Whether you are new to the concept of biohacking or are already an experienced self-optimizer there are no shortage of ways to expand your knowledge. Here are best biohacking books I recommend. You can also check out my comprehensive Resources area for more great products and deals.
Jump to:
• General Biohacking Concepts
• Diet and Lifestyle
• Longevity and Genetics
• Exercise and Breathwork
• Sleep and Stress
• Environment
• Advanced Subjects
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The Best General Biohacking Books
These books provide the most comprehensive overview of all areas of biohacking.
Biohacker’s Handbook: Upgrade Yourself and Unleash Your Inner Potential
by Teemu Arina, Olli Sovijärvi, Jaakko Halmetoja
Biohacker’s Handbook takes the latest research into holistic health and turns it into practical and applicable information in a visual and readable format. With more than 540+ pages, 1560+ references and hundreds of images, Biohacker’s Handbook is “the missing manual of the human body” and an essential addition to the library, work desk, kitchen, gym, suitcase and bedroom of anyone with a genuine interest in optimal human performance, health and well-being.
Use code quantifiedbob when ordering to save 10% off of your order!
Boundless: Upgrade Your Brain, Optimize Your Body & Defy Aging
by Ben Greenfield
Ben has compiled what is arguably the most comprehensive, step-by-step guide yet for optimizing mind, body, and spirit, blending “ancestral wisdom and modern science” to provide strategies for building muscle, burning fat, living longer, having better sex, detoxing, fixing your gut, customizing your diet, optimizing your environment, lab testing, and more!
The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat Loss, Incredible Sex and Becoming Superhuman
by Tim Ferriss
This book is considered the original “biohacking book” and although it is now a decade old, much of its information still holds up. Tim introduces the concept of “minimum effective dose (MED)”, the smallest dose that will produce a desired outcome. Tim is an avid self-experimenter and he covers over 50 topics such as gaining muscle, cold exposure for fat loss, improving mobility, tripling testosterone and doubling sperm count, reversing injuries, medical tourism.
The Biohacker’s Guide to Upgraded Energy and Focus
by Anthony DiClementi
In this book Anthony shares experiments he’s done over the past decade for himself and thousands of men and woman ages 28 to 70 to optimize physical and mental performance, improve sleep, have more energy at a cellular level, and fight disease.
The Best Diet and Lifestyle Biohacking Books
These books are most often the starting point of people’s biohacking journeys. While the word “diet” often used, these book are more about rethinking one’s lifestyle.
The Bulletproof Diet: Lose Up to a Pound a Day, Reclaim Energy and Focus, Upgrade Your Life
by Dave Asprey
Dave is often referred to as the “father of biohacking” and for many, the Bulletproof Diet (or more specifically “Bulletproof Coffee”) was the starting point of their personal wellness journeys. The Bulletproof Diet provides a blueprint for more energy, weight loss, and peak performance that challenges many popular beliefs (Skip breakfast? Stop counting calories? Eat high levels of healthy saturated fat?) and has helped spawn an entire biohacking industry.
Keto Diet: Your 30-Day Plan to Lose Weight, Balance Hormones, Boost Brain Health, and Reverse Disease
by Dr. Josh Axe
For anyone looking to learn about the ketogenic diet, this book identifies and details several different personalized ketogenic protocols (such as the “keto basic plan”, “keto fasting plan”, and “keto collagen-boosting plan”, and explains why picking the right one for your body and lifestyle is key to your success.
The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting
by Dr. Jason Fung and Jimmy Moore
Dr. Fung is considered one of the leading experts on fasting, low-carb diets, and treating people with type 2 diabetes. This book provides comprehensive overview of many different types of fasting, from daily intermittent fasting to longer 24-hour, 42-hour, and 7-day fasting protocols.
Epi-paleo Rx: The Prescription for Disease Reversal and Optimal Health
by Dr. Jack Kruse
Here’s a more technical book (may require several re-readings to fully digest!) that goes deeper than other biohacking diet/lifestyle books, discussing areas like the role of daylight and darkness on metabolism, epigenetics (the effect of environment on gene expression), the optimal diet for different stages of health and different times of year. Jack also discusses the beneficial effects of cold exposure via cold water immersion.
