The Way of the Iceman: How the Wim Hof Method Creates Radiant Long-term Health—Using the Science and Secrets of Breath Control, Cold-Training and Commitment

by Wim Hof

Intense exercise short circuits the conscious mind, allowing the athlete to (unknowingly) attain advanced states of meditational consciousness. This higher state of consciousness is an unintended consequence of the intense training. The key to routinely accessing this bliss state is to present ourselves with a physical task of such severity that only by unifying body and mind can we succeed.

Yoga, Immortality and Freedom, by Mircea Eliade.

But the tension between Hof and his wife remained. One day, she disappeared and did not return for several months. Olaya suffered from attacks of rage and depression, and expressed her unhappiness by regularly threatening to take her own life. But she refused to seek treatment. The family returned to Amsterdam because the remote farmhouse no longer felt safe.

One day, when Hof was alone in the mountains, Olaya jumped from the eighth floor of her parents’ house in Pamplona. Olaya was dead. Enahm, Isabelle, Laura, and Michael lost their mother, and Wim lost his wife. He felt guilty and the children were devastated.

They started organizing workshops and trips, and the method was increasingly validated by science.

“You can’t learn anything from the cold. But you can learn to not do some things.” —Wim Hof

Cold is considered to have many benefits. It is supposedly good for: Circulation The heart Glossy hair Taut skin Increased energy levels Improved mood Fighting infections Self-confidence

By exposing your body to the cold, you can train your blood vessels by closing them forcefully, then making them open again.

People who regularly train in the cold say (almost without exception) that they feel the cold less. We hear time and time again about the energy “boost” they get from the cold, and how it affects their mood.

The main function of brown fat is warming up your body by burning fatty acids and glucose.

People who are overweight (which is always excess white fat) who train in the cold, can teach their bodies to turn the white fat into fuel via brown fat.

Research carried out by the Thrombosis Foundation (Documen-tation Centre 1994) shows that people who take a cold shower daily also have more white corpuscles. The researchers explain the increase in white corpuscles by the activation of the immune system, which releases more white corpuscles.

Cold training can affect a lot of physical complaints including excess weight, fungi, and viruses—along with helping to open up lax blood vessels. But even without this knowledge, you will notice that something happens to you if you take cold showers or get into an ice bath.

Cold showers and a bowl of cold water with ice in it are excellent starter exercises. We recommend that you try it for a month. After that month, you can continue with your cold training.

BREATHING “It’s not hocus pocus, it’s physiology.” —Wim Hof

Many people breathe 13, 15, 17, 20 or as many as 22 or more times a minute. Even when they are sitting quietly in a chair, reading a book. A resting respiratory rate of between six and ten times a minute is enough. Is it bad if you breathe faster than that? Yes, it can be—and we explain why below.

Breathing exercises are considered to have many benefits. They can: Help you relax Give you more energy Help you sleep better Help relieve headaches Are good for extreme athletes Help relieve back and neck problems Help relieve intestinal problems

Buteyko (1923-2003) was a Ukrainian doctor who studied medicine in Moscow. He discovered the effect of breathing exercises on health on October 7, 1952. He had to diagnose a patient who was breathing heavily and who sometimes gasped for breath.

Buteyko started looking for other links between breathing and health problems. With a lot of practice, he even managed to get his blood pressure back to a normal range without medication. He used this experience to start helping his patients to breathe more calmly and less deeply. He noticed that asthma patients could stop attacks by continuing to breathe calmly.

The “brake” and “accelerator” mentioned in the previous quote are also known as the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous systems. The sympathetic nervous system is associated with everything to do with action. If it dominates, your body will be in “fight-or-flight” mode. You will breathe faster, your digestive system will stop working momentarily, and your blood will move from your skin to your muscles, internal organs, and your brain. That is why the sympathetic system is often compared to a car’s accelerator.

The parasympathetic nervous system regulates everything relating to recovery: a slow heart rate and breathing, a good flow of blood to the skin, and an active digestive system. Therefore, the parasympathetic system is sometimes known as the body’s brake pedal.

