The Cold – Our Elemental Teacher

Imagine making yourself more tolerant to the elements, more resilient to illness and stress, and less affected by inflammation. What would you do to reap the rewards of these sorts of health benefits?

Well, the Wim Hof method, promises exactly these sorts of health benefits and it does so by offering a practical and habitual routine of daily heavy breathing and through exposure to the cold – usually with cold showers or ice baths.

I’ve personally been doing the deep breathing and breath holds every morning, plus daily cold showers since early December and I’ve personally felt a change in my resilience, discipline, and stress levels. Wim Hof, the creator of the method, holds about a dozen world records including the longest swim underneath the ice, longest time sat in ice without core body temperature changing (2 hours), and hiking mount Everest in only shorts and without supplemental oxygen. He’s an incredibly impressive man and his background makes him even more impressive.

As you know, every superhero has their own origin story, and for Wim Hof, he was a family man with 4 kids and a beautiful wife who suffered from her own demons – for which she was prescribed medication. After a few years on the medication, she kissed her kids on the head and put them to bed, then threw herself off the top floor of an apartment building, killing herself instantly. Whim cried over her body with her father and from then on, subjected himself to swims in a cold river nearby every day, which he had done here and there when he was younger. He found this time was the only moment of his day where his mind was still and calm, focused on survival rather than anything else that is usually focused on.

Since that time, Wim has perfected his technique and subjected himself to many rigorous scientific studies which prove the validity of his claims. He also spends much of his time sharing his wisdom with the world, spreading love and hope, and hoping to change the landscape for how we treat mental health and illness.

His official website can be found here: https://www.wimhofmethod.com/

And, there is an app available on Google Play Store which can be downloaded for free and it will guide you through gradual steps to increase your lung capacity, change your mindset and adjust to cold exposure.

I highly recommend this method, and I remember the first time that I received real empirical evidence that this was working on me was when I went for a nerve scan at my chiropractors. Typically, I would have several inflamed or irritated nerves and this is the status quo, but this time, I had zero inflamed nerves. The chiropractor actually thought I had cheated somehow, and the only thing that I could think of which was different in my life were the cold showers and daily breathing exercises.

The breathing exercises make you feel great by the way – high on oxygen. Three sets of 30 repetitions with a breath-hold, a deep inhalation, and hold afterward, then rinse and repeat twice more.

For any of you suffering out there with chronic pain or illness, this might be something that can help! And for this reason, I felt like sharing this information. But you don’t need to take my word for it, do your own research, and you will find that there is a lot of evidence to support these claims.

If you want to know more, here are a few sources I would recommend:
Sky Life – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFlUu8wi798
Endotoxin Study – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6jqaALpEFM

What do you think about the cold?

Wishing you all a lot of love, and happy lives.

-The Wolf Boy