How Women Are Leading the Biohacking Movement

Photo of a woman watching the sunset.

Biohacking is a practice with HUGE potential for our health and wellbeing. And, while it’s been a primarily male-dominated industry, women innovators like our founders, Lauren and Katie, are leading the way in understanding how biohacking can improve our lifestyle. 

For those who don’t know much about this field, biohacking is the idea that we can use science and biology to “hack” our bodies – to become stronger, build a better immune system, increase energy, or try to live longer. Biohacks range from the more technological to building healthy practices into our lives: things like tracking our sleep, for instance. 

The History of Biohacking 

The term “biohacking” started trending in the early 1990s, but many practices used by today’s biohackers have their origins in holistic medicine. The advent of computer programming inspired a new generation of DIY biologists to try applying the principles of data and technology to the human body. 

The biohacking movement today is diffuse and involves many different areas of research and practice. Broadly speaking, biohackers focus on three categories:

  1. Nutrigenomics: looking at how the food you eat interacts with your genes, as well as how different nutrients impact how you think, feel, and behave.
  2. DIY Biology: scientists and other qualified experts look at how genetics and life science can be used to improve the human body.
  3. Grinder: a subculture of biohacking that involves “optimizing” the human body with technological gadgets, chemical injections, and implants.

Biohacking doesn’t always involve radically altering the human body, but it does involve using data and feedback to try to improve our health and wellness. 

Women in the Biohacking Movement

Like many other industries, biohacking has been dominated by male experts. Leaders in this field include Tim Ferriss; Dave Asprey, the founder of Bulletproof coffee; and Gary Wolf, the co-founder of the Quantified Self Movement. Jack Dorsey and former NASA employee Josiah Zayner are huge advocates of biohacking.

However, women are starting to take on leadership the biohacking movement. Liz Parish is the CEO of BioViva, a company that aims to target biological aging at the cellular level. Dr. Rhonda Patrick is the founder of FoundMyFitness, which has a similar focus. Ellen Jorgen is the name behind GenSpace, a nonprofit that makes biohacking experimentation accessible. Big-name celebrities like Gwenyth Paltrow are advocating biohacks to their followers regularly. 

Our founders, Lauren and Katie, have cracked the code on using infrared light as a biohack to feel good inside, look great on the outside. HigherDOSE infrared saunas are shown to have many health benefits – light at red and near-infrared wavelengths helps reduce wrinkles, acne scars, and heal burns. A session at our spa is just one way to hack your appearance while taking care of your circulation, stress, and refresh your energy. 

Other women making waves in the biohacking industry focus on hacking our hormones. Kay Ali, hormone expert and founder of You Need A Nutritional Therapist, and Alisa Vitti, founder of FLO Living, look at how women’s hormones can be tracked and “tricked” to avoid those peaks and lows throughout the month, thereby avoiding mood swings, feeling tired, and other hormonal related behavior changes. Both of these disruptive women in healthcare are finding ways to help women even the playing field at work and in life. 

How do you biohack?

These women are seriously inspirational! We love seeing how they’re using natural solutions to try to improve our health and wellness. 

If you’re just starting to learn about biohacking, there are some easy ways to try out some biohacks for yourself: 

  • Stop by any of our locations in NY for an infrared sauna session, or try one of our infrared sauna blankets at home
  • Use breathwork to breathe through any anxiety and prime the parasympathetic system (here’s how). 
  • Hack your workout with better hydration: try drinking watermelon water before your workout to bring oxygen to your muscles. One expert recommends drinking tart cherry juice stimulate recovery after a tough gym sesh.
  • Track your cycle to start noticing dips in energy and weird cravings throughout the month (there are plenty of apps for that).
  • Try a nootropic, like Female Fuel, to boost your brain for better mood, focus, motivation, and memory. A nootropic is also known as a “smart drug.” This supplement is designed for women, by women to help maximize your brain functionality.

Women are the perfect leaders for innovating in the field of biohacking. “Women make the best biohackers because they are typically more in tune with their bodies,” Dave Asprey told Well and Good. “Women go through changes every month and naturally find ways to deal with things like cravings, low energy, and pain.”

What biohacks do you use in your life? Tag us on Instagram and tell us how you’re hacking your body to be more productive, energetic, and stronger. 

About the Author

What do the San Francisco Marathon, Tough Mudder, and infrared technology pioneer HigherDOSE all have in common? The brilliant entrepreneurial mindset of Katie Kaps. After graduating magna cum laude from Georgetown, Katie studied at The London School of Economics, and was a Consumer/Retail investment banker at Merrill Lynch before being recruited to be the marketing and business mind behind the San Francisco Marathon. Following the SF marathon, Katie joined Tough Mudder and helped grow the business from $10 million to $150 million in revenue by the time she left. There she did strategy, new business development, and managed the international expansion team, and was proud to be named international employee of the year in 2013. Katie and Lauren started HigherDOSE with humble roots in Alchemist Kitchen and quickly scaling the business through strategic hospitality partnerships, amassing a cult-like following of celebrities and athletes. In addition to pioneering a ‘space within a space’ model with existing brick and mortar locations like Equinox and 11 Howard (creating a minimum viable product for retail), Katie turned HigherDOSE into an 8-figure startup with only 4 employees, in addition to pivoting to being a product-focused company during the pandemic at lightning speed. HigherDOSE has now expanded their offerings into topicals and ingestibles and Katie and Lauren have starred in their very own “Bio-HackHers” YouTube series, cementing her foothold as a woman leading the wellness industry to a new frontier.

Katie Kaps

About the Author

Lauren Berlingeri is dedicated to inspiring others through fitness and naturally-healthy lifestyle practices. After launching her career as an international model, Berlingeri went on to star in her own show, “Women vs. Workout”—grossing over 15 million views and receiving a Webby Award nomination for Best Host. This experience led to extreme sports hosting for brands such as UFC, EA Sports, and IMG. Having cemented her name within the fitness industry, Berlingeri decided to expand her expertise, earning a holistic nutritionist and health coach certification at The Institute of Integrative Nutrition. Her venture into the health and wellness startup spectrum began in 2014 as one of the first creative minds at Aloha.com—doing product development, leading the brand ambas-sador program, and brand partnerships. Lauren discovered the power of Infrared technology — specifically Infrared saunas — and saw an opportunity to bring the biohacking tool to the masses. Since co-founding HigherDOSE with Katie Kaps, the wellness brand has experienced meteoric success, boiling down to a true revolutionization of the spa business. Creating all the initial Forbes, branding themselves and even acting as models in their first campaigns, the brand exploded, leading the way to at-home sauna systems that thrived during the pandemic. As a female biohacker and mother of twins, Lauren brings a fresh perspective to a space that has been dominated by male voices from its inception, making it HigherDOSE’s core mission to educate women about their bio-individuality and give them the tools they need to reach their own best selves, with content designed to educate people on how to take control of their own wellness regimens.

Lauren Berlingeri