AZRA (00:00)

I believe women’s health needs to be valued as much as men’s health. That we should not accept disease as inevitable and that women should empower themselves to make better lifestyle choices so that they can live well longer.

DI (00:16)

I’m Di Gillett and welcome to the Power of Women podcast. We’re a platform that showcases and celebrates the strength, resilience and achievements of women from all walks of life. And this is your invitation to join the conversation. So please be sure to follow or subscribe to the podcast and make sure you’re part of every fearless, unfiltered, inspiring story we’re here to tell at the Power of Women.

Today I want to muse on something we’re all wrestling with, aging. And it’s inevitable, but it’s not an excuse because too often we put ourselves last, we’re juggling far too much, and we tell ourselves we can’t. My guest today is Azra Elagic. And Azra says there’s no such thing as can’t. And that plays into my mantra because I’m on the same page. I often say I can’t do something.

yet. Azra is a biohacker, a behavior change specialist and founder of Biohack Her. And she believes that small daily hacks can transform how we age and how we live. So together, we’re going to explore five everyday biohacks that are going to feel like superpowers. Azra Olarjic, welcome to the Power of Women podcast.

AZRA (01:44)

Thanks, Tigray, to be here.

DI (01:46)

Azra, you talk about healthspan versus lifespan and I’m absolutely there with you. But the distinction between those two things plays into your own story. Tell us about that.

AZRA (02:03)

certainly does. I remember it getting to my mid-40s and starting to feel age kick in. wasn’t as fit

DI (02:14)

It’s

home memory, Ezra.

AZRA (02:19)

But then I got to that milestone birthday die when I turned 50 and it became even worse. I was suddenly confronted with my mortality and I thought hang on a minute, I have lived maybe more than half of my life and that was really confronting to me and it wasn’t that I was afraid of getting older, it was that I was concerned about

ensuring that I could continue to do the things that I love to do and to be able to do those things with my loved ones. And I had watched family that are close to me deteriorate around me, other women in my life, like my grandmother. And these ladies had died, you know, at a relatively young age and I didn’t want to be like that. And so…

it occurred to me that I needed to do something about it, to be more proactive about it. And So when we look at lifespan versus healthspan, healthspan is very much about ensuring that we can be as healthy for as long as we possibly can. And that’s what I’m all about. It’s about making sure that I’m proactive in my lifestyle choices so that I can really nurture myself, put myself first. As you mentioned, lots of women don’t tend to do that.

And we need to give ourselves permission to be able to do that. So we can be there for our loved ones as we get older.

DI (03:40)

You also talk about the impacts of focusing on retirement versus living powerfully now. And I’m of the view that retirement is a slippery slope if we retire out of society, retire out of what we’re doing. And whilst there’s a bit of a desire to slow down and live differently,

Is retirement in the truest sense of the word detrimental to our health?

AZRA (04:19)

I think it is in the truer sense and I think it comes down to mindset. When we think about retirement, we often think that that’s the time for us to slow down, that’s the time to stop being creative, that’s the time to stop critically thinking and it’s almost like in my mind I see people giving up on life and I don’t want to give up on life.

Yes, it’s nice to be able to slow down and have a little bit more space, a little bit more time to be able to do things that you’re more passionate about. But I think we need to be careful about our mindset when we do go into retirement. We need to adopt what I call a longevity mindset. So it’s not about slowing down, it’s actually going into a full kilt and really ramping it up even more and living life with passion.

and energy and vitality and that’s why it’s so important to ensure that we continue to live longer and that we look after our health so we can do that because I don’t know about you but I don’t want to end up with a chronic disease and I don’t want to have to walk around with a Zimmer frame in my 80s and 90s. I want to as I always say continue to dance on the tables as long as I possibly can because we want to be able to live life as fully as we possibly can.

DI (05:34)

And you’re living up in Queensland and you’ve got lots of vitamin D and I think that plays into to well-being and mental health as well. I think ⁓ getting a dose of sunshine as you dance on that tabletop might be a good thing to do.

AZRA (05:50)

Sure does. Well just came back from overseas in Europe where I did bit of dancing on the tables in the Italian fries. there you go. Got lots of vitamin D over there.

DI (05:58)

Fabulous.

