Biohacking involves tweaking your lifestyle to improve your body and mind. It’s DIY biology—think cold showers, wearable tech, and supplements.
Women need good blood flow for orgasm and sexual function. Supplementing with nitric oxide boosters like L-citrulline and L-arginine can help.
Timing your caffeine intake to sync with your natural circadian rhythm can help you feel alert and energetic without sabotaging libido or causing stress.
Supplements
Human sexuality is exquisitely responsive to biochemistry, and supplements can play an important role. While the supplement industry is flooded with products promising everything from sky-high libido to legendary bedroom stamina, a handful of compounds have accrued enough clinical and mechanistic evidence to warrant serious consideration.
Peptide bioregulators and dietary supplements can optimize hormone balance and boost energy, libido, and sexual performance by stimulating the release of growth factors, enhancing blood flow, or improving stress management. For example, peptides like CJC-1295 stimulate growth hormone release, which may indirectly improve sex hormone balance and enhance libido. Similarly, bioregulators like Selank and Ovagen may support testicular health and ovarian function to enhance libido in women.
Adaptogens such as Ashwagandha and Rhodiola Rosea are also popular among biohackers to manage stress, improve sleep quality, and enhance mental energy. Other common supplements include nitric oxide boosters such as L-arginine, and omega-3 fatty acids to reduce inflammation and improve cognitive function and mood.
For those focused on physical performance, supplements such as creatine and branched-chain amino acids are known for increasing strength and enhancing recovery from high-intensity exercise. Biohackers also frequently use nootropics, such as l-theanine and Lion’s Mane mushroom to improve focus and brain performance.
While a few supplements may offer libido-boosting benefits, it’s crucial to recognize that sexual health is inextricably linked to overall metabolic, hormonal, and psychological well-being. To maximize impact, supplements should be used in combination with a healthy diet and lifestyle and be sourced from reputable suppliers. In addition, it’s important to test and track results, and never replace foundational biohacks such as adequate sleep, nutrient-dense meals, and regular movement. Ultimately, the best biohack for libido is to build a life that maximizes pleasure and fulfillment through mindful self-care.
Sleep
Men often find it difficult to monitor objectively their sexual health. The TechRing, introduced by FirmTech at Dave Asprey’s Biohacking Conference last year, is a wearable that measures a man’s “erectile fitness.” In the age of healthcare wearables, individuals can now optimize hormone levels, enhance vitality, and achieve optimal performance. Whether it’s optimizing hormone levels with oral supplements or boosting blood flow through lifestyle changes, the TechRing provides actionable insights and data that help men hack their way to optimal wellness. Vitamin D, for example, is an important supplement that biohackers take to bolster bone and immune health. Magnesium, another key biohacking nutrient, is essential to nerve function and energy metabolism.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness, which is having a bit of a moment on the holistic health scene, offers a myriad of benefits including stress relief and improved focus and concentration. It also helps you to regulate your emotions, increase body awareness and improves sexual arousal. To practise mindfulness, sit down in an erect position and make your mind thought-free for 20 minutes every day. It takes time to practice mindfulness effectively, so you must stick to the routine for weeks until you begin to notice changes in your life.
The way people talk about mindfulness, it sounds almost like a magic pill that is linked to all sorts of benefits including sleep problems, weight loss, symptoms of depression or anxiety, impulsivity, self-esteem, attention and concentration, empathy and compassion, and overall physical and mental health and well-being. However, the main reason that mindfulness works is because of its ability to increase your sense of presence and awareness of the present.
During sex, it’s essential for both partners to be fully in the moment. Any distractions can ruin the mood and cause frustration. Mindfulness can help with this by allowing you to tune in to your own body’s signals for arousal and orgasm. It can also allow you to feel more connected emotionally with your partner, which leads to greater satisfaction during sex and beyond.
Pioneering sex researchers Masters and Johnson used a form of mindfulness known as “sensate focus” to help women who had experienced a decrease in their sexual arousal. The program included more traditional components of sex therapy such as education, cognitive interventions (helping them change their thoughts), behavioral therapy (assigning specific tasks with positive reinforcement) and relationship exercises, but they found that mindfulness was the most effective component of the treatment.
It’s important to be able to control your attention, so during sex it’s helpful to turn off your phone, put it on aeroplane mode or leave the room if you don’t expect any calls. It’s also helpful to avoid any other stimulating activities in the bedroom, such as reading, listening to music or watching TV as these can interfere with arousal and sexual performance.