As a kid, Anna Asprey’s Friday evenings included neurofeedback training, where sensors measured her brain activity to teach it to function more efficiently.
Time with her dad, biohacker Dave Asprey, involved divvying up his supplements before a trip. At bedtime, she rejected a nightlight, concerned it might throw off her circadian rhythm.
When she was five, Dave warned her off eating some inedible wild pea plants in their yard, not by telling her she’d get a tummy ache, but with a crash course in biology.
“The way he chose to explain this to me was through chemical reception binding and gap junctions,” Anna, now 19, told The Post.
“It was actually really very effective,” she admitted. “He didn’t just want me to understand what was going on, but why and how it was relevant to me. I realize a lot of kids probably haven’t had things explained to them that way.”
Once dismissed as fringe, the practices championed by Asprey and other longevity pioneers have steadily migrated into the wellness mainstream.
But long before biohacking became a buzzword, it was already woven into the everyday lives of the early evangelists’ children.
Growing up biohacked
Cole Brecka didn’t think much of his family’s habits growing up, though they were far from the norm.
“I was probably the only 15-year-old freshman football player on BPC-157 in the entire state of Florida,” the now-25-year-old said with a laugh.
After Cole sprained his ankle during a game, his father, Gary Brecka, introduced him to the experimental peptide, which is now used as part of the the gym bro-beloved “Wolverine stack” and promoted for its potential to aid tissue repair and recovery.
Before games, his dad would “always give me a protocol — like, you’ve got to have this many electrolytes, trace minerals and amino acids,” Cole recalled.
“Then I’d look over at the guy next to me and see he’s eating a Lunchable and drinking a soda and that’s his pre-game warm up.”
Gary also occasionally pulled his son out of school at lunchtime for a trip to a nearby cryotherapy center, prompting puzzled looks from the office staff.
Today, Gary is a prominent voice in the biohacking world. His show, “The Ultimate Human,” has become a major platform in the wellness space, and his orbit includes high-profile figures such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Joe Rogan and Dana White.
But before the podcasts and celebrity connections, Gary worked in insurance and raised three children with his then-wife, making health a central part of family life.
“Our weekend fun would be doing a CrossFit workout,” Cole remembered. “The gym is like our happy place.”
Not every child was as eager to embrace the family’s fitness ethos. “I’m more of a science brain,” said Madison Brecka, 28, Cole’s older sister.
When she got her driver’s license, her parents offered to cover her car payments and insurance — provided she agreed to exercise.
At the time, it seemed reasonable. Now, when she recounts the deal to friends, it tends to raise a few eyebrows.
“A lot of people think it’s almost like stimulating an eating disorder. But it was more about, ‘I want to see you work out. I want you to make these routines into habits for adulthood, and your reward is that I pay for your car,’” Madison explained.
Inside the Brecka household, none of it felt particularly unusual.
“Right now, there’s this term ‘biohacking,’ but growing up, it was just life,” Cole said. “It was always around us.”
That is, until they saw what passed for normal in other families.
Zak Bennett for NYPost
“My friends hated coming to my place,” Cole said. “You’re up all night playing video games with your boys and you go into the cabinet and you’ve got fresh fruit, then you go to another friend’s house and they’ve got Oreos and chips and Pringles.”
Madison enjoyed sampling other families’ snacks too — until indulgence gave way to regret.
She remembers a friend who had treats like Pop-Tarts and Gushers in their pantry.
“This is not a ‘nepobaby biohacker’ thing. I consciously made this change on my own.”
Madison Brecka
“I was like, ‘Your parents letting you have these is so crazy to me,’” she said. “Then I would have like six of them and feel like s–t.”
Her parents, however, favored education over punishment.
“Like, ‘See, notice you ate all that food, that’s why your stomach hurts,’” Madison said. “They really wanted to explain to us that your body is the only home you live in your whole life — so take care of it.”
Anna was similarly discerning about what she ate, often helping prepare meals from scratch.
“My parents never pretended that if I tried something it would kill me or anything like that. They, in fact, encouraged curiosity,” she said. “But even when I was pretty little, I was the ingredient kid who read the label.”
Once, on a school camping trip, she asked to inspect the nutrition facts on the food planned for dinner before deciding whether to eat it.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone read the label on this,” her teacher remarked.
In those days, Dave was making waves in the entrepreneurial world with his Bulletproof brand, which encompassed low-mold coffee, supplements and nutritional advice.
