57-Year-Old Biohacker Who Says She Feels 21 Shares Her Wellness Tips

Azra Alagic had recently turned 50 and married for the second time when an unsettling thought surfaced: “My mortality is just around the corner.”

The realisation came at an awkward time — during her honeymoon in Italy. “My husband and I were exploring these beautiful ancient villages, where there are stairs everywhere, and I started feeling a niggle in my knee,” Azra, now 57, tells the Daily Mail. “Then it began collapsing underneath me.”

At first, she dismissed it. “I thought, ‘This is ridiculous. I’m a fit woman.’” But the problem steadily worsened throughout the trip. “I realised my body was beginning to stop responding the way it once had.”

Returning home to Australia brought another deeply unsettling surprise.

“When we got home and I looked at the wedding photographs, they weren’t what I had expected,” Azra says. “I burst into tears because I looked so much older than I thought I did.”

A few days later, a friend made the moment even more uncomfortable over coffee. Reaching across the table to touch the lines on Azra’s forehead, she suggested: “Az, just get a little Botox here. It will make such a difference.”

The Gold Coast mother of three had also been putting off a number of persistent health concerns.

“I’d experienced migraines since my twenties, and they would leave me bedridden for at least three days,” she says. Initially, the attacks came before each menstrual cycle, but they became more frequent as she grew older. “I was bloated and looked six months pregnant. I had gas and reflux. My body was clearly unhappy, and it was time to start listening to it.”

A former journalist then working in the corporate sector, Azra began investigating ways to slow the ageing process. Her research introduced her to biohacking — and she embraced the movement wholeheartedly.

Azra is now recognised as one of Australia’s leading female biohackers. She is also the founder of Biohackher, a longevity brand focused on helping women extend their “healthspan” through smart technology and science-backed strategies.

Azra describes biohacking as “taking control of your biology”. That can involve changes to diet, exercise and other lifestyle habits designed to support a healthier, more youthful life for longer.

The concept is often linked to the so-called “biohacking bros” — men on social media who promote elaborate, and frequently costly, methods of “optimising” their health.

Bryan Johnson, the former technology chief executive, is one prominent example. He has spent millions on his personal biohacking programme, monitoring more than 100 biomarkers each day and undergoing regular medical interventions in an effort to slow ageing.

PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel has also backed several longevity research initiatives, including investigations into young blood transfusions, known as parabiosis, as a possible anti-ageing treatment.

Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, have likewise supported biohacking and longevity efforts.

“What do they all have in common? They’re men,” Azra says. “Some of their work is helping move the field forward, but much of the research reflects male priorities — extreme performance, muscle optimisation and pursuing longevity at any cost.”

Challenging that male-dominated image of biohacking has become one of Azra’s central missions.

“At first, I followed all the biohacking bros because there weren’t many female biohackers,” she says. “But as I learned more, I began to think, ‘Hang on — this doesn’t necessarily feel right for me as a woman.’”

As she investigated approaches better suited to female biology, the first biohacking practice Azra abandoned was cold plunging.

‘My husband and I would have competitions of who could stay in the cold plunge for longest,’ she says. ‘But that’s not necessarily great for the female biology because it can increase our cortisol levels – and ladies, we’re already stressed enough!’

Many biohacking trends come with a hefty price tag.

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‘Yes, it would be great to have your own personal hyperbaric oxygen chamber at home to be able to use on a daily basis,’ she says. ‘In an ideal world, that’s mostly unaffordable for most people.’

Despite what the biohacking bros might tell you, she insists, extending your health span can be low-cost or free.

‘My number one biohack is sleep,’ she says. ‘I know that can feel unachievable for women, especially with young children. But sleep is really important for reducing inflammation, for eliminating metabolic waste out of the brain, and for making sure that we retain memory.’

Her recommended ‘sleep hactivities’ are practical and, for the most part, low-cost: set a lunchtime coffee curfew, ditch screens before bed, and try supplements like magnesium glycinate that can help relax the nervous system.

For women, she also recommends avoiding ‘long, drawn-out workouts’ that increase cortisol, increasing protein, lifting weights and reducing alcohol without having to opt for teetotalism.

When it came to supporting herself through menopause, she opted for ‘an alternative approach’ that included a high-protein diet, regular saunas to manage hot flashes, and Black cohosh – a flowering plant native to North America. ‘I took this during the peak of my menopause symptoms to help manage hot flashes and night sweats.’

Despite not opting for hormone replacement therapy, she is not all-natural. ‘Yes, I’ve had Botox done,’ she says. ‘Absolutely, because if I don’t, I look like I’ve got a cranky b***h face.’ In her early thirties, she had a breast augmentation, which she doesn’t regret.

She believes there is a side of biohacking often overlooked, especially by the bro scene: ‘Chronic unhappiness shortens lifespan’.

‘If you’ve ever been through a period of chronic stress, grief or deep unhappiness, you know what it does to your body,’ she says. ‘You feel exhausted, foggy, physically drained and even prone to illness. That’s not a coincidence.’

Azra has experienced this first-hand.

After her first marriage ended in 2009 and two of her sons decided they wanted to live with their father, she experienced ‘a constant turmoil of sadness, pain, anger, frustration, stress and worry’ that lasted for years.

‘I know deep in my heart that those emotions contributed to my years of suffering from migraines, constantly getting sick, the chronic stress I experienced and my mindset, which I have worked hard to turn around.’

When her stress was high, she took a biological age test. ‘Despite being 54, chronologically, my biological age was 73,’ she says. ‘The extreme stress I was going through at the time had a massive impact.’

This is why, as well as changes to diet, sleep and exercise, her ‘hactivities’ focus on increasing optimism and gratitude, and reducing work stress wherever possible.

‘This means turning off work notifications after hours, creating no-work zones like your bedroom, and communicating your availability clearly to colleagues’ – without feeling guilty about it.’

At the start of her self-experiment, she set herself clear goals: ‘to keep my body young enough to do whatever I want for the next fifty years; to continue doing activities I love like horse-riding and to maintain cognitive function to continue to have political debates with my husband.’

Now 57 years old, Azra arguably looks younger than her age – but how old does she feel?

‘I feel like I’m 21,’ she says. ‘I’m not on any medication; I don’t have any injuries or ongoing niggling issues with joints, and, in my later years, I have done more challenging activities than I ever did when I was younger. I’ve climbed a volcano, I’ve parachuted out of a plane, I’ve started a new business, I’m learning how to speak French, I bought a farm and spend days in the paddocks learning how to garden.

‘I don’t allow my age to be a barrier to doing anything I want to do.’

Biohackher: The longevity guide every woman needs is available to preorder, published by Kind Press