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

by Scott Carney

The final option is, of course, ramping up the metabolism, and van Marken Lichtenbelt believes that the best way to do this is through a combination of exercise and cold acclimation.

So in 2012 Pickkers and Kox designed a second experiment. This time they wouldn’t test Hof. Instead they would tell him to teach other people his technique and see if those students achieved similar results.

The present study demonstrates that, through practicing techniques learned in a short-term training program, the sympathetic nervous systems and immune system can indeed be voluntarily influenced.” This short declarative statement forced the scientific community to completely reevaluate their understanding of the immune system.

It is just that in our case we aren’t eaten by wolves. Instead, without predators, we’re being eaten by cancer, by diabetes, and our own immune systems. There’s no wolf to run from, so our bodies eat themselves.”

“Just imagine that you’re holding an umbrella in front of you like it’s your armor for the journey,” he says. “I don’t know if it actually stops the wind or [if it] just makes you feel like you’ve stopped it, but it helps. Don’t forget to pack it.” It sounds like voodoo to me, but then again, what on this journey hasn’t?

By 2016 researchers at Canada’s McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, showed that just 1 minute of all-out interval training was more effective at getting people into shape than a moderate, 45-minute run.

“The beauty of the ice is that it forces you back to your center,” says MacKenzie, as he watches my transformation.

Now, November Project is spreading across the country like a virus and, last time I checked, was in 29 cities. By the time you read this that number will likely be much, much higher.

What fascinates me is the mental determination that everyone in November Project agrees to maintain.

He smiles and says that whatever it is that November Project offers, it’s something that people must be missing in their daily lives.

Surely, soldiers raised in warm climates would be less immune to relentless cold, but importantly Beaupré saw that the soldiers who lost hope were the first to fall. He resorted to calling this ineffable quality that animates life the “vital principle,” which he linked to the body’s ability to generate warmth and resist the environment.

The withering effects of weather have the potential to impact every aspect of training, logistics, transport, and even just hurrying up and waiting for orders at base.

Altitude, it turns out, has a deleterious effect on unit cohesion. If inserted via helicopter or parachute from sea level to 14,000 feet without acclimatization, a soldier might grow withdrawn, aggressive, and uncooperative, qualities that prove disastrous if trying to coordinate high-precision missions.

Long before hypothermia or frostbite sets in, a person experiences a slowdown in fine motor skills. This slowdown is one of the first signs that a person is getting cold.

Recent research on animal subjects out of Israel show that heat-acclimatized mice survive traumatic brain injuries better than their temperate-weather-dwelling compatriots.

Exposure to cold helps reconfigure the cardiovascular system and combat autoimmune malfunctions.

Research, he notes, indicates that cold exposure increases mitochondrial formation throughout the body, which would mean more overall aerobic power.

If you’ve been wrapped in a thermogenic cocoon for your whole life, then your nervous system is aching for input. 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.