Hal Elrod: Hey, goal achievers, this is Hal Elrod, and welcome back to the Achieve Your Goals podcast. Today’s episode is inspired by a powerful experience that I had this past week. I had the honor of speaking at Dave Asprey’s Biohacking Conference. It was the Miracle Morning for Biohackers, and it was a room full of 4,000 health-obsessed, optimization-driven humans who are genuinely committed to upgrading their bodies, their minds, their lives. It was inspiring to be part of this group, but I want to talk about the flip side of that passion. Because just after the conference, I think it was serendipity, I read an article titled The Illusion of Optimization. It was written by Adam Bornstein or Bornstein, I don’t know how you say his name, but he’s the editor-in-chief of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Pump Club email newsletter, which I think a gazillion people subscribed to. It’s actually a great newsletter. But it perfectly described the trap that so many of us fall into, myself included, where the pursuit of health and personal growth and optimization becomes unhealthy, overwhelming, and potentially detrimental.

So, today, I want to walk you through the inspiring truth about the biohacking movement because it is an inspiring movement that is doing a lot of good in the world. So, I want to start there with the positive aspects of biohacking, but then I want to talk about the dark side. You could say it’s when optimization becomes obsession, right? And what are the detrimental consequences of that? And then, maybe most importantly, I want to simplify your biohacking journey and your health habits so that they’re sustainable and that they’re rooted in nature and that they don’t cost you thousands and thousands of dollars. Like, we’ll talk about that. I’ll unpack that, but let’s dive in.

So, let me start by saying, I love what biohacking stands for. When I went into the conference, I saw people from all walks of life who weren’t waiting for a diagnosis or for something to go wrong. They were taking ownership of their health. They were looking for proactive ways to optimize their sleep, their energy, hormones, mental clarity, you name it. And I am all for that. In fact, that’s what I’ve always believed and taught, whether it’s waking up at 5:00 AM to meditate and affirm your goals or ice bathing your way into productivity, if it serves your wellbeing, I say, do it. In fact, that’s what my SAVERS practice is all about, right? Silence, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing, those are, as I said at the conference during my message, six of the most time tested, scientifically proven biohacks known to man. They’re ancient, they’re simple, and they’re free, and they work, and they have for thousands of years.

But here’s the kicker. Biohacking becomes a problem when the pursuit of optimization becomes overcomplicated and overwhelming or worse, it causes paralysis. Because you’re like, ah, there’s so much, so many techniques and so many methods, and so many devices and so much technology, and like, I don’t even know where to start, right? Should I buy a red light therapy device? Should I get a PEMF mat? Should I buy a sauna? Do I need a cold plunge? Like, where do I start? What do I do?

The article that I read started with the author counting every macro at age 18. So, he was introduced at a young age to biohacking. He measured oatmeal like a chemist. He was stressing over how to log a banana, losing sleep over whether to wake up in the middle of the night to down a protein shake. There’s so many different opinions. Have you been there before? Like, I have. When I was battling cancer, I went deep into the world of supplements, IV drips, organic everything. I read books and articles on what were the natural holistic ways to cure cancer. I even visualized my immune system attacking cancer cells. Literally. I was sun gazing. I got a red light device. I got a PEMF mat. I was doing ozone sauna. I became obsessed with doing it all the right way. Like, what’s the right way? There’s so many different opinions.

And I have a friend right now, in fact, Stephanie on our team has cancer and she is a very holistic human being and does everything the natural way. And so, she’s going through that right now and I’m kind of coaching her through it because she’s like, “Hal, there’s so much differing information and there’s so many things, it’s overwhelming,” because that hyperfocus on optimization for me, it became stressful, right? At some point, the pressure to get it perfect started stealing the peace that I was fighting for in the first place. I think peace is arguably the most important thing for us to focus on in life, right, is how can we be at peace? Most of us want us to be happy all the time, but that’s not necessarily realistic. It’s how do you find inner peace in the midst of the ups and downs of life?

So, anyway, that’s the paradox is that the pursuit of health can become a source of stress and, and as the article said, many people aren’t failing because they’re lazy or they’re unmotivated. I’m sure some are, but a lot of us are failing because we’re overwhelmed, right? So, here’s a line from the article that you could say punched me in the gut in the best way. He said overcomplication is a clever form of resistance that feels like progress, but it’s usually procrastination in disguise. Let that sink in. I’ll say it again. It’s a complicated sentence, so I’ll break it down. But overcomplication is a clever form of resistance that feels like progress, but it’s usually procrastination in disguise.