Wired to Eat: Turn Off Cravings, Rewire Your Appetite for Weight Loss, and Determine the Foods That Work for You
by Robb Wolf
In this book Robb takes a more data-driven approach to personalized nutrition, factoring an individual’s diet and metabolism to determine optimal foods (and ones to avoid). The 7-day carbohydrate test plan outlined in the book is based on the same scientific studies I used to understand my own personal glycemic response to different foods.
The Best Longevity and Genetics Biohacking Books
Whether or not you seek to live forever, these books provide insights into mechanisms of aging and how improve your “healthspan” for a long, fulfilling life.
Lifespan: Why We Age―and Why We Don’t Have To
by David Sinclair, PhD
“Aging is a disease, and that disease is treatable.” What if everything we’ve been taught to believe about aging is wrong? In this book, Harvard Medical School scientist David Sinclair reveals a bold new theory for why we age and reveals emerging technologies and simple lifestyle changes that have been shown to help us live younger and healthier for longer.
Super Human: The Bulletproof Plan to Age Backward and Maybe Even Live Forever
by Dave Asprey
Dave Asprey has expressed his desire to live to be at least one-hundred and eighty. While we assume we will peak in middle age and then decline, in this book Dave shares research showing that it is possible to make changes on the sub-cellular level to dramatically extend life span that can decelerate cellular aging and supercharge your body’s ability to heal and rejuvenate, while giving you more energy and brainpower today.
Dirty Genes: A Breakthrough Program to Treat the Root Cause of Illness and Optimize Your Health
by Dr. Ben Lynch
In this book, Dr. Lynch reveals how genes can be “born dirty” or merely “act dirty” in response to environment, diet, or lifestyle, causing lifelong, life-threatening, and chronic health problems, then shows how to identify and optimize both types of dirty genes by cleaning them up with targeted and personalized plans, including healthy eating, good sleep, stress relief, environmental detox, and other holistic and natural means.
Metabolic Autophagy: Practice Intermittent Fasting and Resistance Training to Build Muscle and Promote Longevity
by Siim Land
Our cells are constantly striking a balance between conserving energy and promoting growth. Siim introduces a collection of guidelines about the principles of the anabolic-catabolic metabolic cycles in regards to nutrition and exercise, and how by maintaining a balance between anabolism and catabolism, you can effectively extend your lifespan. The book presents an anabolic-catabolic scoring system for a number of foods, and includes example diet and training plans to optimize both longevity and performance.
The Best Exercise and Breathwork Biohacking Books
These books are great resources for those looking to maintain strength, mobility, agility, and ability to recover.
Becoming a Supple Leopard: The Ultimate Guide to Resolving Pain, Preventing Injury, and Optimizing Athletic Performance
by Kelly Starrett
This one-of-a-kind step-by-step guide to movement and mobility contains hundreds of illustrated mobilization techniques that will help resolve restrictions and reclaim your mobility, improve your athletic performance, treat stiffness and achy joints, and prevent and rehabilitate injuries. Whether you are a professional athlete, a weekend warrior, or just looking to be healthy and free from physical restrictions this book will teach you how to harness your athletic potential and maintain your body.
Body by Science: A Research Based Program for Strength Training, Body building, and Complete Fitness in 12 Minutes a Week
by John Little and Doug McGuff, M.D.
This book has popularized the concept of “super slow” exercise, using a straightforward, “big 5” routine that takes only about 12 minutes and only needs to be done once a week to see results. More modern, biohacker-friendly data-driven “efficient exercise” equipment like the ARX Fit machine are built upon this science.
The Oxygen Advantage: Simple, Scientifically Proven Breathing Techniques to Help You Become Healthier, Slimmer, Faster, and Fitter
by Patrick McKeown
For those looking forLearn how to improve the amount of oxygen delivered to active muscles and organs by changing how you breathe (most people are chronic mouth overbreathers), using the simple and easy-to-apply techniques contained in this book.
Just Breathe: Mastering Breathwork for Success in Life, Love, Business, and Beyond
by Dan Brulé
World-renowned pioneer of breathwork Dan Brulé has put together this definitive handbook that allows anyone to learn practical breathing techniques used by elite athletes, Navy SEALs, first responders to handle stress, calm your mind, manage pain, and spark peak performance. A great guide to use in conjunction with the Awesome Breathing breathwork app I co-developed!
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art
by James Nestor
There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat 25,000 times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences. Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it.
