What 12 Years Doing the Wim Hof Method Taught Me
It's hard to believe that I began my journey with Wim Hof 12 years ago next month. I had no idea that my attempt to debunk an eccentric ice-guru in the mountains of Poland would so profoundly change my life. That week at his dilapidated training center ultimately spawned 2 books, stopped me from getting canker sores ever again and gave me tools to tackle depression and anxiety. More than that, it opened me up to a really great community of fellow ice seekers.
But after 12 years of (nearly) daily practice I also have a few thoughts about the overall direction of InnerFire and the official Wim Hof Brand as well as some observations about how some effects of the method seem to trail off after extended practice. So I put together an off-the-cuff video where I only drop a few bombshells.
It's hard to believe that I began my journey with Wim Hof 12 years ago next month. I had no idea that my attempt to debunk an eccentric ice-guru in the mountains of Poland would so profoundly change my life. That week at his dilapidated training center ultimately spawned 2 books, stopped me from getting canker sores ever again and gave me tools to tackle depression and anxiety. More than that, it opened me up to a really great community of fellow ice seekers.
But after 12 years of (nearly) daily practice I also have a few thoughts about the overall direction of InnerFire and the official Wim Hof Brand as well as some observations about how some effects of the method seem to trail off after extended practice. So I put together an off-the-cuff video where I only drop a few bombshells.
This is a picture of my very first time dunking in ice water. For those of you who thought that I am the ultimate picture of human composure in the face of extreme cold: think again. Fortunately, I got a lot better with practice
New Research in Nature demonstrates how cold exposure can cure cancer
Last month the most astounding research I've ever come across on cold exposure appeared in Nature, the world's most prestigious scientific journal. The study showed how regular cold exposure can slow the growth of cancerous tumors by activating brown fat (BAT) which denies the tumors the glucose that then need to sustain their uncontrolled growth. The article, titled "Brown Fat mediated tumor suppression by cold-altered global metabolism" is the first real peer-reviewed study making the link that the type of cold exposure that I wrote about in What Doesn't Kill Us and The Wedge had a significant anti-cancer effect. Indeed, the results were so promising that the researchers said that cold exposure "will provide a general approach for the effective treatment of various cancers." On the page, that sentence might not look like much, but it basically means that cold exposure could become a staple of any anti-cancer treatment as well as for anyone looking to prevent themselves from getting it.
Last month the most astounding research I've ever come across on cold exposure appeared in Nature, the world's most prestigious scientific journal. The study showed how regular cold exposure can slow the growth of cancerous tumors by activating brown fat (BAT) which denies the tumors the glucose that then need to sustain their uncontrolled growth. The article, titled "Brown Fat mediated tumor suppression by cold-altered global metabolism" is the first real peer-reviewed study making the link that the type of cold exposure that I wrote about in What Doesn't Kill Us and The Wedge had a significant anti-cancer effect. Indeed, the results were so promising that the researchers said that cold exposure "will provide a general approach for the effective treatment of various cancers." On the page, that sentence might not look like much, but it basically means that cold exposure could become a staple of any anti-cancer treatment as well as for anyone looking to prevent themselves from getting it.
In this week's video I dive into exactly what the article found, how the scientists isolated brown fat as the key component, and the anti-sugar diet that everyone needs to get on board with right now. I can't tell you how exiting this study is. It's probably the most important study I've read all year.
If you want to learn more about cold exposure and all things environmental training, now might be a good time to pick these books up again. Heck, I might have to put out updated versions.
This High-Altitude Breathwork could Save Your Life
In 2016 I did something either colossally stupid, or very very brave—I climbed to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro with Wim Hof in a record-setting 28 hours. This is the breathwork that kept me alive when the Dutch Mountaineering Association predicted that we would all definitely die.
Back in 2016 I did something that was either really really stupid, incredibly brave...or both. I joined an expedition to climb up to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro with the express intention of ignoring mandatory safety stops in order to make the summit in just 30 hours. The army predicted that the majority of our group would come down with acute mountain sickness. The Dutch Mountaineering association said we were all going to die. Well, we didn't. Instead we made it to Gilman's Point (just below the summit) in just 28 hours. I get a lot of emails from mountaineers asking exactly what breathwork we did as we climbed ever upwards, so I figured I would put together a video that highlights two of the techniques that got us through safely. This first was the breathing protocols we kept up during the entire ascent. The second is a trick for fixing headaches that inevitably spring up as the air gets ever thinner. I hope this is useful for all of you mountaineers out there.
Want to learn more about what really happened on this trip to the top of Africa? Check out my book What Doesn't Kill Us
What is the placebo effect, really?
