my NEWS How to live a long, happy life: celebrity biohacker Ben Greenfield shares his top tips – have meaning and purpose, and stay physically fit Greenfield, a 42-year-old who says he has the biological age of a teenager, has a million monthly visitors to his website, keen to learn his biohacking secrets He describes some of his life-extending hacks, and talks about how living a meaningful life, one with purpose, is key to being happy Biohacking – making incremental changes to your body, diet, and lifestyle to improve health and well-being – is all the rage. Ben Greenfield, a 42-year-old biohacking sensation who claims to have the biological age of a teenage boy, is a recent poster boy for the trend. He counts ex-Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey and legendary music producer Rick Rubin among his fans. Greenfield is also a nutritionist, physiologist, competitive athlete, New York Times bestselling author – and husband and father. He shares his tips widely: his BenGreenfieldLife.com website counts more than a million monthly visitors. His Instagram channel, @bengreenfieldfitness, has attracted 421,000 followers; his Facebook page Ben Greenfield Fitness has 190,000 followers; and his YouTube channel Ben Greenfield Life has attracted 110,000 subscribers. He is an interesting man. But, more importantly, he is a happy man. The biohacker who wants to become cyborg to be more perfect At its core, he says, “happiness is the knowledge or knowing that one is living or has lived a meaningful, satisfied, fulfilled, and purpose-filled life”. Greenfield speaks about an “internal hole in our soul”, and how many of us, particularly younger men, seek to fill it “with cars, sex, wealth, drugs, and the like”. This, he suggests, is a grave mistake, because “at the end of the day, all of that is going to be unsatisfying and unfulfilling until we have filled the internal hole with something eternal”. The “eternal” something need not be spiritual or religious in nature, although it can be. What he means, specifically, is to fill that hole with something of substance that allows an individual to pursue a higher purpose. For the deeply spiritual Greenfield, his faith plays a significant role in filling in this “internal hole”. This devotion, paired with other “eternal” aspects, namely relationships with friends and family, provides him with an immense sense of joy. To live a happy life is not possible without meaning, Greenfield believes. “Meaning is derived from knowing your purpose and knowing your calling,” he says. If you lack a specific purpose or calling in life, then you are not going to have a happy life. “If you have a meaningful life, you are by definition going to be happy,” he adds. Want to be happier and boost brain health? Then talk to people Greenfield states his own purpose and calling simply: “To love my family through protecting and providing.” A sense of purpose, meaning, and overall happiness, he believes, is closely correlated with a certain level of physical fitness. This 45-year-old spends US$2 million a year to make himself 18 again To stay in peak condition, he does an overnight intermittent fast of 12 to 16 hours and rarely does additional fasting except for a quarterly three- to five-day stint of lower calorie intake, or simple water fasting. One hour a week of strength training ‘lowers risk of death by up to 20 per cent’ After his strength-training workouts, he has a smoothie of liver, bone broth, and other forms of protein. As for Greenfield’s sleep schedule, the author paints a descriptive picture of his ritual in a post on his website. For a long and healthy life, eat, sleep, feel and exercise the right way “Within five minutes after crashing into my dual gel-layer mattress, I have two tiny electrodes on either side of my head to gently lull my brain into a state of enhanced serotonin and dopamine [the ‘happy’ hormones] production, combined with complete [reduction] of cortisol [the ‘stress’ hormone],” he writes. “Pumped via noise-blocking headphones into either ear are relaxing sleep beats that lull me into a delta brainwave state, along with artificial-intelligence-generated sleep sounds that ‘confuse’ my brain into a state of tiredness.” On the bedside sits an essential-oil diffuser filled with a lavender-rose essential oil blend to envelop Greenfield “in a relaxing, sleep-inducing aroma”. His wife calls him a “sleep princess”. To this, Greenfield pleads guilty. Talking scents: aromatherapy’s benefits for mind and body “Eighty per cent of the time,” he says, he focuses on diet, exercise and supplementation. As for the other 20 per cent of the time, he is staying out after 9pm, having that extra cocktail with his wife or watching the stars with his children. Without that 20 per cent, life would be meaningless for Greenfield, and, by his definition, devoid of happiness. In other words, a truly happy life, for him, is one filled with healthy practices, commitment to a whole foods diet, a strict sleep routine, a robust social life – and the odd cocktail. Find this balance, and you, too, may find yourself on a path to a better, more fulfilling life.
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