This is a guest article by Simon Wegerif, a speaker of the upcoming Biohacker Summit UK and founder of HRV Fit (ithlete). Contrary to what you might expect, the human heart does not beat with a metronome-like regularity at rest, but in fact continually varies to optimize the functioning of your body. These small beat to beat variations are known as heart rate variability (or HRV for short), and can tell a lot about how stressed or relaxed you are. In particular, HRV can tell us about the activity in the vagus nerve, which is the autonomic nerve associated with rest, digestion, recovery, inflammation and immune system regulation. Although HRV has been known about for centuries, and employed in critical medical monitoring, space exploration and elite athletics systems for many years, it was only with easy-to-use mobile apps and devices became practical for athletes, sportspeople and biohackers to gain easy access to this revealing biomarker. Some of these worth mentioning are the OmegaWave, SweetBeat Life, HRV4Training and ithlete (company of the author of this article), which debuted already in 2010. Prof Stephen Porges description of HRV as an ‘index of stress, and vulnerability to stress’ (1) has at least two important …
Train smart and measure your muscle activity with Mpower
Do you want to optimize your workouts? Are you serious about strength training? Forget the guesswork and let the muscle tell you what it needs. A Finnish company called Fibrux has just launched an Indiegogo campaign to crowdfund their upcoming product Mpower. Mpower measures your muscle activation levels, but that’s not all. It actually separates the activation between fast and slow-twitch muscle fibers. Fast-twitch muscle fibers produce explosive strength and speed but they tire quickly. Slow-twitch fibers are responsible for the slow, endurance based activities. It is also important to remember, that fast-twitch muscle fibers are the biggest muscle fibers in the body. This means, that no matter if you train for strength or size, you want to maximize the activation of fast-twitch muscles. Up to this point it has been very difficult to analyze muscle activation without professional-grade laboratory equipment. Maximizing gains also involves a lot of mysticism and so-called broscience. Everybody gives you contradicting advice. There’s one thing that everybody agrees though: For the best results, you need to work hard AND smart. This is where the Mpower shines. It consists of an app and up to four wearable sensors. The electrodes work dry so there’s no need …
When Medicine Meets Technology
Nowadays, our bodies don’t have as many secrets as they used to have in the past, thanks to advancing technology and deep research in this field. Through various tests, people can discover what their bodies need and how they can improve their health by using the advanced technologies that these five companies provide. Let’s find out who Meedigo, Woble, BEMER Group, Nemoy and HumanCharger are and how can they improve our lives! Medigoo.com and Woble Helsinki cooperate in order to offer genetic health analysis tests for home use to their customers. Woble Helsinki provides high quality DNA testing products and services for both businesses and consumers. Their online store Woblab.com offers various products that improve the quality of life and are designed both for people and animals. Woble Helsinki provides qualified laboratory and scientific advisor services at their laboratory in Espoo. For more details, take a look at Woble Helsinki’s website On the other hand, Medigoo.com provides health and medical information to consumers at no cost, and sells home health analysis devices and kits. The website is easy to use: the users can type their symptoms into the search box and then read the articles provided according to what they searched …
Upgrade Your Working Environment With These Office Hacks
With the significant amount of time that we spend working in our offices it is essential to create an environment that will boost your productivity while keeping you healthy. Finnish companies NaturVention and Salli have developed innovative solutions to make your office a better place to work, and if there are people leaving the job for any reason, a farewell party at the office can be always a good idea to keep a good office spirit. We all know that the air we breathe affects our performance and health. Now, imagine being able to work in an indoor environment and enjoy the climate of clean nature. NaturVention has created a solution to make this possible. By combining plants, biotransformation and IoT technology, NaturVention can guarantee you a higher indoor air quality with their Naava-series active green walls that provide organic indoor air for urban people. These active green walls optimize indoor air quality and humidity 24/7. NaturVention helps you control your indoor climate and optimize your working and living conditions. Depending on your needs you can choose either Naava Original green wall or Naava Smart. Naava Original wall replaces the synthetic chemicals and microbes in indoor air with nature’s own chemicals. …
Productivity, Concentration and Health: Food for the Modern Lifestyle
Nowadays, food is not just a necessity that keeps us alive, but it is also a tool to maintain our health and increase our concentration in stressing and dynamic lifestyles. Five companies from Finland have come up with the perfect solution. Ambronite believes that food has a critical impact on our productivity and happiness. This is why they are promoting a convenient and healthy meal, instead of the pizza full of calories or some noodles that are lacking nutrients. Their product: a quick and easy-to-make drinkable shake, free of artificial ingredients. This super meal contains 18 organic ingredients, which give our bodies everything they need and keep us in flow for the whole day. Just one Ambronite shake consist of 500 kcal of energy, 30 grams of high-quality protein, several vitamins and 14 essential minerals and fiber. This product is also suitable for vegans and recommended to both those who have a dynamic lifestyle or those who are keen on outdoor adventures. You can find more about the product from Ambronite website. Mushrooms can also play an important role in our diets. We all know that these superfoods are rich in B vitamins and are the only vegan dietary source …
