How to avoid health optimization FOMO (advice from the king of biohacking)
“I’m not going to inject stem cells into my penis, but I’m going to do everything else Ben Greenfield suggests.” -James Altucher
This is probably the best podcast intro I’ve ever heard.
It was from Ben Greenfield's interview on The James Altucher Show entitled The Human Hacker’s Guide to Hacking Your Own Biology.
Ben is the king of biohacking.
So as you'd expect, this episode was a firehose of information on everything from light and blood glucose monitoring to anti-aging supplementation and stem cells.
At one point, James stopped him and was like dude, how do you know all this and how is someone supposed to do all these things?
My ears perked up because I was secretly thinking the same thing. Ben has so many amazing suggestions on how to improve your health. Not doing it all can feel overwhelming.
His response was so good, I had to write it down.
Basically, he said don’t worry about knowing and doing all this stuff right now.
You’ll just give yourself anxiety from all the health optimization FOMO.
Instead, focus on incremental improvement along a multi-year timeframe.
Paraphrasing Ben, “No one goes from eating McDonald’s one day to preparing a grass-finished burger with homemade sourdough bread and garden tomatoes the next.”
Health optimization is a multi-year, possibly even multi-decade journey, should you choose to embrace it.
Focus on leveling up one area at a time.
Maybe one year, you dial in your nutrition.
Then the next year, your training.
Then, your sleep.
Then, supplementation, breath work, etc.
Along the way, do some genetic testing and bloodwork, learn what works best for you, and fine-tune your system even more.
Health is an “infinite game,” where the object is not to win, but to keep playing.
Everyone’s path in the game is unique.
Take mine for example.
My own personal health journey has spanned 20+ years and I feel like I’m just getting started.
The more I learn, the more opportunities I uncover.
But that’s okay because I still have the rest of my life.
And so do you.
P.S.
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