The Best Sleep and Stress Biohacking Books
These books provide an introduction to sleep science including the purpose of sleep, circadian rhythm, as well as techniques to reduce stress.
Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams
by Matthew Walker, PhD
We live in epidemic of societal sleep loss – learn how sleep affects every aspect of our physical and mental well-being, and how to harness sleep to improve learning, mood and energy levels, regulate hormones, prevent disease, and slow down aging by using actionable steps to get a better night’s sleep every night.
The Power of When: Discover Your Chronotype – and Learn the Best Time to Eat Lunch, Ask for a Raise, Have Sex, Write a Novel, Take Your Meds, and More
by Michael Breus, PhD
Research has shown there is a right time to do just about everything, based on our biology and hormones. Working with your inner clock, this book outlines a program for getting back in sync with your natural rhythm by making minor changes to your daily routine. Take the included quiz to figure out your chronotype (are you a Bear, Lion, Dolphin or Wolf?) and find out the best time to do over 50 different activities.
Activate Your Vagus Nerve: Unleash Your Body’s Natural Ability to Heal
by Dr. Navaz Habib
Your vagus nerve regulates autonomic functions (rest, digest, recovery) in the body. This guide provides all the tools you need to understand and heal your vagus nerve using simple yet powerful techniques to address a variety of ailments health challenges, like inflammation, gut sensitivity and brain fog, from their root causes originating with the vagus nerve.
The Best Environment Biohacking Books
Electromagnetic radiation is an area of much debate, and these books take a deep dive into the science of EMFs, the risks they pose to society, and provide advice on ways to mitigate their effects.
EMF*D: 5G, Wi-Fi & Cell Phones: Hidden Harms and How to Protect Yourself
by Dr. Joseph Mercola
Modern living is constantly exposing us to radiation and electronic pollution, and with the impending arrival of 5G ultra-wideband technology, the danger is greater than ever and will be one of the largest public-health experiments in history, with no way of opting out. Dr. Joseph Mercola, one of the world’s leading authorities on alternative health, has mined the scientific literature to offer a radical new understanding of how electromagnetic fields impact the body and mind.
The Non-Tinfoil Guide to EMFs: How to Fix Our Stupid Use of Technology
by Nicolas Pineault
This book discusses the different types of EMFs we encounter, and digs through scientific studies demonstrating ways in which EMFs from modern living can disrupt cell, and how you can test your own exposure to EMFs. Best of all, he provides action items to help at least mitigate exposure to EMFs in our homes, on our phone (and bodies), and with our children.
The Best Advanced Topic Biohacking Books
For those looking to go deeper down the biohacking rabbit hole, these books cover more advanced subjects.
The Body Electric: Electromagnetism And The Foundation Of Life
by Robert O. Becker
This book is considered a classic in the field of bio-field research. Becker was a pioneer in the field of regeneration and its relationship to electrical currents in living things (our bodies are essentially semiconductors). Why is it that young children can regrow a severed fingertip, yet adults cannot? This book details Becker’s struggles as he uncovered new pathways in our understanding of evolution, acupuncture, healing, and regeneration.
The Fourth Phase of Water: Beyond Solid, Liquid, and Vapor
by Gerald Pollack
We were taught that water has three phases – liquid, solid, and vapor. However, there is another phase of water, called “structured” or “exclusion zone” (EZ) water – a form of water that powers and manages physics and chemistry. Through Pollack’s own experiments, this book explains everything from how sap can move up a tree against gravity, how red blood cells can reach our tiniest capillaries, and how energy is produced in our cells. This book will change your view of water and life.
Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology
by Johnjoe McFadden and Jim Al-Khalili
Your biohacking journey may have started on the macro level with food, protein/fat/carbs, and calories, then advanced to the cellular level (mitochondria, electrons), but what if you could go even deeper? This book dives into the emerging field of Quantum biology, suggesting that many biological phenomena such as photosynthesis, enzyme catalysis, avian navigation, and olfaction may make use of a number of features of quantum mechanics, such as coherence, tunneling, and entanglement.
Light in Shaping Life: Biophotons in Biology and Medicine
by Roeland van Wijk
The production of biological light (ultra-weak photon emission or biophotons) is found within many types of cells and tissues of living organism. Learn about the history of biophoton research, insight into how biophotons are generated, and into their involvement with life, health, and medicine.
