SOFT BIOHACKING: RECLAIMING FEMININITY IN A WORLD OF OPTIMISATION

Going back to being deeply human, not super human

Today I’m introducing the concept of Soft Biohacking: a response to the modern mascline-driven biohacking. I’ll explore why the original idea of biohacking is a feminine, elegant and useful pursuit, why it’s a fundamentally intuitive practice, and the shifts we as women can harness to reclaim it. There’s a lot on which to expand, so if you’d like me to go deeper on any topics, I am happy to create a series.

Every January, I make the pilgrimage to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show. It is the world’s biggest tech convention featuring everything new and next in innovation: it feels like traveling to the future to witness an idealised vision as imagined by corporations.

I’ve seen everything from helper robots that look after children, appliances that speak to one another so you don’t have to, connected cities that promise a decent living for all, and a few flying cars.

This year, there was a whole new game in town: longevity tech. Massive pavilions filled with innovations promising to extend human lifespan. That elusive holy grail forever chased by man, living longer and better, possibly forever, in all it’s glory.

I saw NuraLogix’s “Longevity Mirror” that analyzes facial blood flow to score metabolic health and biological age in 30 seconds. Withings’ Body Scan 2 smart scale measures 60+ biomarkers. Headbands that literally interrupt anxious thoughts so people can finally sleep. AI-powered toilets that analyze urine. Smart mirrors, smart scales, smart everything, smart biohacking.

Yes that's a robot taking a selfie with me, and another robot having a very very bad day

The irony wasn’t lost on me as I walked miles through the Las Vegas convention center, doing my best to maintain some semblance of natural, healthy living: eating enough, sleeping enough, lifting weights, avoiding processed foods, getting fresh air and sunlight (admittedly difficult in a windowless expo hall and endless mazes of casino floors designed to confuse you).

Yet, at the same time, I was surrounded by machines promising not only to make us more empowered about our health, but to extend the amount of time we can enjoy it. At the gym each morning, I witnessed (mostly) men fitted with trackers and sensors, punishing themselves without an ounce of pleasure, in pursuit of an arbitrary goal of “wellness.” Biohacking bros.

The biohacking space as it is known today often confounds me. It focuses on what I call “sprinkles on the sundae:” the things that are fun extras but not the real foundational stuff that makes life delicious. It’s usually expensive things like red light therapy, cold plunges, supplements, various machines. Now the whole game seems to be around peptides (at times highly suspect ones). Lots of things to buy and plug in and inject; not much of what the human body actually needs.

It made me wonder: how did we get here?

What Biohacking actually is, and where it went wrong

Biohacking, at its core, is a beautiful idea. It’s the recognition that modern life has systematically disconnected us from the natural rhythms and conditions our bodies were designed to thrive in.

I don’t need to illustrate our current reality, but a brief reminder: we work under fluorescent lights instead of sunlight; eat processed foods instead trusting/ enjoying the ancestral diets our grandmothers knew (increasingly, even in France); sit for 12 hours instead of moving our bodies through varied, natural motions; and of course, what I saw a lot of in Vegas are the screens into which we stare constantly, as if looking into the eyes of a lover.

The original promise of biohacking was simple and elegant: “hack” your way back to what the human body actually needs by reconnecting to nature, even while living in a modern world.

The basic protocol looks like: receive more sunlight, eat real nutrient-dense food, move the body in ways that build strength and vitality, get enough sleep, connect meaningfully with people by being physically with them. Biohacking was a return to the fundamentals that allowed humans to thrive for millennia.

This is noble work and necessary work in our modern stew. Biohacking was originally about deliberately designing our lives to reclaim the elements we’ve lost, a pretty punk rock approach to a world that profits from our physical, emotional and mental depletion.

Then the forces of money and power twisted it into a product to buy and sell and measure. Something that was feminine became over-taken by masculine energy - the analytical, logical side of the brain that transforms everything into numbers. A few prominent men emerged in the space selling a lot of stuff that didn’t have much to do with the fundamentals, and more to do with manipulating the body instead of intuitively listening to it.

Now biohacking has become the very thing it was supposed to free us from: another exhausting form of optimization. Butter in coffee, 5am cold plunges, lots of fasting, productivity hacks, tracking HRV/ sleep/ steps/ macros/ ketones / whatever is trending. And it’s disconnected us again from our feeling intuition as humans.

In short, it got hijacked by masculine energy. The energy that wants to solve a problem when you just want to be listened to (am I right, ladies?). The masculine side is not bad, but it tends towards the rational, analytical, measuring part of our minds that thrives on tracking, quantifying, and in the process, misses the wisdom of the feminine: feeling, intuition, cyclical rhythms, community as nourishment, pleasure as information, listening to the body’s mystical signals that can’t be measured.

Biohacking was originally supposed to reconnect us to our bodies. Instead, it’s conditioned us to override them.

the divine feminine everywhere in Paris

Why Biohacking Is Fundamentally Feminine

I believe that fundamentally, the truest form of biohacking is a deeply feminine practice. The feminine is attuned, it listens. Our bodies tell us so much about honoring our hunger, resting when we’re tired, moving in ways that feel good, eating nourishing foods and doing it regularly.

