Women Don’t Need a Command Center. We Need Sleep.

And why that 2 a.m. ‘need to pee’ isn’t your bladder’s fault.

Biohacking has a PR problem.

Somehow it became synonymous with men in tech-grade gear, freezing themselves in tubs and tracking every variable like they're prepping for launch.

And every time someone posts their biohacking cockpit online, it gets louder. The OG biohacker Dave Asprey’s $30,000 hyperbaric chamber. Billionaire self-experimentor Bryan Johnson scheduling his morning like mission control. Entire rooms glowing and humming with purpose. 

It’s aspirational, and I’m grateful for these pioneers doing the human experiments and freely sharing the data. It’s inspired hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, to experiment safely, improve their wellbeing, and stretch their lifespan potential. I’m one of them.

But most women I know don’t start their day in a command center. We’re moving through deadlines, kids, aging parents, bills, and a body that keeps begging for attention.

That’s why I called Renee Belz, half of the Biohacker Babes duo, out to lunch. I wanted to learn her story and her version of biohacking.

She didn’t bring the language of optimization or the pressure to be superhuman. She brought the story of a woman whose body collapsed at twenty-two: Her cortisol flatlined, and she was overcome with fatigue that swallowed whole seasons of her life. She and her sister, Lauren, didn’t start a podcast because hacking biology was trending. They started it because no one else was giving them answers.

Renee explained something I’ve felt but didn’t quite have the language for:

Women step into biohacking for a different reason than the men who popularized it.

Most of us aren’t chasing superhuman performance. We’re definitely not asking, “How far can I push this machine?”

We just want our baseline back! 

We’re done pretending well-funded men’s research data applies to women’s bodies. We know it doesn’t, and the gap shows up everywhere.

Even ice baths (the Holy Grail of bro-biohackers) affect women differently.  A 2024 study showed that women doing cold exposure in the luteal phase (the week before a period) had a sharper cortisol spike, faster drop in core temperature, and a harder time warming back up compared to men.* Meaning: the same “recovery hack” can hit us like a stressor, not a benefit.

Women aren’t smaller men.

We’re different systems, with different clocks and different hormones, never mind the different physiology! 

Finally, science is catching up.

Rather than a race to outperform the body, this new wave of women’s biohacking is an invitation to reconnect with it. In Renee’s world, the first reconnection point isn’t a gadget, even though she owns plenty. It’s letting biology do what it’s built to do.

And…that circles us back to sleep, my third month beating this same drum in my column. It’s the unsexy solution that actually works.

Sleep is the first domino and the reset button your body has been begging you to press.

It’s the cheapest, highest-ROI move a woman can make, and somehow, the most culturally rebellious one: PUTTING YOURSELF FIRST, NO GUILT.

That’s where Renee’s approach felt like a breath out. She doesn’t start with additions. She starts with subtractions. Take away the blue light. Take away the noise. Take away the late-night scroll that tricks your brain into believing midnight is still daylight. 

Turn down your thermostat, because women’s temperature isn’t static. Menopausal and post-menopausal women know the havoc a two-degree rise can create (my hand raised.)

Then add in a few small tweaks, but only one small lever at a time. Too much, too fast, and your body freaks out and stops listening. A rechargeable red night light, blackout curtains so your nervous system can unclench, and an eye mask. 

We also talked about the infamous 2 a.m. “Need to pee” wake-up — the one we swear is a full bladder even when it isn’t.

What’s actually happening is quieter and deeper: 

Cortisol rising too early.Blood sugar dipping just enough to jolt the systemHeat pooling because progesterone took a nosedive at night. 

Your biology rings the alarm, and unfortunately, the bladder just takes the blame.

What no one tells women is that the night runs its own micro-climate inside your body.

Women’s sleep is wired to more variables than men's. Estrogen modulates REM sleep, progesterone affects body temperature, and cortisol rhythms shift throughout the month. Add perimenopause or menopause, and the entire system becomes temperature-sensitive, glucose-sensitive, and stress-sensitive in ways most men never experience. That’s why women wake up more, stay awake longer, and pay for a single bad night with triple the fallout.A tiny drop in glucose? You’re up. 

A surge of adrenaline because your stress bucket was full all day? You’re up. 

A whisper of heat because progesterone fell off a cliff? Up, again.

And once you’re awake, the brain goes hunting for a reason. “Must pee” is the easiest story it can invent. Now you’re wide awake (and you didn’t even have a half-full bladder!) 

That 2 a.m. wake-up is your body saying:

“Hey, something tipped the scales. Fix the environment, and I’ll stay asleep.”When sleep is unstable, everything else destabilizes right behind it. Hormones, blood sugar, mood, resilience, focus…all of it wobbles. Nothing stays steady without a consistent night of deep, restorative rest.

