learning isn't just telling is what we are. It's telling us what we can be."