This is the wisdom women have known for thousands of years before we were taught to ignore our bodies, override our hunger, push through exhaustion, measure our worth by how little space we take up and by how much we can produce.

The truth is that our intuition will always be more intelligent than any machine/ tracking devise/ arbitrary protocol ever could be.

The real biohackers are women. I want to know more of these women, the ones who know which plants heal which ailments, understand the lunar cycle and how it affects our bodies, cook foods that build strong bodies, and move through life carrying, lifting, walking, dancing. They trust their instincts about what is safe and what isn’t (side note: isn’t it interesting that humans are the only animals that override the feeling of being in danger? Any animal that feels unsafe will escape but humans often will rationalise staying in dangerous situations).

Feminine energy is cyclical, open, intuitive and understands the wisdom inherent in the body, asking us to tune in and really listen. I’m still learning this because it’s a slog in the modern world. But vitality comes from listening to the body, not controlling it within an inch of its life.

What is Soft Biohacking?

I started to think about recasting the whole game, and giving it a rebrand: Soft biohacking. Reclaiming the pursuit of thriving health as a feminine birthright, and as an expression of our gorgeous, vital, and creative life force.

I truly truly truly deeply believe that women are meant to create. We have an instinctual impulse to create. At its basic level, this can mean literally creating life in the form of children, but it also means creating art, connection, relationships, meals, ideas, projects, concepts, innovations. And at virtually all times in modern life, we are distracted from that core instinct.

When we spend our time optimising, measuring, restricting, being emotionally exhausted, constantly sold to, trying to adhere to beauty standards we had no say in establishing - all of these distractions add up to time and money and energy that could otherwise be spent creating.

Soft Biohacking is a way to reclaim the natural, intuitive, and very very feminine ways to thrive - to create - in a world of masculine logic and analytics.

The Five Shifts: A New Language for Feminine Vitality

How do we practice Soft Biohacking? How do we take back what’s ours - strength, nourishment, vitality - and strip away the masculine coding that’s made it feel cold and clinical?

We need new language, new codes, new ways of talking about what we’re doing that doesn’t borrow from gym bros or bodybuilding forums or biohacking podcasts hosted by men in ice baths.

Think: pleasure, intuition, sensuality, rhythm, nourishment, magnetism.

The shifts I’m proposing are about fundamentally reframing our entire approach to health, strength, and vitality through a feminine lens.

SHIFT 1: ENERGY

From Burnout and Optimisation to Overflowing Magnetism & Ease

What we’re recoding: The masculine biohacking energy of optimization, productivity, joyless hustle, and the idea that health is something you grind toward. An approach that treats rest as weakness and more as always better.

This type of energy is inherently aggressive, if not a bit desperate. It treats the body like a machine to be optimized rather than an organism with rhythms and needs.

The Soft Biohacking code: We do not hustle health; we listen to it, soften into it. Soft biohacking doesn’t deplete us, but provides overflowing energy and magnetism. That’s because energy is not cultivated through force, it is cultivated by nourishment, rest, and moving in a way that gives us pleasure. Like everything in Nouri Paris, it’s centered on abundance. Actually, it’s a beautiful glow that comes from inside when we treat our bodies as a precious vessel, and not something to be conquered and manipulated.

What it looks like: We listen to our bodies and align our actions to it, cultivating good energy. Focus on eating enough, remembering to take deep breaths throughout the day, get up from your desk every hour - even for one minute. Take a walk outside in the middle of the day and have sunlight hit your eyeballs. Spend time with people who lift you up, celebrate you, have your best interest in mind. Go to bed when you’re tired, not when it’s “late enough to sleep,” and wake up at an hour that makes you feel rested. As a result, energy feels steady and warm. You end the day satisfied and ready to sleep, but not depleted. You radiate a steady, warm and calm energy that others can’t help but notice.

SHIFT 2: FOOD

From Control and Restriction to Intuitive Nourishment

What we’re recoding: Biologically, men have a totally different relationship to food. They are able to go long periods without eating with little consequences to their hormones. They can have a lower body fat than women without compromising their health. They can put butter in their coffee or go hours after lifting without eating and be fine. But so much of the biohacking food conversation leaves out the fact that women are not tiny men: intermittent fasting windows, macro tracking, meal timing rules, OMAD, Keto, etcetera. The entire system of control uses made-up logic that dictates when to eat, how much to eat, what combinations are “allowed” and even worse, ignoring the body’s hunger signals in service of some diet protocol.

This approach is the same controlling energy that’s kept women afraid of food for decades, treating hunger like a problem to solve rather than wisdom to honor. And, because this is Nouri Paris, it further insults by disconnecting us from pleasure and the sensual experience of being well-fed.

