I Reversed My Age by a Decade

In my twenties, my day would always go the same way—wake up, shower, have a couple of coffees, drive into the office, skip lunch, not drink any water, get home, eat food, jump into bed, rinse and repeat.

I would occasionally have a drink in the week, but on a Saturday night, I'd get absolutely wasted. I wasn't sleeping well, which meant my body had no time to repair the damage I was doing to it during the day.

Eventually, it ended in physical burnout. My immune system became super low and I began developing infections in my prostate, kidneys, and urinary tract. I was diagnosed with IBS, which was something doctors told me was something I just had to live with.

I was fatigued and had no energy, experienced UTIs, bloating, brain fog, and insomnia. I became sicker and sicker, which led to spiraling out of control emotionally and developing depression and anxiety.

I developed kidney stones which became stuck in my urinary tract and became very painful; at times it felt like a knife was cutting me open. I was constantly worrying that I was going to be rushed to hospital at any moment.

For an entire year, I felt extreme stress. I wasn't sleeping or digesting food properly, so eventually my body stopped functioning correctly. I was exhausted, almost bed-bound by chronic illness.

One day, I jumped on the train to see my girlfriend in London, and I didn't even have the energy to hold up an umbrella. I knew something needed to change—that something was broken.

I went to the doctor, who just shrugged his shoulders and said: "I can't find anything wrong with you." That was the moment that I realized that the traditional system was not helping me, and that I needed to take matters into my own hands.

Biohacking, by its original definition, is optimizing the environments inside and outside of you to take control of your biology. My view is much more simple than that; it's using technology, supplements or fringe ancestral things to optimize your health and performance.

I first came across biohacking when a friend of mine told me about "bulletproof coffee"—a high-fat coffee recipe, created by author Dave Asprey, designed to aid a ketogenic diet. I started researching the "bulletproof diet" and started listening to Asprey's podcast.

I realized that I wasn't the only person in the world who was tracking their sleep and taking supplements to try and feel better in themselves. But fringe treatments to reverse my chronic health issues—that was something I had never come across and knew I had to try.

Firstly, I started ensuring that I got enough natural light. I realized that I had been living in a fake-lit office at home with flickering blue LEDs and was not getting any light from the sun at all, and assumed that was why my vitamin D levels were ridiculously low.

I made sure I had more time outside of the office. During the summer months, I would work in coffee shops, outside in shorts and t-shirts, and followed the sun by getting out of England as much as I could.

I also began prioritizing sleep; I would track how much deep sleep I was getting, which is the time your body repairs itself from the damage you've done throughout the day, so I could optimize it accordingly.

The next strategy was prioritizing hydration and ensuring I drank mineral-rich, filtered water. Our bodies are roughly 60 percent water, so if we're dehydrated by five percent, our cognitive and physical performance can decline hugely.

I ensured that all the water I was drinking had no added additives, synthetic hormones, or antibiotics, which some researchers believe can occur in small amounts in tap water in the United Kingdom.

When it comes to diet, I feel it's harder to give simple advice. Some people believe you should be purely carnivorous, while others advocate for a solely vegan diet. In my opinion, it's all about individualization.

In my case, being vegan destroyed me; my genetics simply required more of the vitamins lacking in that diet. But I think the ultimate rule of thumb is not to eat processed foods of any kind.

That could mean eating organic vegetables, grass-fed meat, wild fish, honey, or clean filtered water. More and more research is emerging which demonstrates the detrimental impact that ultra-processed food has on our health.

Combining those three basic longevity hacks, plus an improved diet, meant my body began flourishing.

I would track my body temperature three times a day, every day, to see how my metabolic rate was improving, and over the space of two months, I could see it was picking up significantly, which increased my energy as a result.

I realized that even before I got sick, I felt as though I was operating at 75 percent. I had been subpar for so many years, and only noticed it because I was operating at such a higher level now.

I almost became addicted to improving. I wanted to become better and better, with more energy, a sharper brain, and a more positive attitude.

Now, I focus on and tracking my health via my REM sleep, light sleep, body temperature, heart rate, and heart rate variability. Through tracking, I know whether I'm able to go hard at the gym on a particular day, or whether my body needs rest.

My mental health transformed as a result of biohacking. I went from being miserable, depressed, and anxious, to the human I was as a kid. Now, I'm happy, bouncy, and very stoic—not much bothers me anymore.

When there was a problem at my sickest, I would get angry and moody and argue with those around me. Now, when there's a challenging conversation, I sit back and think: How can I resolve this?

I believe it's much easier to control your mental health when you have the right foundations in place.

Now, I am 44 years old, with the biological age of 33 and a half.

I received these results through telomere testing, which examines your DNA to calculate both your biological age and metabolic age, which in my case measured in at just 21 years old.

My basic advice for anyone who wants to improve their health is to eat proper food, hydrate properly and sleep properly. If you're mentally stuck, I would suggest finding a community to support you.

For me, joining groups of like-minded people was hugely beneficial, because I would learn from them, but also because they had the same goals and values as me.

For instance, if you have friends who go out drinking every night of the week, you're going to be enticed to drink alcohol more often. If you have friends who are healthy, who exercise and go out for a good meal and no alcohol, you're going to drink less alcohol and be more healthy.

Biohacking is using technology and nature to mimic a natural environment in an unnatural world. In my eyes, the things that worked for our ancestors still work today, and we should be focusing on those as much as possible.

While we can of course enjoy creature comforts such as technology, and we may still indulge in things we know aren't good for us, it's about picking your poison, knowing what can do damage and choosing what you want to integrate.

Tim Gray is the founder of The Health Optimisation Summit. You can follow him on Twitter @TimBiohacker

All views expressed in this article are the author's own.

As told to Newsweek's My Turn associate editor, Monica Greep.

Do you have a unique experience or personal story to share? Email the My Turn team at myturn@newsweek.com.