Optimize Your Physical Performance
Now that you know what devices can help you optimize the quality of your sleep and life, it’s time to take a look at how you can optimize your physical activity. In this post we will introduce you to some great devices and solutions that can enhance your physical performance. Ben Greenfield, who will speak at Biohacker Summit on 24 September, is a founder of Greenfield Fitness Systems, which is all about achieving superhuman feats of physical performance without destroying your body. Greenfield Fitness Systems gives you answers to your toughest questions about workouts, nutrition, performance and fat loss. Ben Greenfield’s mission is to show you how to get your body performing at peak capacity, with maximum fat burning efficiency and ideal hormonal and health status, in the safest and fastest way possible. Rather than pounding you with complex workout videos and difficult diets, Ben will instead teach you how to achieve your goals by optimizing lifestyle parameters that go way beyond simply “exercise and healthy eating”. You’ll learn about fat burning efficiency zones, gut health, mental performance, maximizing recovery, boosting libido, and enhancing every possible aspect of your body – rather than just work out like a madman and eating boring food. In …
Improve Your Quality of Life and Sleep
The times when rings were just jewelry are long gone. Now there is one ring to rule them… I mean you and your habits. With the latest technologies a ring can be a computer that will enhance your performance and wellbeing. Take ŌURA ring for example. ŌURA is a revolutionary ring-sized wellness computer that helps you sleep and perform better. ŌURA ring senses you through the day; learning about you and guiding you towards better, more balanced performance. ŌURA ring observes your sleep quality at night; measuring and learning how well you recover from mental and physical load. ŌURA ring measures and analyses your body and learns about you and your lifestyle. It communicates its observations and suggestions through a mobile app. The ŌURA app visualizes the measured data, providing you with personalized recommendations. It delivers clear textual message flow showing the trends, details and changes over time. On top of all these benefits ŌURA has a beautiful design. ŌURA combines material and manufacturing innovation to allow for a product as comfortable and functional as it is refined. Elegance and intelligence combined. Sounds very exciting. You can already pre-order this awesome beautiful device from Kickstarter at a reducd price. Speaking of beautiful …
Virtual Assistants Get Things Done
Have you ever wondered what your work week would be like if you only had to focus on the essential things, and you could outsource the rest? Sure, all of us would like to find a balance between work and play, and get our work done as efficiently as possible. In reality the work week of an ordinary knowledge worker is anything but efficient: on average we spend two hours per day on interruptions. Clearly, being in the office 9-to-5 doesn’t mean getting things done 9-to-5. It’s time for a change and Mikko Ikola, entrepreneur and virtual assistant specialist, knows exactly how to upgrade from being an ordinary knowledge to worker to becoming a high-performing individual, with the help of outsourcing and virtual assistants. Check out the whole presentation to learn more! Stay tuned for more interesting videos from Biohacker Summit ’14 and remember to get your Biohacker Summit ’15 tickets here.
What Gets Measured Gets Managed with Pekko Vehviläinen
While one can use a staggering number of various devices to measure different things, the real question is what do you do with that data? From the smart shorts to sleep measurement tools; from heart rate to environment measurement devices: this man has tried it all — he is the Most Quantified Man in Finland, Pekko Vehviläinen, PhD in Analytics and CEO of Digital Health Solutions. In his presentation Pekko shares his experiences of using various gadgets and how they helped him to make actual changes. Check out the full presentation featuring Beddit, EMFIT and V1bes to get insights on what to measure and how to manage the data received. Pekko will return to speak at Biohacker Summit 2015. Remember, this year Biohacker Summit ’15 offers you a unique experience — the “Playground” — where you can listen to inspirational speakers while trying out new wearables, fiddling with biohacking equipment, and exercising! Whether you want to sit in the first row or prefer to stay in the “Playground” we have some tickets available! You can buy your ticket here.
Upgrade Your 9-to-5 with Saku Tuominen
Did you know that completing tasks on your to-do list leads to excitement and endorphin increase in your body? The interesting part is that this happens even when the things on your lists are not valuable. Saku Tuominen, author and creative director from 925 Design, knows all about key problems in the office, and that the quality of our work is based on the quality of our thoughts. Check out the full presentation to see another take on how to upgrade 9-to-5 work as well as some interesting thoughts about Biohacking and Quantified Self as a concept. Biohacker Summit ’15 tickets for 23-24 September are still available! Buy tickets here before they’re sold out!