What Does Biohacking Mean?
Definition of Biohacking
Biohacking means hacking your own biology to boost health, performance, and longevity."Upgrading" Humanity
Biohacking is the practice of modifying your own biology to boost health, well-being, and performance. It blends science, tech, and self-experimentation — from tweaking your diet and sleep to using wearables or supplements. Advocates see it as a way to "upgrade" the human body, but critics warn it can drift into pseudoscience, overhype, and even danger.
"Improving" Humanity?
Biohacking covers a wide mix of methods and technologies aimed at improving body and mind. While it can inspire curiosity and innovation, its extreme edges raise serious ethical, safety, and privacy concerns. Some approaches are grounded in evidence, but others blur the line between science and self-experiment. Major types of biohacking include:
- Nutritional Biohacking: Fine-tuning diet or supplements for better focus and energy. (Feasible, but results vary.)
- Physical Biohacking: Using data-driven workouts and things like cold plunges and electrical stimulators to test physical limits. (Sometimes more trendy than proven.)
- Technological Biohacking: Tracking sleep, steps, or glucose with wearables to monitor health in real time. (Oftern useful, but also capable of feeding data to tech companies.)
- Neurohacking: Experimenting with meditation, nootropics ("smart drugs"), or brain-training tools to boost mood or focus. (Mixed evidence.)
- Genetic Biohacking: The most controversial form of biohacking, involving direct tinkering with DNA using tools like CRISPR. (A field full of ethical red flags and unpredictable risks.)
Humans of the Future?
Biohacking includes a wide range of practices.
Summary of Key Points
| Biohacking | |
|---|---|
| Definition: | Hacking Your Own Biology To Boost Health, Performance, and Longevity |
| Type: | Word |
| Guessability: |  3: Guessable |
| Typical Users: |  Adults and Teenagers |
An Academic Look at Biohacking
Biohacking is a neologism. A neologism is a newly coined word or phrase that has recently come into use or has been created to describe a new concept, idea, or phenomenon. Neologisms can be created in any language and can take different forms, such as:
- A new meaning for an existing word (e.g., cloud, mood, tweet, viral).
- A completely new word (e.g., emoji, fomo, selfie).
- A new combination of existing words, or words with prefixes or suffixes (e.g., cloutrage, digital detox, oversharing, situationship).
Example of Biohacking Used in a Text
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