In today’s world of big bucks and progressive medicine, anti-ageing is the new black. Last month, tech mogul Bryan Johnson had his son’s plasma injected into his bloodstream as part of a multimillion dollar drive to show how a middle-aged man might regain the body of an 18-year-old. But perhaps the leading light in this field is America’s favourite biohacker, Ben Greenfield.
Also known as DIY biology, biohacking involves manipulating one’s body to perform beyond its natural abilities. When I meet Greenfield he’s halfway through a jog, which he continues throughout our conversation. His responses are robust and rapid, his tone clear and confident. “I’m coming to London for the health optimisation summit,” he announces with glee. On June 19, he’ll deliver a longevity masterclass at Chelsea’s HUM2N Clinic (a futuristic place, half-alien spaceship, half-nuclear bunker with all the accoutrements of a five-star hotel), at an event hosted by Davinia Taylor, the darling of the Primrose Hill Set who has swapped champagne for amino acids. Together, the event description tells us, they’ll try and crack the longevity code.
Anti-ageing enthusiasts are often portrayed in the media as egomaniacs. But more so than lifespan, it is healthspan which scientists and biohackers are most concerned with – i.e. not dying a slow and painful death. For Greenfield, it’s about maximising potential. The idea is not to play God, he suggests, but to fulfil God’s idea of man. It goes without saying that Greenfield is religious. Two days before our chat he admonished his 407k Instagram followers to be rebels “like Jesus was a rebel and not […] a cigarette smoking leather jacket wearing guy who’s flippin’ it to the man.”
Greenfield is constantly pushing the boundaries of what a man should be able to do, but doing so under “the canon of God’s law”. “I tell my sons that waking up in the morning and doing meditation and breathwork and prioritising the body and the spirit first thing is a noble way to be a better human,” he reveals.
From his journey as a personal trainer to becoming a messiah to the big dogs (he counts ex-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Def Jam co-founder Rick Rubin among his fans), Greenfield’s story reads like a macho spin on the American dream. “Just don’t call me the Jesus Christ of biohacking,” he laughs.
At 40 Greenfield had a biological age of nine and a record-length roster of anti-ageing experiments to his name, with ice baths, infrared light therapy, LSD microdosing and penis gyms (involving resistance bands and flexing exercises) all features of his daily life.
Now 42, Greenfield is ready for a new chapter. The man once called the ‘alpha male’s alpha male’ has his sights set on the parenting book market. His very own mammoth-sized manual, Boundless Parenting, came out earlier this year.
Boundless Parenting builds on his experience of raising twin boys River and Terran (14) and interviews with other parents who, like he and his wife Jessa, are passionate about giving their kids an outside-the-box upbringing. As Greenfield also calls it: parenting “through love”, rather than “through discipline”.
“We don’t set hard and fast rules,” Greenfield tells me, “We educate our sons on the consequences of the decisions they might make.” . Being too prescriptive, he believes, creates “a whole host of forbidden fruit”.
“The tree that’s too rigid is gonna snap in the presence of wind,” he expands. “The tree that’s too soft and yielding is gonna be at risk. But the tree that’s got the right combination of rigidity and flexibility is the ideal tree.The same can be said for a human.”
Greenfield’s book, like his biohacking experiments, covers exhaustive ground. He speaks to CEOs, journalists, and his own parents. Unlike other parenting books of the new generation like Philippa Perry’s The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read, this is less of a psychological exploration of the parent-child dynamic and more of a practical guide built on plurality. If Perry’s book reads almost like a novel, Greenfield’s is more biblical – in tone, in structure, and in weight.
All classic qualms are there. How do I keep my kids safe without smothering them? What do I have to do to make my kids eat their greens? There are more modern questions, too, for parents whose children were born after the iPhone. How do I make sure my kids are happy, and not terminally online?
“If I tell my sons, ‘Hey, never look at porn,’ […] they’re gonna really want to check out what this porn stuff is about,” he tells me, “If I sit them down and talk to them about the impact porn has — the degradation of their view of the opposite sex, or the impact of dopamine reception in their brain, or the creation of an entire industry that often results in the abuse and misuse of women — they’re gonna look at it a lot differently.”
Though most contributors to Boundless Parenting were sourced from Greenfield’s contacts book, some were tapped from outside his usual network – like Lenore Skenazy, founder of the Free-Range Kids movement and once dubbed ‘America’s worst mom’ for letting her nine-year-old son ride the New York subway on his own. Today, Skenazy is president the non-profit Let Grow, which seeks to change the model of American childhood.
“We intentionally make sure they have two to three hours of creative free time built into the day,” Greenfield tells me. “A child’s learning and memory consolidation is amplified tremendously by being given the chance to daydream and I think more adults could reap the benefits of finding thirty minutes a day to just lay out in the backyard and let their thoughts go where they desire.”
Adults could reap the benefits of finding thirty minutes a day to let their thoughts go where they desire
Greenfield, who was home-schooled, decided it would benefit his children too. “I think for a child to spend an entire day in a classroom with children primarily their own age creates an unrealistic scenario,” he says. “In the workplace we’re surrounded by people who might be 10 years behind us or ahead of us.” If the argument against home schooling is that children need to get socialised to ready them for their professional futures, Greenfield has well and truly turned the logic on its head.
He cautions against “bullying and peer pressure and the massive amounts of unnecessary homework” in a school environment, but he’s equally quick to disown the stereotype of the “barefoot, hippy prairie kid who’s never with any other children and has a horse and a pig.” Greenfield prioritises group activities for his children: “My sons are in tennis, Ju jitsu, speech club, youth group and camps that they go to throughout the week.”
Another leitmotiv is the importance of family rituals. Our conversation turns to longevity as Greenfield touches on one of his favourite examples, “the gin-chugging, cigarette-smoking great grandma in Sardinia who lives to 117”. What keeps her going? It can’t just be the Mediterranean diet. “It’s a deep connection to the entire community, and being part of a close-knit family,” Greenfield tells me. Nonnas are driven by purpose rather than ambition, unlike typical biohacking enthusiasts — who, to use Greenfield’s terms, tend to be “sad unfulfilled billionaires or super athletes”. Beyond fasting, fitness, and penile workouts, it is community that ultimately gives us the strength to carry on.
Greenfield’s argument isn’t just a happy clappy love thy neighbour trope, but a scientific fact backed by studies from Harvard which show loneliness and isolation from friends can shorten lifespans by eight years.
Greenfield’s goal isn’t to live forever, but rather to optimise his time on Earth through meaningful pursuits. Regardless of whether or not we agree with him on some of the more zealous or pernickety aspects of his work, there is much wisdom to be found. “Not every day is groundhog day,” he smiles. “Sometimes you just want to go to the steakhouse with your friends.” His candour is infectious. I learn that he’s due to meet with Evening Standard owner Evgeny Lebedev to record a podcast about all this in London.
“It’s my prerogative to leave people with teachings about the stuff that’s gonna bring them lasting happiness and meaning.” Greenfield is done advocating the use of cryotherapy chambers or hours running on the treadmill under headphones in our own little world.
“People need to spend a greater amount of time engaged in their local community,” he continues. “We need to think of ourselves as a soul with a body, rather than a body with a soul.” I guess that’s it for the solitary ice bath.