So as we’re talking about, ⁓ and you say, lifespans are increasing, but not our health spans. And I think we’ve only got to look out in society to see that. mean, we can see evidence of so many people not aging well, whether that’s through choice of diet, whether that’s attitude, whether that’s inherited diseases or other.

circumstances, but I think a glance, you know, day to day in community would tell us about that. We’re going to get into biohacking, which is your point of specialisation. However, some people listening might be sceptical about that and think it’s a bit of a trend or perhaps even a gimmick or, you know, health advice off Instagram. What would you say to those who

doubt the value of biohacking. before we define just what that might be.

AZRA (07:02)

Sure. I understand that it’s a new and potentially novel concept and that some people might think that it’s a gimmick. But when we think about history, we’ve often seen that those that are the early adopters, that are the disruptors in many different industries. are The ones that have paved the way for others. And I would suggest that before people close their minds to what biohacking can do for you,

and how powerful it can be, but they look into the science and the research and the fact that a lot of the biohacks that we embrace as biohackers are backed by science and it is backed by evidence. So there are lots and lots of studies and research papers and clinical trials that have been done for many of the biohacks that a lot of biohackers do such as myself and I think it’s important to have an open mind. Remember about we need to embrace that longevity mindset.

And this is where we need to push ourselves outside the comfort zone. And while people often say that we don’t like change, women in particular, I think, are absolute powerhouses at change because we deal with change every single day from our families to our work environment to our homes. We’re constantly having to evolve and change and shift. And so really having that open mindset and looking at the science and do your own research. If you don’t believe me, if you don’t believe other biohackers,

Go away, check it out yourself and look into it and see what the studies show.

DI (08:35)

And how do we find those out there in communities? So you’re talking about yours is backed by science, but how do we know we’ve landed on the right practitioner?

AZRA (08:47)

I think it comes down to personal choice when we’re referring to a particular practitioner. Because for me personally, I found that at times Western medicine let me down and certainly Western medicine has a place. Absolutely do not disagree with that. But for me, I had leaky gut syndrome, I had inflammation in my body, I had severe migraines, I ended up with an autoimmune condition. I was diagnosed years later in celiac which was missed earlier on.

So there are a lot of things that weren’t picked up and I only discovered those as a result of going down the biohacking arm and working with functional medical practitioners and alternative therapists. And so I think it comes down to the individual and you need to listen to your body and really do what’s right for you because what works for me is not necessarily going to work for you and it comes down to that individuality and it’s really important to ensure that you’re comfortable.

with who you are engaging with to guide you with your health because your health is so critically important. You only get one body, so you need to look after it as they say. And so it’s really important that you get this right.

DI (09:57)

How long in your own situation, Azra, did you try and find solutions to what was your ill health at that point in time?

AZRA (10:08)

years Di I suffered from migraines since my 20s and it just continually got worse to the point that when I got to my 50s I was getting migraines every three days debilitating migraines that were causing severe nausea I was bedridden it’s a bit

DI (10:27)

This is 30 years without a solution.

AZRA (10:30)

Yeah, yeah and when I’d go to the doctor they would just keep prescribing stronger medication and for me that was not something that aligned with my values and it also ended up destroying my gut health as well as a result of being on medication that was prescribed to me and so you know we know that we have the gut-brain axis and the importance of how the gut health

⁓ works with the rest of our body and why it’s so critically important to maintain good gut health so that we can have good health overall because it’s so closely connected with everything else. And so once I understood that through working with alternative medical practitioners, I was then able to identify a pathway that was right for me, that worked for me, that helped heal my gut.

I ended up doing a complete six month detox where I cut out refined sugars, gluten, dairy, alcohol for six months and a whole heap of other foods as well to be able to detox my body, to reduce my inflammation, to be able to heal my gut. And following on from that, I have not had a migraine since. And so if that’s not a testament to how alternative treatments can help, then I don’t know what.

DI (11:44)

Yeah, so of those four key things that you took out of your diet, what have you brought back in?

AZRA (11:52)

alcohol.

DI (11:56)

You don’t have to apologize for that, Azra. That’s okay. It’s just the amount.

AZRA (12:00)

Hey, I have a European heritage and it’s very difficult. It is my vice and I do like, you know, a nice glass of red on a cold evening in front of the fireplace. ⁓ But I must say have cut back on alcohol significantly and I have to be aware of that and I’m conscious of the decisions that I make when I do choose to drink alcohol. So I cut it right back to only drinking socially. I don’t drink when I’m at home. Unfortunately, my husband doesn’t drink alcohol so it makes it really easy for me.