He would later be widely credited with helping launch the biohacking movement, expanding into a range of related ventures, including Danger Coffee and Upgrade Labs.
The limits of parental protocols
Even the most dedicated biohacker parents can’t engineer their way around one basic fact: kids don’t always follow orders.
“I will confess, I did stay up a bit later than my bedtime reading with my red light lamp,” Anna said.
Cole drew the line at needles.
“I could be crippling sick, and [my dad] would be like, ‘Cole, you have to do this B12 shot or this IV treatment,’ and I’d lock the door,” he said. “There was this one time he chased me around the couch with these vitamin injections saying, ‘Listen, it’ll help you,’ and I was like, ‘I don’t care if I’m sick for the rest of my life.’”
For Madison, the pushback came in college, when she drifted from health-conscious principles and gained “a ton of weight.”
“I was drinking a lot to fit in. I was working at a sports bar, eating all this food, not even consciously thinking of it. I was in a bad relationship, putting up with things I shouldn’t have,” Madison said. “I almost dissociated from my morals.”
When the pandemic sent her home during her senior year, she barely recognized who she’d become. She threw herself into exercise, developed a supplement regimen and slimmed down.
Now working alongside her father in a clinic, Madison says her own struggles have helped her connect with patients who feel they’ve lost control of their health.
“I love that it was a part of my journey, because I can relate,” she said. “This is not a ‘nepobaby biohacker’ thing. I consciously made this change on my own.”
Wellness, their way
Today, Anna, Madison and Cole have each carried elements of their fathers’ practices into adulthood.
For the Brecka siblings, mornings often begin with grounding in the first light of day. Cole follows with an early workout alongside his dad, while Madison heads for her sauna, cold plunge and red-light bed.
“I was the granola girl in 2020, and now I’m the standard 28-year-old,” she said. “Instead of being weird, it’s become chic.”
Both Madison and Cole pursued nursing, encountering a framework for health and medicine that didn’t always square with the one they’d grown up with. In time, they each charted a different course.
Cole and his dad co-founded H2Tab Hydrogen Tablets, supplements marketed as helping neutralize harmful free radicals, support cellular energy and aid muscle recovery.
He’s also taken their shared interest in human performance to extremes, completing the Great World Race — seven marathons in seven days across seven continents — using a protocol he and his father designed together.
Madison, meanwhile, found her calling after a debilitating health crisis attributed in part to chronic mold exposure.
The experience led her to take a closer look at what she was putting in and on her body, ultimately inspiring her to found EUCLASÉ, a luxury skincare brand leveraging advanced biotechnology to support the skin’s natural biology. The company officially launches Nov. 11.
As for Anna, she still does the brain training she began as a child and meditates nightly, a practice she started at 11.
She recently wrapped up a stint working alongside her father at his retreat, 40 Years of Zen, where she once participated in its ketamine-assisted neurofeedback program.
In September, Anna began her freshman year at the University of British Columbia, where she’s interested in studying botany. Still particular about what she eats, she opted for an alternative living arrangement with a kitchen when dorm dining options fell short.
“Heaven forbid you’re able to make any of your own food,” she quipped.
All three look back fondly on being raised as “biohacking kids.”
“When people first hear about biohacking, they usually think, ‘Oh, that must have been restrictive,’” Anna said. “But for me, it actually created freedom and autonomy by giving me the knowledge I need to look after myself and the tools to feel the way I want to feel.”
“I love being a biohacking baby,” Madison agreed. “I don’t know where I would be without it.”
“A lot of people thought I was weird in the early days,” Cole said. “But now it’s something cool to be a part of.”
Where they differ from their dads is in how they approach longevity. Asprey has set his sights on living to at least 180; Brecka has floated 120 as a conservative target.
“That’d be nice if I felt good — but it’s mostly about how it makes me feel now,” Anna said.
“For me, it’s more about quality over quantity,” Cole said. “I don’t want to live long just to live long, but I want to make the years that I am on this earth as maximized as possible.”
“I don’t want to live to 180,” Madison echoed. “I want to be the grandma that dies peacefully at 100 in her bed, but she was so healthy and capable up until like that day.”
If there’s one thing Madison would change about the world her father helped build, it’s the way they talk about getting older.
“Let’s stop saying anti-aging. Let’s just focus on longevity, rejuvenation and a great happy life,” she said. “Aging is sexy. There is so much to look forward to — and I’m not scared of it.”
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