I talked about this in my book The Miracle Equation. I said that we become personal development junkies where we just pursue personal growth and we’re reading and we’re learning all the time, but we’re not really doing anything because we’re tricking ourselves into thinking that by learning, by researching, then I’m doing something productive. In fact, I think it was last week that we just had Pat Flynn on the podcast. He talked about his book, Lean Learning, which, by the way, highly recommend that book. I’m in the middle of it right now. But it’s the idea that you actually should learn less to achieve more. Like, the more you learn, the more you overcomplicate things and the more overwhelmed you become.

And by the way, that’s where we’re going today is I’m going to end today– or not end, but we’re going to lead into simplifying your health and your optimization and your biohacking if you want to use that term. But we think we’re being productive by researching the best probiotic strain or debating if oat milk is inflammatory. But in reality, we’re avoiding the real work, which is showing up, taking action, and being consistent. Showing up, taking action, and being consistent are far more than learning, learning, learning over learning, right? Learning more and more and more.

What’s the solution? Let’s dive into this. So, let me give you something practical because that’s what I try to do for you, right? I try to take a lot of information and try to really synthesize it and simplify it. So, number one, and if you’re taking notes, you can jot this down. Number one, ask yourself, what’s my actual goal? What’s my actual goal? And you might have more than one, but do you want to be stronger? Then just show up and lift weights two, three, four, five times a week, right? Add a little weight each time. Don’t obsess over four sets of eight versus five of five, or which method of working out is the most effective and will optimize my muscle growth. Like, just show up and do it. Simplify it, right? I want to get stronger. I’m going to lift weights throughout the week, right? That’s the simple way.

So, what’s your actual goal? Do you want to be stronger? Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to be healthier? Do you want to have more cardio, et cetera, et cetera? Number two, ask, what’s the next obvious step? So, once you’ve asked yourself, what’s my actual goal? I want to get stronger, I want to lose weight, I want to live longer, right? The second question, what’s the next obvious step? So, if you’re trying to lose fat, don’t overhaul your diet overnight. Just cut out one sugary drink. Just walk after dinner. Do one simple thing. Don’t think about this. We all do this, where you’re like, you’ll spend hours researching what’s the best way to lose the fat, right? Should I do keto? Like, there’s so many. Should I do cold plunges? Should I do sauna and sweat it off? Like, again, you don’t have to overhaul everything. Walk after dinner, cut out that sugary drink. Be consistent, not extreme. So, what’s the next obvious step? Just do one thing and what that does is that next step gives you a new habit that creates momentum and confidence and makes you feel accomplished, and that leads to the next step.

And number three, ask yourself, is this sustainable? Despite what we’ve been taught and what we might have believed or told ourselves, health isn’t earned through suffering. It is built on sustainability. You shouldn’t need a spreadsheet. You shouldn’t have to count your macros like you can. Okay, but where was I going with that? I lost my train of thought. What did I say? Health isn’t earned through suffering. It’s built on sustainability. Yeah, so is it sustainable? Like, I personally have tried doing extreme exercise. I mean, I ran an ultramarathon, so I was doing that for a while. But what I’ve found is that I don’t like to work out for an hour every day. I like to work out for like 15 or 20 minutes. That’s sustainable for me.

And so, I’ve done that and like, where I’m in arguably some of the best shape of my life right now, but I’m not a gym rat and I don’t count my macros. I just eat healthy and I exercise. That’s it. And literally, I do what I want to do for exercise. Now, I guess, to be fair, I used to be pretty into working out, so I have some knowledge, but keeping it simple is crucial. And in terms of biohacking, I want to give you what I think is the simplest solution for biohacking. One word, nature. So, instead of spending a thousand dollars on a red light therapy device, get sunlight during sunrise and sunset, the two times a day with the most red light. Instead of spending another thousand dollars on a PEMF mat, which, if you’re not familiar, that stands for pulsed electromagnetic frequency, you can stand barefoot on the earth for 15 minutes each day and experience the benefits. In fact, you can stand on the earth for 15 minutes during sunrise and during sunset, and then you get the benefits of red light therapy and PEMF therapy simultaneously, and you have to spend $2,000 to get it.

And again, I’m not saying like, if you have two grand to spend and you want to do that and you want to– maybe you live in Alaska and you’re like, it’s cold and there is no sunlight. And so, like, I need some technology. Great. I’m not against it. I’m just saying nature, we have been optimizing our health for thousands of years and I believe it’s my personal belief you can call it, it’s part of my spiritual beliefs, right? That God and the planet Earth and nature have given us everything that we need to optimize our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing.