DI (12:27)

My world’s very similar. My husband’s not a drinker and the same thing. I’ve taken out all drinking at home and only drink socially and it makes a massive difference.

AZRA (12:41)

It does, it does, doesn’t it? I think my, as an example, my skin has…

DI (12:46)

And you’ve got to designate a driver and your husband and that’s a good thing. ⁓

AZRA (12:51)

Oh

for sure, 100 % is so great having my husband as a designated driver. But it is about making those conscious choices and then also putting in hacks that help to counteract some of the damage that might be being done as a result of having that occasional social drink. So for me because I’ve had gut dysbiosis, I know as an integrative nutrition health coach that alcohol is not great for my gut lining wall. I know that.

But you’ve also got to live life as well. So it’s not about being perfect, it’s about implementing small hacks that are workable, that can be sustainable, and being real about it, as I am, and then understanding how those choices may impact you. So then you can implement other hacks to try to counteract that. So I have certain supplements that I take to help ensure that I protect my gut health lining more.

⁓ gut lining or other so it’s it’s really about being cognizant of that and making those those choices to help

DI (13:52)

to prevent some that. And tell me about taking out sugar because, and you know, that’s one of my, one of my bugbears. I had to get to 59 years of age before I had the strength and resilience to say, okay, I am done with processed sugar, but it has been the most life-changing, transformative decision I have ever made in my life. The flow on effects, the positive.

flow on effects from that of no inflammation in the body. ⁓ Weight loss is, it’s not a breeze, it’s a discipline, but it’s certainly made a massive difference and taking up processed sugar means you clean up your act in general because you review how you eat, what you eat, and all that processed food just falls away as part of it. I’d love to hear

How that played out for you taking up processed sugar.

AZRA (14:54)

It was difficult. I won’t deny that. Absolutely. do have a sweet

DI (14:57)

Yes, so do I. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it.

AZRA (15:02)

No. And so for me it was about education and I think that’s where I come back to what I mentioned earlier about empowering ourselves. So once we can educate ourselves around a why we should cut out refined sugar and why it’s bad for us then also looking at well what can we replace it with what are the swaps that we can then implement so we feel don’t feel like we’re missing out.

And from a behavioral change perspective, it’s really important that we set ourselves up for success. So I often talk to clients about controlling your environment so you can set yourself up for success. So go through your pantry, go through your fridge, clean everything out, get rid of anything that’s got the refined sugars, get rid of high processed foods, and aim to have whole foods. But then also bring in other items, other ingredients that you can swap in. For instance, example organic maple syrup is a great alternative.

know instead of having refined sugar or you could use stevia. I’m not a huge advocate of stevia so I feel it’s a little bit processed.

DI (16:03)

Yeah, me too, because to your point it comes back to processed again.

AZRA (16:09)

That’s right. And so there are natural alternatives honey is another example as well and that you can Implement into your diet that are healthy for you that don’t make you feel like you’re missing out but for me it was critical that I cut out the refined sugars because That was also contributing to my poor gut health. And so when we look at dysbiosis, it’s about having a ⁓ Imbalance between the good bacteria and the bad bacteria in our gut

And so refined sugar can contribute to that by feeding the bad bacteria and creating candida as well within the gut. And so that then creates further inflammation within the body. And so we need to look at, what can we do to cut those refined sugars out so that we can start to reduce that inflammation and get the balance back again and feed the good bacteria so that you’re not craving the sugar either, because it’s the bad bacteria that’s actually making you

DI (17:06)

you ever get a craving for sugar? Is there a weak moment that that hankering comes back?

AZRA (17:13)

sure my weak moment is always after dinner at night. Yeah right. something sweet and again that’s because for years and years and years my body was in tune to having dessert after a meal. You that’s how I was brought up and so my bacteria. switch. It does. It gets. Yep it does. It gets less. The craving is significantly less.

DI (17:32)

Over time though.

It’s Liz.

AZRA (17:41)

but it’s still there and it’s something that I’m very conscious of and it’s something that I have to work on on a constant basis to be able to resist that and so I look at other ways of trying to minimize that craving so it might be having a piece of fruit you know after dinner so that that mitigates that craving and it’s a healthier option but you’re getting a little bit of a sweet.

