What Doesn't Kill Us: How Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude, and Environmental Conditioning Will Renew Our Lost Evolutionary Strength

by Scott Carney

Hof is an almost impossible figure to dissect. On one hand he has something special—physical and mental abilities that seem to open the door to untold reservoirs of strength. He is a prophet whose message is spreading across the world in viral videos and scientific journals. He is a man whose love for all things human seems to know no bounds. He is also a madman who can be so solipsistically focused on his own abilities that he lacks the empathy to see limits in other people. When he abandons the group in search of a record, or when he delves into a 45-minute speech on how the cold and breathing can bring him deep into his own physiology, Hof can fall into such a fit of self-centeredness that there isn’t space for anything else.

The Wim Hof Method does not make a person impervious to the elements. Pausing the march for even a few moments in such an exposed area makes it all the more difficult for my body to generate the amount of heat I need to fight the cold.

Exposure to cold helps reconfigure the cardiovascular system and combat autoimmune malfunctions. It is also a pretty darned good method for simply losing weight. These are all things that I’ve seen in myself and in hundreds of other people who have had the will to delve deeply into their own evolutionary physiologies. More profound than that, however, is the intrinsic understanding that humans are not just bodies bounded by the barrier of their skin; we are part of the environment that we inhabit.

All you need to do is get a little bit outside of your comfort zone and try something out of the ordinary. Try finding comfort in the cold. You have nothing to lose. Just breathe.