And I’ll give you an example. Another one. You can buy these meditation devices, right, that you wear in your head. The first one was Muse. I used to– I bought that. By the way, I’ve bought all this stuff. I’m like, I’m coming from a place of not like I’m against all of this. It’s like I actually own a red light therapy device. I own a PEMF mat. I used to have one of those Muse. I don’t even know what happened to that Muse headband. Like, I’d lost it. I don’t know. Maybe a friend borrowed it. But the point is it measures your brainwaves, right? So, you can see the– when I’m meditating, is it working? Is my brain calming down? Like, that’s great. And if you have the money and you want to do that and you are really into gadgets, that’s fine.

But let me give you five, and I covered a couple of them, but I’ll go a little more in detail. I’ll give you five nature biohacks, right? And this is not the SAVERS. My entire message at the conference, the Biohacking Conference, was about the SAVERS being six of the most timeless, scientifically proven biohacks, right? Silence, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing. However, I’m going to give you five additional biohacks that are rooted in nature.

So, the first is light therapy, right? Light is not just for being able to see what’s around you. It is for healing. It is for energizing. It is for sinking your body to its natural rhythm. You can think of sunlight as one of the original biohacks long before the term, millions of years before the term biohacking even existed. But when your skin and eyes are exposed to natural sunlight, especially early or late in the day, right, that is when the red light is the most prevalent is sunrise and sunset, your brain releases serotonin, which helps you feel awake, alert, and happy, and then later, that serotonin converts to melatonin, which sets you up for a better night of sleep.

All right, so I’ll give you an actionable for each of these five. So, try this, go outside within an hour of waking up. Even 10 to 15 minutes of sunlight, especially when your shadow is shorter than you, right? Meaning that early or late time of day can boost vitamin D and regulate your circadian rhythm. And yes, even on cloudy days, natural light is a hundred times more powerful than your indoor lamps. So, get sunlight every day. Simple.

Number two, sleep. It’s not a luxury. It is your body’s repair shop. I think it’s the original biohack, right? Like, it’s built into who you are. You’ve got to sleep. It’s where the real biohacking magic happens because during sleep, you’re detoxifying your brain, you’re repairing cells, you’re consolidating memories. But most of us treat sleep like an afterthought. And the truth is no supplement, no workout, no technology can replace what your body does during sleep, during quality rest. So, try this. Create a simple bedtime routine. In the new edition of The Miracle Morning, the updated and expanded edition, there’s an entire chapter, 20-some pages called The Miracle Evening, which is dedicated to how to create a very effective bedtime routine based on research and my own experience. Power down screens two hours before bedtime, right? I call that boycotting blue light. Keep your room cool and dark. If you need to use supplements, which I do, I use CBN and CBD oil. I use valerian root and I use magnesium 90 minutes before bedtime. And in 30 minutes before bedtime, I take melatonin. So, I am not against some of these supplementation, biohacks, et cetera, but I just try to remind myself that, like, actually, what did I buy? Oh, I bought a PEMF mat and then I returned it. I’m like, I’m just going to spend time earthing every day. I actually have a red light therapy device, but I don’t use it.

Anyway, so back to sleep, whether it is during the week or even on the weekends, having sleep be a priority. For me, I set the alarm clock as few days as possible. It’s only if I have to wake up at a certain time, but I’ve trained my body to be able to wake up at that time without setting an alarm. So, for example, this morning, I got to bed a little later last night, so I normally wake up at 4:30 AM. I naturally woke up at 5:11 AM, right? But you can set your body, your rhythm by sleeping at the same times every night and waking at the same times every morning. So, if it takes an alarm clock to get you there, that’s great. You can, again, use the tools available to you.

Number three is grounding or what’s also known as earthing. This is, you can say, healing through the earth, and I know this one sounds a little woo-woo until you try it, but walking barefoot on grass, dirt, or sand connects you directly to the Earth’s electrical charge. Now, why does that matter? Because it helps neutralize inflammation in your body and reduce oxidative stress. Now, your body is bioelectric and grounding acts like a natural reset. Calming your nervous system and stabilizing your mood. So, for me, I go outside after when the sun is coming up in the morning and I stand on the grass for 15 minutes, give or take. Now, I don’t do it every day. I’m not perfect. I’m not some– but this is the objective. This is the goal. This is the aspiration. So, try this, kick your shoes off and walk barefoot in the grass for 5 to 10 minutes a day. Do it. You might be surprised at how different you feel afterward. Grounding isn’t just good for your health. It is good for your soul, being in nature, having your feet on the earth. Again, before there were shoes, this is what we were intended to do. Yet most of us, we don’t spend any time. Think about that. Ask yourself, how much time do you spend with your feet planted firmly on the earth, leveraging what nature intended?