DI (18:07)

Yeah. I smiled when you said about controlling your environment. I think it’s my A-type personality approach to life is I work on controlling me and less so about working on controlling the environment. So, because that’s the one thing I can control. I can’t control my environment, you know, in a broader sense. tapping into that A-type, I can control me.

And it takes discipline. It’s not easily done, is it? mean, nothing comes easily. We’d be lying if we tried to promote that some of these changes don’t require some serious commitment to make that change.

AZRA (18:58)

for sure and it’s even more difficult when you have a family at home, you have a partner at home and they’re not in alignment with what you’re trying to do. So that makes it much more difficult because the temptation is there.

DI (19:10)

Yeah, we can’t quite control them. And nor should we. And nor should we.

AZRA (19:12)

No, you can’t.

No, no, but when my children were living at home and I was trying to implement more healthy choices, there was a lot of resistance from my boys in particular because they were, no, we want to be able to eat McDonald’s and we want to be able to eat as much meat as we want and I was trying to incorporate more plant food, but you know, they have to learn that themselves.

DI (19:38)

So coming up, Five bio hacks to improve your energy and your focus.

If you’re loving the Power of Women podcasts, be sure to jump onto our YouTube channel and hit that subscribe button to ensure you never miss an episode.

So Azra, let’s run through five everyday biohacks that one, don’t cost a fortune to do. They’re not about adopting any extreme lifestyle ⁓ changes. And there’s something that’s within reach of all of us. So I’ll just run through the list and then if we could do a deep dive into each of those, if we could. So on that list of five, we’ve got morning sunlight.

We’ve got cold exposure. We’ve got sleep optimization, intermittent fasting, and then the fifth one being mindfulness breath work. Let’s start with morning sunshine as a biohack.

AZRA (20:44)

It’s one of my favorite bio hacks and as you said these are cost free buy hacks which are so easy to implement and this goes back to ancestral days and this is something that our ancestors have been doing intuitively for you know many many years but we’ve lost the art of exposing ourselves to morning light because of the fact that we live indoors so much now.

and morning light benefits our health significantly because it helps to improve our circadian rhythms and so we are often exposed to significant amounts of blue light like we are today we’re sitting in front of computers and blue light we know is really bad for our circadian rhythms which is why we need to expose ourselves to that morning light so we’re getting

the right light in the morning to help reset our circadian rhythms. And so I’ve recently been traveling a bit and been in different time zones. And One of the first things that I do when I hit the ground in a new country is that I try to go outside as early as possible and as soon as possible so I can get that early morning sunlight into my eyes. to be able to signify to my body, okay, this is the time zone that I am in and this is what’s going to reset that real master clock in within my brain to be able to say,

this time of the day my cortisol levels should be up so that I can be functioning and alert and vibrant and my melatonin levels should be going down at this time in the morning where then in the evenings we want to limit our exposure to the blue light and dim lights or have red light ⁓ on in our homes or candle light even so that we’re signaling to our

to our circadian rhythm that hey it’s time to wind down so then the melatonin levels will come up and our body will start to realise okay it’s rest time it’s rest and recovery time and then we can get into that regular sleep routine. So this the morning light is really important for helping to reset that circadian clock.

DI (22:47)

So is that a reset for ⁓ jet lag as well once you get into? so re going out, getting that morning light in your eyes in the new time zone is a reset to assist with jet lag.

AZRA (23:04)

Yep, absolutely. And you only need about 10 to 15 minutes of light exposure in the morning. Yeah. And take your glasses off, so we don’t want to be wearing sunglasses or our eye glasses. We have to have the light going straight into our eyes to be able to get the benefit of it. And also doing the grounding as well. So if you can, get your shoes off and get onto the grass, walk on the grass, walk on the beach on the sand so that you can actually then…

recharge in that time zone and that really helps to ground and really significantly improve how our nervous system is operating as well because that gets impacted as well when we travel and when we experience jet

DI (23:42)

Yeah, brilliant. Cold exposure. And I’m playing around with this at the moment. so I’ll be really interested in what you have to say.

AZRA (23:52)

So how are you going with it? Are you enjoying it or is it a challenge?

