The Wim Hof Method is a simple, yet powerful method, based on the foundation of three pillars; Breathing, Cold Therapy and Commitment. It's the combination of these three elements that makes the Wim Hof Method uniquely powerful.
Wim Hof,(born 20 April 1959), also known as The Iceman, is a Dutch extreme athlete noted for his ability to withstand freezing temperatures. He has set Guinness world records for swimming under ice and prolonged full-body contact with ice, and still holds the record for a barefoot half-marathon on ice and snow. He attributes these feats to his Wim Hof Method (WHM), a combination of frequent cold exposure, breathing techniques and meditation.
The elements of the Method:
Breathing
There are many variations of the breathing method. The basic version consists of three phases as follows:
- Controlled breathing: The first phase involves 30–40 cycles of breathing. Each cycle goes as follows: take a deep breath in, fully filling the lungs. Breathe out by passively releasing the breath, but not forcefully. Repeat this cycle at a steady pace thirty to forty times. Hof says that this form of hyperventilation may lead to tingling sensations or light-headedness.
- Breath retention: After completion of the 30–40 cycles of controlled hyperventilation, take a final deep breath in, and let it out. Do not fully empty the lungs; instead let the air out until you would need to contract your diaphragm to expel more air. Hold the breath until you feel an urge to breathe again (1 to 3 minutes).
- Recovery breath: When a strong urge to breathe occurs, take a full deep breath in. Hold the breath for around 15 to 20 seconds and let it go. The body may experience a normal head-rush sensation.
These three phases may be repeated for three or more consecutive rounds.
Resistance to cold
When exposed to cold, the human body can increase heat production by shivering, or non-shivering process known as thermogenesis in which BAT, also known as brown fat, converts chemical energy to heat. Mild cold exposure is known to increase BAT activity. A group of scientists in the Netherlands wondered whether frequent exposure to extreme cold, as practiced in the Wim Hof Method, would have comparable effects. The Hof brothers are identical twins, but unlike Wim, Andre has a sedentary lifestyle without exposure to extreme cold. The scientists had them practice Wim's breathing exercises and then exposed them to the lowest temperature that would not induce shivering. They concluded that, "No significant differences were found between the two subjects, indicating that a lifestyle with frequent exposures to extreme cold does not seem to affect BAT activity and CIT. Both had rises of 40% of their metabolic rates over the resting rate, compared to a maximum of 30% observed in young adults. However, their brown fat percentage – while high for their age – was not enough to account for all of the increase. The rest was due to their vigorous breathing, which increased the metabolic activity in their respiratory muscles. The researchers cautions that the "results must be interpreted with caution given the low subject number and the fact that both participants practised the g-Tummo like breathing technique."
The related g-Tummo involves special breathing accompanied by meditation involving mental images of flames at certain locations in the body. There are two types of breathing, "forceful" and "gentle". A scientific study found that only the forceful type results in an increase in body temperature, and that meditation was required to sustain the temperature increase.
Immune system suppression
Peter Pickkers and his PhD student Matthijs Kox of the Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands took blood samples from Hof before and after his regimen of breathing, meditation and an 80-minute full-body ice bath, and found that afterwards he had reduced levels of proteins associated with the immune response.
Pickkers and Kox injected him with an endotoxin that normally would stimulate a rapid immune response. Most subjects responded with flu-like symptoms (fever, headaches and shivering), with affected cells releasing signalling proteins called cytokines. Hof, on the other hand, had no flu-like symptoms and half as many cytokines as control subjects. Moreover, later, after he had trained some volunteers for a week, they too had reduced symptoms.
Pickkers and Kox attributed the effect on the immune system to a stress-like response. In the hypothalamus, stress messages from the brain trigger a release of adrenaline, which increases the pumping of blood and releases glucose, both of which can help the body deal with an emergency. It also suppresses the immune system. In Hof and the trained subjects, the adrenaline release was higher than it would be after a person's first bungee jump. It is not yet known which part of the training (cold exposure, breathing or meditation) is primarily responsible for the effect, or whether there are long-term training effects.
The Wim Hof Method is for everyone who wants better physical and mental health. It could also be a gateway to much more. I have personally tried it for a period of more than six months and recommend you to give it a try or at least look into it.
