Biohacking or Neurosis: Could there be too much concern for yourself?
Olga Lukinskaya
We regularly talk about the prevention of dangerous diseases. - it includes regular visits to the doctor, vaccination and, as necessary, examinations and tests. On the other hand, examinations are superfluous, and diagnostics - excessive, therefore, for example, regularly doing a tomography of the whole body or donating blood for a cold is a waste of money and time. Sometimes compulsive self-diagnostics and attempts to take full control of the body into their hands take on an extreme form - for so-called biohackers, this is no longer a means but a goal. Let's try to figure out when the care about your body becomes excessive and how to stop in time.
Life is not only a set of laboratory parameters, it should also have a place in order to lie in bed at the weekend, watch a movie or eat ice cream, without thinking about plans for tomorrow
In September, entrepreneur Sergey Fage said that he has been engaged in biohacking for about five years - he uses a scientific approach to get the most out of his body and mind and "become more energetic, healthy, happy, confident, strong-willed and intelligent, improve mood and concentration and also extend your life. " He optimized the parameters of sleep, nutrition, physical exertion, took and continues to take a lot of drugs and nutritional supplements, visits doctors, including the psychotherapist, constantly undergoes tests using different methods - and today has spent about two hundred thousand dollars on this.
The blood test parameters alone, which the Phage regularly checks, are not one hundred; according to him, bringing them to the “ideal” level means that he will live a longer and healthier life than anyone who lived in 2017. True, there are questions - for example, how to fall asleep on a business trip, if the humidity and temperature of a hotel room are not optimal? Is it possible to spontaneously go on a date or a meeting with friends if you have a day of cyclical starvation? Actually, when to live, if the day is minutely painted to measure the respiratory volume and take the next supplements, and all the forces are aimed at improving the body? Life is not only a set of laboratory parameters, there must be a place in it to lie in bed at the weekend, watch a movie or eat ice cream, without thinking about plans for tomorrow.
In Silicon Valley, many are keen on biohacking: A few years ago, Google opened a subsidiary of Calico, which, in fact, is looking for secrets of eternal youth, and even eternal life. While the company is engaged in really serious development, lovers improve their own bodies on their own, and they have followers - biohackers even hold large conferences. This is not surprising - from time immemorial, the search for the “magic pill” of youth consolidated people around them - it doesn’t matter whether we are talking about medical fasting or three liters of water a day. To be afraid of old age and death is normal. It is abnormal to subordinate your life to this fear: firstly, then there is simply no time to live, and secondly, to control absolutely everything, sadly, it will not work. The risk of falling of the ill-fated brick on the head is not going anywhere.
Few people have the opportunity to engage in high-level biohacking, but many have an obsessive desire to control their body parameters: some are weighed after each meal, others measure waist or biceps volume several times, and others constantly monitor their pulse by writing the results in a notebook. This in itself is not very dangerous - perhaps at some point ignorance of the current parameters makes one feel anxious, and now the person carries a blood pressure monitor with him so that he can measure blood pressure even at the bus stop. Worse - attempts to correct the deviant parameters on their own: firstly, deviations may be insignificant and do not always deserve treatment, and secondly, the prescription of drugs without the supervision of a doctor is simply dangerous.
Sometimes it starts with the desire to bring appearance to the "ideal" - which, as we all know, is unattainable. While the weight and percentage of fat in the normal range really make us healthier and prevent a number of diseases, the pursuit of "ideal parameters" can lead to eating disorders and the abuse of dangerous drugs. People who started working out in the gym often hit one of two extremes: some fear even protein shakes as fire, others begin to “help” their body with injections of hormones and other serious substances - usually without medical supervision.
Biohackers interfere with the fine tuning of the body with iron scrap and seriously risk not only the progression of neurosis, but also the severe side effects of self-medication.
In relation to health, these extremes also occur: some do not go to the doctors and are not treated until they become completely unbearable, others are endlessly examined, unable to stop. The midwife told the author of this text during pregnancy in Barcelona that foreign patients behave very characteristic, but in different ways: if women from Arab and African countries can come for the first time already in the last week of pregnancy, patients from Russia and the post-Soviet space are upset all the time that they are prescribed few tests and do not prescribe vitamins. Of course, the practice of Russian medicine also contributes to our love of testing: a lot of unnecessary tests, the treatment of non-existent diseases. Unfortunately, the results are not very good, and often they can’t reveal the real problem for years.
According to Anton Rodionov, cardiologist, assistant professor at the First Moscow State Medical University. I. Sechenov, the human body can be compared to a car: "A normally working, serviceable car goes smoothly and noiselessly, and there is no need to stop and look under the hood every kilometer - whether the oil is leaking or the belt is not worn out. The annual maintenance work , you can safely ride and not worry about the health of the car. A healthy person does not feel the work of internal organs and should not feel the need for constant monitoring of physiological indicators. Quite regular infrequent and an uncomplicated examination (annual check), and we can live in peace. Of course, as they grow older and diseases appear, the regularity of the examination changes, and the doctor can ask to monitor this or that vital activity indicator more often - say, a person with arterial hypertension needs to measure pressure every day, and with diabetes, blood sugar. "
Moreover, if a healthy person has an obsessive need too often to measure his pulse, pressure, body weight, and so on - this can be considered as signs of neurosis. Rodionov cites a close comparison as an example: you open facebook or instagram again and again, although you were convinced just a minute ago that you have not received any new messages. Then there is a danger that, after reading advisers on the Internet, a person will want to independently intervene in the body’s work and begin to beat down the pressure or reduce the pulse - and this is already harmless. According to the doctor, biohackers interfere with the fine-tuning of the body with iron scrap and seriously risk not only the progression of neurosis, but also the severe side effects of self-treatment.
Fitness trackers also add fuel to the fire - for example, those who track sleep parameters may develop orthosomalia, an obsessive desire to sleep “right”. Sometimes we forget what we use the gadget for - and now the walk without fitbit seems to be in vain, because the passed number of steps was not reflected in the daily schedule. But still life should not be slavery in indicators: it’s good if the pedometer motivates a couple of extra laps around the office, but it’s bad if the person feels inferior without going through these couple of laps. Taking care of your body is great - but you should not create a cult out of it.
Photo:Kanstantsin - stock.adobe.com, alekleks - stock.adobe.com, Master PC