DI (23:56)

So,

what I am doing every morning now, and I’ve spent my life jumping into the shower, running around the outside, avoiding the flow of water until it’s warmed up. That’s been my… and I would think most people would do that. However, now, and where I live, I’m in the middle of winter, and I think I said to you before we started recording, some of the mornings have been one and two degrees, and… ⁓

when you turn on that cold water, the water that comes out is cold, But in actual fact, if you walk into the flow, it gets colder again before it gets warmer. So I have trained myself through again, power of control of me, not the environment for the last two months to walk straight into that cold blast flow of water in the shower. And it’s a deal breaker.

wakes you up, I don’t feel I need the rest of the shower to run as hot as I used to because the contrast now between hot and cold has changed. And instead of having that groggy feeling, if you haven’t had a, you know, perhaps the optimal sleep, it sparks you into action.

as hard as it is to do on some mornings, because some mornings it feels like the last thing you want to do. And it’s only a matter of seconds, so it’s probably only 15 to 20 seconds. But I wouldn’t not do it now, any day, jumping into the shower, because it gets me going, it wakes me up, and it brings me to a point of consciousness that I can’t get by jumping under a steaming hot shower.

AZRA (25:48)

Well well done because it takes a lot of mindset shift and built up resilience to be able to do something like that. And so with cold therapy or cryotherapy you know there’s different terms for it. I have a differing view on it to what I used to have in my 40s and that’s because the research has moved on. And so we’ve often seen all of these men these tech bros that have been out there and

know Bim Hof is is an iconic you know person that’s been advocating cold therapy and that’s all great for the boys but we are different women are different we’re cyclical beings and we have to take that into consideration when we are doing cold therapy and so cold therapy is really important

for us in terms of making sure that we can increase the cortisol levels, which is what you experience by going into the shower in the morning and waking you up, you get the dopamine increase and the serotonin increase, and yet, bam, we’re up and ready, we’re ready to go. But we need to factor in our hormonal fluctuations, we need to factor in what stage are we.

within our cycle and When should we actually been doing cold therapy and we should be we shouldn’t be doing cold therapy at the same temperature as the boys. So for the boys they’ll go down to five degrees. and I’ve done that. Absolutely I’ve done that. But I now know that’s bad for me because it can impact my adrenals. Can

impact my cortisol levels and send them skyrocket, which is not something that we want because we know that high cortisol levels and ongoing chronic stress is bad for us. It actually ages us faster. And so it’s really about taking into consideration about as women, what phase are we in our life and when is the appropriate time to be able to be doing the cold therapy. And so I would only recommend that we’re doing it one to two times a week.

and that we’re doing that in our follicular phase for those that are still menstruating. But for women that are menopause, ⁓ postmenopause, perimenopause, again we take a different approach there as well. So it really is about understanding what’s going on with our hormones and listening to our bodies again to ensure that we’re doing that type of treatment, that type of bi-hack at the right time because we don’t want to increase those.

those cortisol levels and to mess around with the hormones or our adrenals either because that can happen. So we just need to consider that individually.

DI (28:28)

Here’s the irony. So the cold therapy conversation is only relatively new. But yet again, we jump in and treat men and women from the outset when they started as the same, and the same as we’ve done with medical research and medical practices. And I’ve talked about this on this podcast with Hima Prakash from Ponte Health and with Professor Nada Hamad, who’s ⁓

renowned haematologist of this whole ⁓ misconception that we can approach healthcare for men and women in the same way. We’re different beings.

AZRA (29:11)

We so are and this is something that I’m really passionate about because historically we have seen a lot of the research that’s been done, the scientific studies that have been done, have been done on men or a small group of women at certain ages and so we need to be investing more in women’s health in terms of the research and the scientific studies that are done so we can understand what is right for women as opposed to what is right for men and so when we look at cold therapy

My recommendation, what I do now is to do my cold therapy at a higher temperature, more around 13 degrees rather than five degrees.

DI (29:47)

I wonder what my cold shower is. I know it’s just bloody freezing. don’t know what that equates to in degrees.

AZRA (29:56)

You’ll have to try and check that. But it’s, you know, the way that you’ve done it, you know, some people might be thinking about, how can I look at embracing cold therapy? And I would say do it exactly the way that you’ve done it through cold showers, but you don’t necessarily have to jump in and do it full on straight away. You can start off with a hotter shower and then split it over to a colder temperature for 30 seconds and then go back for 30 seconds and…

alternate for a little while and that helps you to build up the mindset and the resilience so that you can get to the point where you can have a cold shower completely without the hot water.

