{"id":848369,"date":"2026-08-08T20:58:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T20:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/848369\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T20:58:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T20:58:20","slug":"from-ice-baths-to-biohacking-and-breathwork-how-men-are-rewriting-what-health-looks-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/848369\/","title":{"rendered":"From ice baths to biohacking and breathwork, how men are rewriting what health looks like"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jian Wong Yen\u2019s best hour of the day happens before anyone else is awake.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s up at 5am; in summer it\u2019s 4am. The world is dark and silent, nobody wants anything from him. It\u2019s when he does his best thinking.<\/p>\n

He eats straight away, an unprocessed breakfast of three eggs, an orange and banana before a meditation or journal session. Creatine, magnesium and omega-3 are lined up on the bench.<\/p>\n

By 6am he\u2019s out the door and at the gym, heavy weights and high reps to make the most of the next 45 minutes. Then a walk with his partner and a coffee, before he\u2019s at his desk and checking his colour-coded calendar by 8am.<\/p>\n

He counts his days from when he falls asleep and spent most of his twenties working out that six or seven hours is enough for him. You might spot him at his local sauna or ice bath before dinner at 6pm \u2014 he eats several hours before bed, though he does have a sweet tooth.<\/p>\n

Wong Yen is the co-founder of Cold Nips, the sunrise dip club that he started with his mate Ryan Linton in 2019 \u2014 16 people at Cottesloe for the first one, 800 at its biggest. He\u2019s also a breathwork facilitator and can tell you what his nervous system is doing on a given morning.<\/p>\n

Life wasn\u2019t always so centred on health and wellbeing.<\/p>\n

\"JianCamera IconJian Wong Yen, co-founder of Cold Nips, at Alchemy Saunas in East Fremantle. Credit: Ross Swanborough\/The West Australian<\/p>\n

In his earlier years Wong Yen trained hard, yet like so many young adults, his weekends were blown out by partying, midday wake-ups and the obligatory fast food. His health was further put on the back burner as he travelled the world, before returning to Australia and finding a passion in biohacking and longevity protocols.<\/p>\n

The premise of biohacking is that bodily decline is negotiable. It\u2019s a broad term used for the increasingly popular process of making changes to the body, diet and lifestyle to improve health and wellbeing, from brain function to weight loss.<\/p>\n

The face of the movement is Bryan Johnson, the American tech entrepreneur who spends more than $US2 million a year trying to reverse his biological age. There\u2019s also Gary Brecka, who calls himself a human biologist and \u201clongevity guru\u201d with bold views that are at odds with mainstream medical advice.<\/p>\n

In Australia, one of the clearest examples of biohacking hitting the mainstream is peptides \u2014 injectables often sold through social media and private messages promising muscle, weight loss and slower ageing. In June the Therapeutic Goods Administration released a statement highlighting its increasing concern over the growing availability, promotion and use of unapproved peptide products in Australia. It stated they can cause liver damage, severe allergic reactions and inflammation as well as highlighted that counterfeit products are being circulated.<\/p>\n

Wong Yen, 33, is among a growing cohort of West Australian men who have arrived at some version of this, without any of the extremes.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re not saving for a hyperbaric chamber in their penthouse, or swapping blood and plasma with their offspring.<\/p>\n

Rather, they\u2019re taking a sauna after work, their pills of choice are supplements, they\u2019re wearing a bulky silver ring that scores their sleep and have a grasp on nutrition. Research from Flinders University shows gen Z are nearly 20 times more likely to not drink alcohol compared to baby boomers.<\/p>\n

And that men are considering not only their health, but also their long-term wellbeing, is a massive shift \u2014 though the starting point was low.<\/p>\n

Traditionally, men have had to be dragged to the doctor, more than happy to ignore an illness with a \u201cshe\u2019ll be right\u201d and a few paracetamol. A low-carb beer and token side salad might be thrown in for good measure.<\/p>\n

Yet in 2024 there were 29,123 potentially avoidable deaths in Australia, 64 per cent of them men. In a Movember survey from the same year, 53 per cent said it was normal for them to avoid a regular check-up.<\/p>\n

The money is going somewhere else. Australia now has one of the fastest-growing wellness economies in the world, worth more than $US126.7 billion ($194.4b), with ice baths and bathhouses a massive part of it.<\/p>\n

Alchemy Sauna\u2019s director James Browne has seen this boom first-hand: over 1000 people are on the waitlist for its memberships (non-members are still able to attend any of the venues casually).<\/p>\n

\"AlchemyCamera IconAlchemy Sauna\u2019s director James Browne. Credit: Ross Swanborough\/The West Australian<\/p>\n

\u201cThe younger generation aren\u2019t drinking at all really, and that\u2019s rubbing off on my generation and therefore the older people as well,\u201d he says. \u201cThings have definitely changed the last couple of years in regards to men and their openness to health in general.\u201d<\/p>\n

