DNA Stories Blog

DNA-Archetypes: the profiler for your body

Four-letter tests give you 16 types. Adding the body makes 32.

ConnectingDNA

· 5 min read

Personality tests such as Myers-Briggs describe how you think. DNA-Archetypes add how your body works, read from your DNA.

What is a DNA-Archetype?

A DNA-Archetype is one of 32 types, each with its own name and write-up, such as The Tide or The Sage. Yours is worked out from your DNA, and it sums up how you are built in one name you can remember.

It is read by the Bio-Profile, our app that turns a DNA report into genetic traits you can read and act on. Your Archetype covers five Bio-Attributes: how your body handles training, energy and skin, and how you tend to deal with people and decisions.

There are two ways to find yours:

  • A free preview. Our two-minute DNA-Archetype quiz suggests a type from how you describe yourself.
  • Your Archetype from your DNA. Upload a DNA report you already have to the Bio-Profile, or take a DNA test with the Bio-Profile Kit. If your report is compatible with our system, you do not need another test.

Knowing your Archetype gives you three things a personality test cannot:

  • A picture of how you are built. Five plain readings of your body and mind, in place of a long list of genetic results.
  • Choices that fit. The kind of exercise, routine, skincare and rest that suits the way you lean.
  • A place to start. Each reading leads to the traits behind it and to a goal you can act on in your Bio-Profile.
A woman in a grey hoodie and sports top stretching her arms overhead on a wooden dock in early light
How you recover and how your energy runs are patterns of the body. Four-letter types focus mainly on how you think.

Five Bio-Attributes, two directions each

Each of the five Bio-Attributes has two directions, and each direction has a letter and an icon in the Bio-Profile.

Physical

Your muscle, body build and physical performance.

  • Resilient RHolds up well under steady, repeated training.
  • Adaptive AAdjusts fast to new demands, and feels a short night sooner.
Energy

Your metabolism, stamina and how your body uses energy.

  • Endurance ESteady energy that lasts through long stretches.
  • Power PEnergy in short, strong bursts, with breaks in between.
Skin

Skin health, ageing and repair.

  • Protected PA tougher barrier that holds moisture and is slow to react.
  • Sensitive SA thinner barrier that feels sun, dry air and rough fabric sooner.
Social

How you tend to connect with other people.

  • Outward OGains energy from being among many people.
  • Focused FInvests deeply in a few people, and recharges alone.
Mind

How you tend to think, remember and decide.

  • Analytical AWorks step by step, and wants to know why.
  • Intuitive ISees the pattern first, and trusts a quick read.

Neither direction is better. Each has its own strengths and its own things to watch.

A Resilient body holds its form through months of steady training. An Adaptive body adjusts quickly to something new, and tends to feel a short night or a change of routine sooner. Knowing which way you lean tells you which advice to take.

How your direction is read

In the Bio-Profile, each Bio-Attribute is a bar between its two directions. Your DNA report places you somewhere along it.

The side you lean towards is your direction, and its letter goes into your code. In the example below the reading is 54% Adaptive and 46% Resilient, so the direction is Adaptive and the Physical letter is A.

Some people lean strongly one way. Others sit close to the middle and have a good deal of both, and the Bio-Profile shows you which.

The DNA-Archetype page of the Bio-Profile on a phone: Your code, letter by letter, A E S F I, with the A for Physical lit green; under it the Physical reading, a bar from Resilient at 46% to Adaptive at 54% with the Physical badge in the middle, the words Your Direction is A Adaptive, a sentence on what that means, Explore more, and Where you thrive with six kinds of work
One Bio-Attribute read in the Bio-Profile. This person leans 54% Adaptive, so their Physical letter is A.

Five letters, 32 types

Put your five letters together and you have your code. A E S F I stands for Adaptive, Endurance, Sensitive, Focused and Intuitive, and it belongs to The Tide.

Five Bio-Attributes with two directions each make 32 combinations.

2 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 = 32 DNA-Archetypes.

Each one has a name, a group and a write-up, so you can read what your combination tends to look like in everyday life.

The DNA-Archetype page of the Bio-Profile on a phone: a picture of a woman in lilac standing at a worktable among colleagues, the words Your DNA-Archetype is The Tide, One of the Seers, a short description, the buttons Ask About This and Read your archetype, and under them Your code, letter by letter: A E S F I, labelled Physical, Energy, Skin, Social and Mind, with the A lit green
One person's DNA-Archetype in the Bio-Profile, and the five letters behind it, one for each Bio-Attribute. Change one letter and you are reading a different type.

Why one letter matters

Change one direction and you have a different type.

Two people can share four letters and still respond differently where the fifth one splits. A Sensitive and a Protected skin need different care, even when everything else about the two people is alike.

The Bio-Profile shows this as your closest genetic neighbour: the type one letter away from yours, and how close that letter was to flipping.

Two young women with long dark hair and white shirts side by side, one looking at the other
Two people can share most of a profile and still respond differently where one direction changes.

From quiz to DNA

The free quiz gives you a first look, based on how you describe yourself.

A questionnaire can only be as accurate as your view of yourself. Few of us know how our skin barrier or our energy system actually works.

Your Bio-Profile reads the same five Bio-Attributes from your DNA report instead of from your answers.

That is the difference between “This sounds like me” and “This is what my genetic data suggests about me.”

A young man in a beanie holding a phone out towards the camera, his own smiling face on its screen
A questionnaire preview depends on how accurately you see yourself. An uploaded DNA report gives you your "true" DNA-Archetype.

What you do with it

The name is the short version. Behind each letter are the individual traits in your Bio-Profile that decided it.

The name helps you remember it. Your traits explain it.

From your DNA-Archetype you can:

  • open each Bio-Attribute and see the key genetic traits behind your direction,
  • see the kinds of work where your type tends to thrive,
  • start a 90-day goal that suits the way you lean.

That is the real value of the 32 types: a quick way into your own biology, and a clear next step once you are there.

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