DI (30:31)

Well, and I have to admit, Azra, it wasn’t plunging my whole body in the first instance under that flowing water. was, you know, it started off with a little bit of a side and a leg. It took some serious, you know, working up to being able to walk into the flow of cold water. So, and that took about a month. So, it’s not for the faint-hearted.

AZRA (30:58)

take a while.

So all the mindset and breath work is really important in leading into cold therapy as well. For me I really have to get into the right mindset.

DI (31:10)

There’s a few curse words that come out with that breath work some mornings. depends on cold it is. So biohack number three, sleep optimization.

AZRA (31:23)

Sleep is so vitally important and it is absolutely critical. We need to ensure that we’re getting the right amount of deep regenerative sleep and as women we often don’t get that. And I will put my hand up as being one of those women who struggled with sleep for many, many years. And it’s probably only in the past couple of years to be honest that I’ve got on top of my sleep and really.

got it to where it should be. I think it’s because I’m a mum of three kids and I taught my body to be on for many, many years so that I became a very like. Yeah, exactly. You know, so that you can wake up if your child wakes up in the night. You want to be able to get up to care for your child. So there was that. I’m also was also a night owl for many years as I was studying, having my children or working full time. I had no choice but to stay up late at night.

DI (32:00)

Sleep up.

AZRA (32:19)

and study. I remember sitting up to 2am, 3am in the morning to be able to get my assignments done when I was studying my degrees and so I had to reverse all of that to be able to get my sleep patterns back to what they should be now at my age now and so we know that if we don’t get the right amount of sleep that that can age us faster.

DI (32:41)

So what is the right amount of sleep? Is that the same amount of sleep for everybody or do we all have different requirements?

AZRA (32:49)

we do all have different requirements and there are studies that show this but on average the science shows that we should be getting anywhere between six to eight hours of sleep every single night and so if you’re there are a minority few who are able to function on four to five hours. I’m not certainly not one of those people by any means. I would wake up feeling like I was drunk if I only got four

DI (33:14)

Yeah,

under six hours is where the wheels fall off in my world.

AZRA (33:19)

Yeah. Yeah and I turn into a really cranky person if I don’t get enough sleep. That’s one of the things that my husband knows to not interrupt as she’s sleeping because if she wakes up she’s going to be cranky as. So it’s really important. We know that this that sleep is important for regeneration as well for healing for cellular regeneration. I like to think of it as a as the garbage truck that comes through while we’re sleeping and it

cleans out all the toxins, it cleans out all the waste. a simplified way of explaining what how the how the body works while we’re sleeping. and So we see that glymphatic cleansing that happens and it comes in this garbage truck comes in if we’re getting the right amount of sleep and we’re getting into that deep sleep so that we can get rid of those

toxins and the waste out of our body and we can get that cellular regeneration that’s so important. And we know that when we don’t get that sort of regenerative sleep that it impacts our cognition we start to see that we might experience a little bit more of brain fog or we’re waking up and we’re feeling really sluggish and it takes us a little while to get cracking in the morning and that’s because we haven’t got it right yet we haven’t got

sleep routine right. and so when we’re looking at getting the right amount of sleep it’s really important to implement certain biohacks and that is like I mentioned before about getting ⁓ the lights down low and making sure that we’re not exposing ourselves to blue light trying to ensure that we don’t eat three hours two to three hours before we go to sleep at night so the body doesn’t think that it’s actually in digest mode

that we are looking at a regular sleep routine so that we’ve got those cues, those signals every single evening to be able to trigger the body to say, yep, it’s wind down time. So for me, it’s after dinner, we do the dishes, we turn the lights off, we turn all of the devices off and we’ll, you know, have some red light that we will read a book, you know, with and then you go and have a shower and

that hot water, that nice hot shower sends a signal to the body that it’s time for us to start to slow down and wind down and go to sleep. And going to sleep and waking at the same time as well is really important as good signals to the body too. So for me, I’ll go to bed by around 9.30 at night most of the time. So obviously if I’m out and about socializing, I’m not always going to achieve that. But the body likes routine and so if we can try to stick to a routine.

