Newsletter
The Ikigai Diet and Bio-Hacking
Cherry Blossoms are in full bloom now. It is getting more fun to go Nordic walking.
Have you ever heard of the human potential movement?
According to Wikipedia,
The Human Potential Movement arose out of the counterculture of the 1960s and formed around the concept of an extraordinary potential that its advocates believed to lie largely untapped in all people. The movement takes as its premise the belief that through the development of their “human potential”, people can experience a life of happiness, creativity, and fulfillment, and that such people will direct their actions within society toward assisting others to release their potential. Adherents believe that the collective effect of individuals cultivating their own potential will be positive change in society at large.
Doesn’t it sound familiar?
It sounds a bit like biohacking, doesn’t it? Biohacking also tries to optimize our potential.
Although my involvement with this movement was in the 80s, I have experienced some aspects of the human potential movement, through practices of meditation, Shiatsu, breathwork, psychotherapies, hypnotherapies, and NLP. It had more focus on the mind, but it worked on the physical side, as well, since many of the approaches were holistic, working on body, mind, and spirit all at the same time.
Lifespan extension was not necessarily a goal of this movement, but improving your wellness was part of it. Upgrading your performance was one of the goals since it was exploring our potential by expanding our consciousness.
Recently, I have been practicing Wim Hof’s breathing technique, and have come across videos on holotropic breathwork.
That is a nostalgic sound. It was back in 1988 when I took part in a holotropic breathwork workshop at a Zen temple outside of Tokyo. I remember doing fast breathing on a tatami floor, listening to Balinese music.
At that time I had already done breathwork called Rebirthing, I was a Rebirthing practitioner, actually, breathing reminded me of that of Rebirthing, yet doing it with music was something new to me, plus the venue, the Zen temple, since I did Rebirthing in England, the whole experience was somewhat exotic for me.
We can say the Wim Hof breathing method is part of the biohacking movement since the cold plunge is practiced a lot among biohackers. So. there is a connection here. In many ways, there are a lot of overlapping practices between the biohacking movement and the human potential movement.
We didn’t have that many gadgets back then but you could say that an isolation tank was a forerunner of some equipment used in biohacking.
In a way, the biohacking movement is the revival of the human potential movement. They were both born in California, Big Sur and Silicon Valley, not so far from each other.
I get the impression that the biohacking movement has evolved more toward science and technology. In that sense, Ikigai Bio-Hacking may be closer to the human potential movement since it stresses the spiritual side more. It really is a way to optimize our consciousness so that we can evolve to the next level.
Adherents of the human potential movement believe that the collective effect of individuals cultivating their own potential will be positive change in society at large. Since Ikigai Bio-Hacking is planetary bio-harmonizing, it has common ground with the HPM in this area, too.
Newsletter
The Ikigai Diet and Bio-Hacking