The Soft Biohacking code: Women need nourishment, we need calories, we need healthy fats, we need energy, we need carbs, we need to keep our energy steady and hormones supported. We must eat when we’re hungry, this is so important! We cannot eat one meal a day or go on long fasts, and we cannot live on protein shakes and bars. Instead, we choose gorgeous, natural, nutrient-dense single ingredient foods: red meat, ripe fruit, creamy dairy, runny eggs, real butter, raw honey. We recode meat and animal products and saturated fats and milk and eggs not as bodybuilder food, but as feminine nourishment.

Food is pleasure, and nourishment is sensual, and eating is feminine. Tell me you don’t feel like the most empowered, gorgeous woman when cutting into and relishing a perfectly cooked steak.

What it looks like: You wake up hungry and eat breakfast, whether it’s milk with honey or eggs with butter and orange juice, or fruit and coffee with cream. When midday hunger hits, eat something substantial that satisfies, like steak and potatoes, roasted chicken, cheeses, ripe fruits. Afternoon nourishment looks like Greek yogurt with honey, or cottage cheese and dark chocolate. We don’t track macros or read labels (we don’t eat lots of foods with labels anyway) and we don’t have feeding windows.

I wish every woman knew that tuning in to what the body is asking for, and honouring it, is the greatest form of rebellion and empowerment we can do. We eat natural single ingredient foods, mostly from animals and fruit to support our bodies, our hormones, our moods, our creativity. We must regain trust with our hunger and nourishment in order to thrive. (By the way, an essay on why not to fast, from an ex-faster, coming soon)

SHIFT 3: MOVEMENT

From Punishment and Performance to Goddess Training

What we’re recoding: The entire gym bro language around movement like “crushing” or “killing it” is so violent and disembodied. We are dismissing the idea that exercise is something you do to your body; we move for our bodies. We are letting go of tracking every rep, set, every PR because this energy treats movement as aggressive and joyless. It turns strength training into another form of control.

The Soft Biohacking code: We train like warrior goddesses who lift heavy weights to build physical power and independence. The goal is to feel strong in our bodies and confident moving through the world. We recode bodybuilding as very very very very feminine: if you want, you can lift barefoot, in cotton bodysuits and loose pants, and you can show that building strength is pleasurable and sensual. Soft Biohacking allows us to inhabit our bodies fully through building strength and taking up space.

What it looks like: You lift weights 2-4 times a week because it makes you feel incredible, strong, grounded, and powerful. Maybe you do Pilates and yoga a couple times a week for grace and stability. You take long walks because moving your body through space feels good and it’s a low-impact way to reduce stress. You dance in your kitchen while dinner cooks (without injuring yourself!). You stretch in the morning because it opens up your body. Some days, the “workout” might be carrying heavy market bags home, taking the stairs, because life is movement. You punish yourself with exercise never. Strong goddess warrior women build strength because physical power is freedom.

SHIFT 4: STYLE

From Synthetic Performance Wear to Natural Feminine Ease

What we’re recoding: The athletic uniform of tight spandex, compression, performance fabrics engineered in synthetic hormone-disrupting fabrics. The idea that “fitness” has a specific look, and that look is sleek, minimal, very body conscious. Squeezing ourselves into plastic packaging makes style look more like optimization and less like self-expression.

This aesthetic is toxic on a couple levels. We’re wrapping our skin in synthetic fabrics while simultaneously promoting body dysmorphia through unforgiving clothes that highlight every flaw (real or perceived) and generally feels uncomfortable if we’re being honest with ourselves.

The Soft Biohacking code: We move in natural fabrics like loose cotton, soft bodysuits or tops, ballet wraps. Materials that breathe, that feel beautiful against the skin, that don’t disrupt our hormones, that makes us feel feminine. Our “workout clothes” might be the same pieces we wear to lunch after, because who said women need to be in spandex to look healthy, beautiful and fit? Movement style can be tactile, feminine, undone, sensual.

What it looks like: You lift in a soft cotton bodysuit or tank and loose pants, because you know that what’s underneath is strong and sexy, and you don’t need tight synthetics to prove it. Or you wear cotton shorts and an oversized hoodie or t-shirt that allows for range of motion and comfort because the lifts themselves are what make you feel good. You move in natural fabrics that allow the body to breathe because the effortless ease is the sexiness. We are comfortable, confident, moving freely in materials that support the body instead of judging it.

WHAT SOFT BIOHACKING IS

We’ve been taught that strength and animal foods and taking up space are masculine things, but they’re not and they never were. Women throughout history have been warrior princesses who keep the world turning with our grit, power and resilience. It’s always been ours.

Soft Biohacking is how we can reclaim the original wisdom that got lost with new technologies, innovations, and the prevailing belief that human intuition is inferior to the calculations of machines.

Soft Biohacking means we can begin to live in our bodies again, to eat when hungry, to become strong without fearing bulk, to wear things that make us feel good and sexy and healthy, and to trust that our inner voice knows best.

That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

Not superhuman. Deeply human. And very, very feminine.

Stay Nourished. x Nadia