All right, number four is breath, breathing with intention. Now, you can integrate this into your silence practice, but we breathe over 20,000 times a day, but most of us do it mindlessly. Now, intentional breathing, whether you call it breathwork or deep breathing, it’s one of the fastest ways to reset your nervous system, to calm anxiety, to increase focus. Again, you’re already doing it. You’re already breathing. It costs you nothing. So, whether you’re stressed or you’re scattered or you’re just feeling stuck, your breath is a tool that is always with you and it’s always ready to bring you back to the present. In fact, right now, take a deep breath, inhale, hold it for a few seconds, and exhale.

And here’s what I encourage you to try. Practice box breathing, which is where you inhale for four seconds, you hold for four seconds, and you exhale for four, and then you hold that exhale for four. And that’s the most uncomfortable part if you’ve never done it, but do that for a few minutes and notice how much calmer and more centered you feel. It’s one of the oldest, simplest, and most effective breathing techniques, box breathing. Again, you picture a box, right? A square. You’re inhaling. Picture one line of that square going up for four seconds, holding it across the top for four seconds, exhaling down the box for four seconds, and then holding it across the bottom for four seconds. Again, try that. Try that right now. You can pause the podcast and do a minute of box breathing.

All right, and then number five, and you may already be doing this, but meditating for mental clarity, right? Meditation is the original operating system upgrade. It’s just like clearing tabs on your browser. It frees up mental ram, right? With consistent practice, you can train your brain to be less reactive, more focused, and more joyful, and it doesn’t have to be 30 minutes on a cushion. It can be two minutes in silence. What matters is the intention, so try this, sit down, close your eyes, and you can integrate your breath into your meditation, and just do it for a few minutes. Set your mind for a few minutes, and when your mind wanders, which it will, gently bring it back to your breath. That’s the practice. It’s not clearing your mind. It’s focusing on something, calming your mind, calming your nervous system, and then observing your thoughts. So, if your mind wanders, if you have a stressful thought, you don’t beat yourself up and say, oh, gosh, darn it, I’m doing this wrong. I can’t stop thinking. It’s like, ah, I had a thought. Oh, I had a stressful thought. Oh, and think about the power of training your brain, training your focus, your mind to be at peace with whatever comes up. I mentioned that earlier, that I believe the goal, the North Star for all of us is to be able to live our lives in a state of peace.

And ideally, the aspiration is unwavering peace. It’s that no matter what’s going on around you, you choose to be at peace with reality, with the ups and the downs of life. And so, when you’re biohacking without all the technology, without all the devices where you’re investing all that extra time, money, and energy, where you’re not obsessing over researching what’s the latest trend, you’re just looking to nature for the answers. You’re looking at the timeless practices that people have been doing for, I don’t know, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of years. How many years have we been around? Maybe I’m going too far back. But anyway, you get the point, right? Timeless practices.

Look, biohacking doesn’t have to mean spending thousands of dollars on cryo chambers or red light devices, like the most potent changes often come from the simplest habits. Let sunlight in, prioritize your sleep, touch the earth, breathe deeply, and sit in silence. And start with one. You don’t have to do all of these. Stack another tomorrow. Like, you can build upon a really simple routine and you can integrate these into your miracle morning, into your SAVERS, right? Sleep is obviously the foundation of a miracle morning. You have to get good sleep. I always say a miracle morning starts the night before by going to bed, feeling calm and peaceful and grateful, and getting a good night’s sleep so that when you wake up, you’re ready to take on the day.

But all of these practices we talked about today, they’re available to you. They’re free. Many of them are part of you, like your breath, for example, right? All right, and by the way, you don’t have to be perfect. You just need to give yourself permission to be imperfect and to try and to keep going. So, stop trying to earn your health through punishment and through suffering, and instead earn it through presence, right? Show up today. Show up tomorrow. Do one thing better than yesterday. That’s it. Keep it simple because no amount of health knowledge matters if it doesn’t lead to consistent action.

So, I’ll wrap this up by saying, I’ll share my takeaway from the Biohacking Conference and the article and my own journey. Yes, biohacking is powerful, but not when it becomes a performance, not when it becomes a stressful obsession. And optimization is helpful, but not when it replaces consistency. And your goals are not achieved by doing everything perfectly. They’re achieved by doing something repeatedly. So, not by doing everything perfectly, doing something repeatedly.

So, today, ask yourself, what’s one thing I can do today that’s easier than what I’ve been trying, one thing that adds value to my life, to my health, to my peace of mind? Start there and then do it again tomorrow and let that be enough. All right, thanks for tuning in, friends. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who’s stuck in the optimization trap. And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. And until next time, keep it simple, keep showing up and keep achieving your goals. I love you so much and I will talk to you next week.