For me, as I said, go to sleep at 9.30 at night, wake up at 5.30 in the morning. And then you’re getting that indication there all the time in signaling the body of when you should be waking up and when you should be going to sleep. And your melatonin levels and your cortisol levels will start to play nicer for you.

DI (36:07)

And if we have any doubt, can remember being on a business study tour, traveling, cities quickly every couple of days a few years ago. And I remember getting to London and I think I probably landed in London with a few hours sleep on a plane and then we kept going. And that afternoon I got a message that came through from my health monitor on my wrist to tell me that my cognitive impairment

was similar to being drunk because I was under four hours sleep. And so if we’ve got any doubt, that’s how it impacts us.

AZRA (36:46)

Yeah, 100%. And it can be dangerous as well. We don’t want to be going off and driving a car if we haven’t had sufficient amount of sleep because the science shows that the effects of poor sleep are the same as being under the influence of alcohol because cognitively we’re not functioning at 100%.

DI (37:02)

Yeah. So, biohack number five, intermittent fasting. This is another one that I’ve implemented in my world in more recent times.

AZRA (37:14)

there are different theories out there around intermittent fasting. Women? Yes and what works for men and what works for women. And again it’s because we’re cyclical beings and we need to be choosing the right times to be able to be fasting. So for me I was intermittent fasting a lot back in my 30s and my 40s and it worked really effectively for me. Intermittent fasting

DI (37:18)

for men and for

AZRA (37:39)

has significant longevity benefits for the body because it triggers autophagy and that cellular cleaning process and it helps to get rid of excess fat and so on because your body goes into ketosis and there are different types of intermittent fasting that we can do. But again for women we need to be really considerate about when we are intermittent fasting.

When we are in our follicular phase we want to be ensuring that we’re looking after ourselves, that we’re nurturing ourselves, that we are replenishing ourselves nutritionally. And so it’s important not to be intermittent fasting during those those times because it can mess with your hormones as well and it can mess with our hormones as perimenopause and menopausal women as well. And so we need to take that into consideration.

Again, I always come back to saying listen to your body, your body will tell you whether it’s right for you or not. These days I am very considerate about when I intermittent fast because as an older woman I want to ensure that I’m not impacting my muscle regeneration either as well and my muscle building. And so we know from the latest studies that are out there and there are a number of prominent female doctors that are saying this as well that we shouldn’t be fasting when we’re working out in the morning.

So if I’m doing my strength training in the mornings, I’m not going to be fasting that day because I need to ensure that I fuel up in the morning so that I can get the most out of my workout in the morning and then I can get that muscle growth that I need to get in order to ensure that I age well, that I reduce my likelihood of osteoporosis and so on as I get older. And so it really is important for us to consider the individual person.

what time they are in their phase as well and looking at whether they’re in that menopausal phase or perimenopausal phase. It’s different for everybody.

DI (39:38)

What about the last one, mindfulness and breath work? I will predict that that is one that is more standardized across the board, whoever you are and whatever age we’re at.

AZRA (39:51)

Yeah, it’s so powerful, mindfulness and breath work. Again, women can be high strung, women can suffer from anxiety, women can suffer from high cortisol levels. We have rushing women syndrome, we’re always on the go. And so this is an excellent tool for us to be able to embrace, to help to bring those cortisol levels down so we’re not doing the damage from increased cortisol levels. on an extended period of time.

For me, I use breath work a lot before I go to sleep at night. It is a way that I signal to my body that hey, get into that parasympathetic nervous system so that we can calm down and we can really start to rest and regenerate. And so I will do either the box breathing which is four by four by four or I will do the inhaled sigh breathing where you take a deep breath in and do another short breath and then exhale through your mouth.

way and do that a few times and that it works so quickly. just love how quickly it works and within minutes I’m asleep. I fall into a beautiful deep sleep. ⁓ you know I think meditation, mindfulness, these are all tools that we can use on a daily basis and I know that there are a lot of people out there that think that it’s difficult to do things like meditation or mindfulness because

their mindset is not quite there and I’m one of those people.

DI (41:19)

And I think when we’re rushing and we’re busy and we’re under pressure, if we really did for a moment stop and focus on our breathing, I think we’d probably acknowledge that half of it seems to stop here and it doesn’t get down into the depths of our bodies.

AZRA (41:37)

Yeah, we’re shallow breathers. We breathe from here often and we don’t even realize that we do it. We do it all the time. And so even using your phone to maybe set a reminder several times during the day where it can go off and you can then stop and think, okay, I’m going to do some deep breathing now.