Ladies, we were never taught this. No one explained that our sleep is wired to hormones, temperature, stress load, and glucose, not our bladder.

Renee’s point was simple: You don’t need a home full of machines to feel better.

You need a dark room, less blue light, no late-night snacks, and more respect for the boundary between you and your phone.

This mirrors what Dr. Mary Ann Martin told me in the November 2025 issue: sleep is the non-negotiable foundation of every protocol she runs.

And Alyssa Blue, FDNP (October 2025 issue), who convinced me not to sleep with my phone charging next to my head. The constant pings, light, and EMF keep your nervous system half-awake. Give your brain the space to shut ALL THE WAY down.

These women with different specialties, different backgrounds, same conclusion. How do you ignore this pattern?

I loved that Renee never talked about sleep like another thing to optimize. She talked about it like a resource women deserve but rarely protect. 

Which is exactly why the two women at the next table leaned in so close that I almost pulled out a chair for them; they weren’t listening for hacks, they were listening for recognition.

This is where this new generation of female biohackers, Renee and Alyssa included, is starting to shift the story.

The biohacking conversation feels so different when women lead it. 

At the risk of sounding stereotypical, I’m just going to put it out there.When women talk about biohacking, it isn’t about squeezing more efficiency and performance out of a tired body. It’s about reclaiming the stability we lost while juggling work, caregiving, emotional labor, invisible labor, and the never-ending mental tabs we keep open.

And the most reliable stability tool we have is sleep.

Here is your checklist, with no-cost and affordable ways to dramatically improve your sleep, built from three months of interviews with some of Vegas’ best experts:

• Sleep by 11 pm - Read why this magic hour is so important in the November 2025 issue “Type Zero Diabetes” with Dr. Mary Ann Martin (Dr. Hormone Hacker.)

• Stop eating 2–3 hours before bed. If it’s close to bedtime, don’t give your body a job to do. Here’s why:

  • Glucose: a late meal spikes blood sugar, which means your body stays “on.”

  • Cortisol: digestion keeps cortisol elevated when it should be bottoming out.

  • Body temperature: digestion raises core temperature, and you must cool down to enter deep sleep.

  • HRV: your parasympathetic system can’t fully activate if you're still digesting.

• Turn the temperature way down. Your body has to cool down to fall asleep. If the room’s too warm, your brain keeps circling the runway instead of landing. The ideal sleep temp is 65°F-68°F. 

• Light/Screentime Hygiene - Just say no to your phone at least 30 minutes before you sleep. Let your brain and your eyes power down so your nervous system can follow.

• Charge your phone AWAY from your sleeping head. Because sleeping next to a device designed to capture your attention keeps your nervous system half-awake.

Once you do the above, then some affordable items that I personally have purchased and that I highly recommend (these make great gifts, btw):

• Swap your bedroom bulbs. Hooga Circadian bulbs (2 for $29) shift from daylight to warm amber to no-blue “campfire mode,” signaling your brain to wind down.

• Add a $19.99 4-pack of rechargeable, motion-activated red night-lights - Even a tiny blue light from your current nightlight snaps your brain awake.

• Hang blackout curtains so your melatonin isn’t competing with every streetlamp or neighbor’s porch light.

• Wear an eye mask - Go for silk or cotton, with a flat, smooth back (no buckles). Natural fibers block light without turning your face into a sauna. Bonus: silk gives side-sleepers a fighting chance against those pillow-crease wrinkles.

• Hostage Tape - One of the highest ROI for $10.  Iykyk, otherwise listen to Tim Ferriss Podcast #829 with James Nestor “Breathing Protocols to Reboot Your Health, Fix Your Sleep, and Boost Performance.” It’s the ONE thing James Nestor cannot sleep without.

• Weighted Blanket for Torso Only - Gentle pressure signals safety to the nervous system. A small amount of steady weight mimics a hug or swaddle, activates the vagus nerve, and drops you into parasympathetic mode. This lowers heart rate, lowers cortisol, and slows breathing. I’m not a fan of large weighted blankets; they always overheat me and make my ankles lie awkwardly. A torso-only weighted blanket works better for most women because it gives you the nervous-system benefits without the weight and heat of a full-body blanket (and avoids the “trapped” feeling).

Small inputs.

Massive biological returns.

Because we don’t need a command center.

We just need a dark room, a quiet night, and a body finally allowed to rest.

Women don’t step into biohacking to win. We step into it to reclaim. To stop feeling hijacked by our hormones, our stress loads, our temperature swings, and our calendars. Sleep isn’t a luxury hack; it’s the lever that gives us our agency back. Everything else is downstream.

“Sex Differences in Cardiovascular and Thermal Responses to Cold Exposure Across the Menstrual Cycle”

Published: Journal of Applied Physiology, July 2024Link: https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/japplphysiol.00123.2024