One day Mr A walked into the emergency room where he just barely was able to tell the nurse on duty that he’d taken all of his pills before he collapsed at her feet. In his pocket was a jar of pills from a local clinical trial—but with no information about what exactly they were. The medical team eventually figured out that he was in the control group. He’d taken a whole jar of placebos. . .
The thing that most people fail to understand about medicine is that, for the most part, you take drugs and receive therapies from your doctors in order for your body to get to a place where it can manage to do the job on its own. We spend billions of dollars developing drugs that only work a tiny bit better than the healing power of the body. In this video I explain some of the underlying ways that the innate and adaptive immune system work as well as the curious way we talk about what it means to get better while under medical care.
Does the Wim Hof Method Cause Tinnitus?
It's perfectly normal for the Wim Hof Method to make your ears ring for a few minutes after some intense breathwork. But a few years ago people started emailing me, asking why the ringing never went away for them. Then over the last year I noticed that my own ears were ringing.
It's perfectly normal for the Wim Hof Method to make your ears ring for a few minutes after some intense breathwork. But a few years ago people started emailing me, asking why the ringing never went away for them. Then over the last year I noticed that my own ears were ringing. Tinnitus isn't just annoying--for some people it can lead to depression, anxiety and even suicide. So, I was hoping that some clinical information would come out on the Hof website, or in the scientific literature. When none did, I decided to investigate myself. In this week's video I talk to renowned breath worker Brian Mackenzie, Craig Kasper, a famous audiologist, and Wim Hof himself to answer this ringing question.
Spoiler alert: The Wim Hof Method can make tinnitus worse, but there are ways to get it under control. This one was a lot of fun to report--with tons of parallels to the underlying physiology that I wrote about in The Wedge.
Finding a Wedge for Anxiety in the Time of Social Distancing
Many of us are struggling to find our bearings in a world that feels out of control. While we can't change the events of the moment, we DO have a measure of control over how our bodies deal with the stress.
Many of us are struggling to find our bearings in a world that feels out of control. While we can't change the events of the moment, we DO have a measure of control over how our bodies deal with the stress.
These are scary times and it's completely normal to feel anxious and upset. I spent pretty much all of yesterday staring at the endless feed of bad news. It made me feel worse, not better. While we don’t have any power to alter politics, economics or public health precautions. We do have control over how we let that stress affect our bodies.
The nervous system we inherited from our ancestors isn’t well adapted to dealing with dangers that aren’t right in front of us. No homoerectus contemplated quarantine. Instead they saw a dangerous animal on the horizon and their bodies responded by pumping adrenaline and cortisol into their blood streams to give them the energy boost that might save their lives. Our ancestors' problems required physical responses. While we denizens of the modern world have remarkably similar bodies as our greatest grandparents the threats are different. When we contemplate social distancing our bodies still respond with the same hormonal cocktails that we did hundreds of thousands of years ago. Without an outlet for that energy, the havoc turns inwards, makes us feel anxious, and compromises our immune systems.
The solution to this conundrum isn’t to surf the internet and bombard ourselves with more stressful inputs that we can’t solve. Instead, we need to find physical outlets that make use of those stress cocktails and which will bring our internal chaos under control.
Right now is the time to double down on a physical practice that you can do on your own. There are tons of free and cheap yoga classes online. You can still go cycling or running outdoors. And you can work out in your front yard. If you know anything about my own journey over the last decade, then you know that I am a huge advocate of the Wim Hof method. The breathing method just takes a few minutes to learn. And it’s an extremely quick way to bring your stress hormones under control.
We also need to do everything we can to keep our immune systems healthy. We know that COVID-19 affects elderly and immunocompromised people much more than the general population. The Wim Hof method can’t do anything about transmission--you still need to keep up social distancing, washing your hands, and follow all the public health protocols in place. However, clinical trials in Holland back in 2014 showed that Wim Hof breathing can help suppress out of control immune responses. Since the worst damage from COVID-19 comes from an out of control immune reaction to the virus (not the virus itself) it at least stands to reason that it should help you if you get infected. I did a video about this about a week ago (see below).
I dig into all of this a lot more in The Wedge. I offer up ten techniques that have worked for me to help control my autonomic nervous system in the face of all sorts of different stresses. Some of those things are probably not going to be practical in the era of social distancing (sorry, I don’t think anyone is going to be able to head down to Peru to try shamanic plant medicine in the next few months). However at least half the book includes techniques you can adopt right now. More importantly, it should help you adapt and get more out of just about any practice that you’re already doing.
I really wish I had the ability to release the book right now, but I’m stuck with an April 13, 2020 release date. However, I do have a few books on hand that I can sign and send to people in the United States through the post (assuming the post office remains open). This is a link for how to get one.
More important than that, please stay healthy. Wash your hands. And keep breathing. We might not be able to change the world right now, but we can help how we respond to it.