DI (41:58)

Yeah, I have calendar reminders to remind me to do exactly that.

AZRA (42:02)

how powerful is that in helping to reset for the day if you’ve had a stressful meeting or you’ve been really busy with the kids. It’s an opportunity to take five minutes, ten minutes out for yourself to stop, pause, breathe, reset. Your body will love you for it and the benefits will be absolutely amazing for the in the long term.

DI (42:27)

Fantastic. So when you look at these bio hacks together, Azra, and it’s not about chasing youth per se, it’s about building power, building our energy, improving our overall wellbeing. If we look at an overarching philosophy around that, what is your philosophy to ageing well? you could…

put that down into a short succinct positioning statement for somebody listening.

AZRA (43:01)

For me, ageing well is about taking control of your own biology, to be able to implement biohacks so that you can optimise your health to live well longer. It’s as simple as that. I know that if I was to look back at my younger self, that I would say, hey, put yourself first. Because if you’re not looking after your health, and if you’re not looking after yourself, you can’t be there for your family. I’ve had friends recently who have gone through some significant health issues.

and they’re all having aha moments when they’re realizing that hey when you get taken out like that you can’t be there for your family. So yes we need to prioritize ourselves and we should not be apologetic at all for doing that. We should be embracing doing that for ourselves and taking the time out and Empowering ourselves to be able to proactively manage our health.

so that we can continue to live well longer and so that we continue to stay healthy for as long as possible.

DI (44:02)

And I think one of my takeaways from what you just said there is I think in the past we’ve been conditioned to push through and be stoic and ignore what’s going on where we really need to celebrate those who stop, listen, respond, as to your point, prioritize ourself because stoicism’s probably been our worst enemy.

in terms of ignoring, pushing through when we’re ignoring what’s going on in terms of our health and wellbeing.

AZRA (44:38)

sure and I I think that also like I did in my 40s and my 50s that when you’re starting to get older there’s a resistance there in our mindset about aging and we have to pause to stop to look at that and consider why is there that resistance and it might be for a number of reasons. It might be that we are scared of losing our identity who we think we are in our mind at a particular time that

DI (45:05)

stoic workaholic not necessarily doing us any favors

AZRA (45:09)

Or it might be that we are experiencing some current health issues at the moment and getting older, oh my goodness, it’s only going to get worse. If I’m experiencing it now and I’m struggling now, I might be a diabetic or there might be some other chronic health issues that I’m currently experiencing and as I get older we think that that’s inevitable but it’s not necessarily inevitable and a lot of the chronic illnesses that we experience as a result of aging.

can be reversed if we make the right lifestyle choices. And the other thing as well is that I think that people sometimes are scared of getting older because of that, because of the fact that, we’re going to get chronically ill or I’m going to end up with cancer or I’m going to lose my mobility or I’m going to lose my cognition and I don’t want that to happen to me. So the answer is biohacking. The answer is taking your power back, taking control of your own health.

implementing simple hacks as we’ve discussed today so that you can limit those detrimental effects of aging and you can reverse some of those aging effects and to ensure that you can stay vital and healthy for as long as possible.

DI (46:21)

So how can somebody find you if they want to tap into what you do at Biohacker, Azra?

AZRA (46:26)

Well, they can find me on any of my socials, so all my website, buy hack her health. ⁓ And I’m also going to be speaking at the Wonderlust event as well in October. So they can come along to see me at that. ⁓ And Instagram, Facebook, any of those socials that can reach out to me.

DI (46:46)

So five everyday bio hacks that can become your superpower. Sunlight, cold therapy, more sleep, the right approach to intermittent fasting, and probably the easiest and one of the most powerful of all being breath work and mindfulness. All affordable, all transformative, and all within reach of everybody every day.

So Azra, thank you so much for joining me on the Power of Women podcast today. know coming in I might have had some question marks about Biohack being gimmicky, it’s not. It’s grounded alternative therapy or alternative approach that you can take an integrated approach to East West Biohack, marry it together and determine what works well for you. ⁓

about not necessarily living longer, but living a healthier, longevity. Let me redo that again, Daryl. It’s not necessarily about living longer, but it’s about living well for longer. And that is absolutely the key to it. Until next time.