Female biohacker, 57, who ‘feels 21’, reveals the everyday ways women can reduce their biological age – and why the ‘biohacking bros’ have got it wrong

Azra Alagic had just celebrated her 50th birthday and her second wedding when the thought struck her: ‘My mortality is just around the corner.’

The realisation hit her suddenly – and at an inconvenient moment. ‘It started when my husband and I were on our honeymoon in Italy,’ Azra, now 57, tells the Daily Mail. ‘They’ve got stairs everywhere in these beautiful ancient villages and I started to get this niggle in my knee, then it started collapsing on me.’

Her first thought was, ‘This is ridiculous. I’m a fit woman.’ But, during the trip, it got progressively worse. ‘I realised, hang on, my body is starting to not respond in the way it used to.’

After arriving back in Australia, there was another shock in store.

‘When we got home, and I saw the wedding photos, they weren’t quite what I anticipated,’ says Azra. ‘I just burst into tears because I looked so much older than I thought.’

It also didn’t help when, over a coffee a few days later, a friend leaned across the table, rubbed at the wrinkles on her forehead and said, ‘Az, just get a little bit of Botox here. It will make such a difference.’

There were other niggling health symptoms that the mother of three from the Gold Coast had been avoiding.

‘I had suffered from migraines since my twenties that would see me bedridden for at least three days,’ she says. At first, it was before each menstrual cycle, but as she got older the migraines became more frequent. ‘I was also bloated and looked like I was six months pregnant,’ she says. ‘I had gas and reflux. My body was not happy. It was time I listened to it’.

A former journalist who, at this point, worked in the corporate world, she began to research ways to slow down the ageing process. This was her introduction to the biohacking movement – and she went all in.

Today, Azra is known as one of Australia’s leading female biohackers; the founder of Biohackher, a ‘longevity brand’ that aims to help women extend their ‘healthspan’ through smart tech and science-backed strategies.

In Azra’s words, biohacking is about ‘taking control of your biology’ by using different techniques like diet or lifestyle changes to ‘achieve a healthier, more youthful life for longer than normal’.

The term is often associated with ‘biohacking bros’ – the guys on social media who brag about ‘optimising’ their health through elaborate and often expensive strategies.

Take Bryan Johnson, the former tech CEO who has invested millions in his own biohacking routine, tracking more than 100 biomarkers daily and undergoing regular medical interventions to slow his ageing process.

Then there’s Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, who has funded multiple longevity research projects, including studies into young blood transfusions (parabiosis) as a potential anti-ageing treatment.

Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Google’s parent company, Alphabet, have also thrown their weight behind biohacking.

‘The common theme? These are all men,’ says Azra. ‘While some of their work is advancing the field, much of the research is being driven by male priorities – extreme performance, muscle optimisation and longevity at any cost.’

This is the side of biohacking that Azra is passionate about myth-busting.

‘At the start, I absolutely followed all the bros because there weren’t a lot of female biohackers around,’ she says. ‘When I started to follow them, I realised, hang on a minute, that’s not necessarily feeling right for me as a woman.’

When she began to explore the best biohacking for the female anatomy, the first biohacking habit she quit was cold plunges.

‘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.

‘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