For years, Dr Lloyd Evans watched men turn up too late. He started MAN Health Clinic in response, and about 200 men have come through the door since opening in 2023, most aged between 40 and 50. He calls it the \u201cshock era\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome guys look around them and they can see close friends, who\u2019ve always been fit and well, who\u2019ve suddenly been diagnosed with heart disease or early bowel or prostate cancer,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt\u2019s the shock of hearing their stories that makes them feel they should get things checked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fatherhood also prompts them towards his office, so does watching a parent\u2019s health come apart. Evans was 18 when he became a father himself, and says it changed how he thought about his own health.<\/p>\n

By his reckoning, a first appointment at 40 can be 10 or even 15 years too late.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we should be thinking about our longer term health, chronic disease, preventative health from our teens,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The reason men don\u2019t, he says, is built into the system. Women typically enter the system on a schedule, starting with their first period before appointments for contraception, cervical screenings, pregnancy and perimenopause follow.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are touchpoints, and men don\u2019t have that,\u201d Evans explains.<\/p>\n

\"DrCamera IconDr Lloyd Evans, founder of MAN Health Clinic. Credit: Iain Gillespie\/The West Australian<\/p>\n

Nothing in a man\u2019s life tells him this is the year to have his cholesterol checked. Blood pressure, glucose, cholesterol are all measures that can go hidden for years and are far easier to deal with in your 20s than your 50s.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to be proactive, not reactive. Don\u2019t wait for a problem to happen to act on it,\u201d Evans says.<\/p>\n

Part of the issue is the limits of general practice, with a standard appointment running five or 10 minutes, long enough for a script and little else. His own clinic gives clients an hour up-front, then three to four hours across three months to collate family history, work, sleep, protein and what a realistic training week looks like.<\/p>\n

That time is the difference between general advice and the tailored plan Evans offers.<\/p>\n

He uses his father, a retired police officer in his mid-60s, as an example.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was great with management, strategies, problem solving and fighting crime, but crikey, he couldn\u2019t tell you what a normal blood pressure is,\u201d Evans laughs.<\/p>\n

Then there are the peptides of it all, something Evans speaks carefully about. It\u2019s a corner of the internet that mostly sits outside the system as they\u2019re readily injected based on information spruiked in a podcast or by an influencer rather than a doctor.<\/p>\n

Some peptides are approved by the TGA and are very well studied, insulin among them. The ones circulating are not.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have some peptides with zero human evidence, data or research,\u201d Evans says. \u201cOr in some cases tiny amounts of human research, but again, nowhere near enough for the TGA to say \u2018yes, these are safe and effective and we\u2019ll approve these products\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some have been around 20 or 30 years, have gone through trials, and failed them \u2014 either for safety reasons or because they did nothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately what happens is people and companies pick up those peptides and bring them back into the limelight,\u201d Evans says.<\/p>\n

Wong Yen has clocked the prevalence of peptides, but he\u2019s not tempted. Life has taught him that nothing that comes easy is worth having.<\/p>\n

Evans believes the focus should be shifted to the things that would actually make a long-term impact: sleep, diet, exercise and socialising. Though he won\u2019t turn a patient away for asking about peptides.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is very hard to get men to engage with their health, so if something interests them and gets them asking questions, I do think we should congratulate them on wanting to be better informed,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got a lot of guys throwing the concept of longevity around, too, and I\u2019ll jump on it, because I\u2019ll be honest \u2014 whatever motivates guys to see me, I will take it as a positive first step.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because whether it starts with a podcast, a sleep score, a mate\u2019s diagnosis or a $30 sauna session, a man who is thinking about his health is more likely to notice when something is wrong.<\/p>\n

Wong Yen\u2019s own reasons for living the way he does are more than the way he looks and feels. He lost his grandfather and his father within a month of each other when he was 27.<\/p>\n

Wong Yen\u2019s grandfather was 103 when he passed away, active until he was 101. His father was 66, and died four years after being diagnosed with cancer. During that time he did everything he could to focus on his health.<\/p>\n

\u201cDad passed away at 66, way too young, which I believe a lot of his illness was linked to emotional hardship he faced when younger, so everything he did then couldn\u2019t fight past it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

What Wong Yen took away from the heartbreak wasn\u2019t a strict protocol.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt highlighted to me that health isn\u2019t just the physical choices we make, like the training we do or the food we eat, but how we show up to life every day of our lives \u2014 physically, emotionally and spiritually,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow he\u2019ll be up again in the pitch-black, eating his three eggs while the world sleeps. Not because a podcast told him to, but because he\u2019s lived the other version, and he isn\u2019t going back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jian Wong Yen\u2019s best hour of the day happens before anyone else is awake. He\u2019s up at 5am;…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,137,1625,44,67258],"class_list":["post-848369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-lifestyle","tag-news","tag-stm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}