Breathing incorrectly can cause a whole range of health problems. We will explain five of them: Pain in the shoulders or neck Agitation Intestinal problems Tiring quickly Heart palpitations These problems are all related to breathing in different ways.

If you breathe too fast, your body uses its glucose reserves more quickly than necessary. We have fewer reserves of glucose than of low-energy fats. Burning up your body’s fuel incorrectly in this way means that you will crave sugar and sweet foods more often.

“Applied relaxation” is in the official guidelines for treating general anxiety disorder, but only if cognitive therapy is not available or cannot be applied for some reason. Cognitive therapy only works for people of average or higher intelligence, while applied relaxation—like the WHM—works for everyone.

WHY DO MANY PEOPLE BREATHE SO RAPIDLY? Why do so many of us breathe incorrectly? Breathing calmly should be as automatic as many of our other bodily functions. Our body temperature is always 36.8°C (98.2°F), our hearts keep on beating, and our eyes blink by themselves. Why don’t we breathe calmly as a matter of course—especially if it is healthier for us? It seems that excessive stimulation, worry, preoccupation, and persistent mental pressure all affect our breathing.

The neocortex is the part of the brain that distinguishes humans from other animals. “Neo” means “new” in Latin and, in evolutionary terms, the neocortex is the youngest part of the brain. We use it to analyze and calculate, and it is also our language center. But, it is also the part of the brain that allows us to worry about what will happen in two weeks’ time—or allows us to stay irritated about a past event.

The Wim Hof breathing exercises are not intended to relax you—at least not while you are doing them. They are designed to enable you to control your mind and body, so you can influence your autonomic nervous system.

So far, we have only referred to breathing exercises and not to meditation. Yet, Hof’s exercises have their origins in a Tibetan technique known as Tummo meditation.

Vajrayana works from a cause and effect perspective. The aim is to transform every experience into fearless wisdom, spontaneous joy and energetic love.

Tummo combines breathing with visualization. It involves breathing in deeply and breathing out slowly. While breathing, practitioners visualize flames, as a method to help raise their body temperature.

One of Wim’s favorite one-liners is: “feeling is understanding”. And that’s exactly what the Tummo techniques encourage.

Breathe in deeply, without forcing yourself, and then out again slowly. By not fully breathing out, a small amount of air remains behind in the lungs. After doing that 30 times, hold your breath after breathing out, and wait until you feel the need to breathe in again. Repeat this exercise until you feel tingling, light in the head, or sluggish.

Especially at first, it is not easy to turn off the warm water and stand under a cold shower for two minutes. Those two minutes seem to last forever. And daily breathing exercises are quite a task, too. Where will you find the time? And the motivation?

Wim didn’t use a training program and hardly went running at all. He just trained with the cold and his thoughts, while focusing on the commitment.

The Wim Hof Method comprises three components: cold training, breathing exercises and commitment. It also involves more.

A surprising number of people who use the WHM start walking barefoot. After ten interviews, eight of the interviewees had started walking barefoot—it can’t be a coincidence. Hof himself doesn’t pay much attention to it, but he often walks barefoot, too.

The main message of these articles is that walking barefoot strengthens the muscles in the foot—muscles that are hardly used when you wear shoes—and increases your bone mass. The feet contain 200,000 nerve endings which sounds like an enormous amount. It explains why walking barefoot is so sensitive. Setting your feet down lightly can feel very pleasant and comfortable; to some people, it feels like a massage. We also walk differently on our bare feet, and put more weight on the front of our feet.

“Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

Herring decided to name the method of eating for only five hours a day the “fast-5 diet”.

He emphasized that the basis of his method could be written on the back of a beer-mat: only eat for a period of five hours a day. In the book, he explains that this practice trains your body to mainly use fat as fuel instead of glucose. This idea also ties in with the production of brown fat during cold training.

The “fast-5 diet” way of eating imposes no restrictions on your calorie intake, but soon you start to automatically eat less. That is why it is important to mainly eat food with a high nutritional value.

Herring recommends a combination of vegetables, fruit, meat, fish and chicken to provide a good variety.

You will notice as your body becomes accustomed to this “simpler” diet, and as you use up more fat than glucose, you will lose around 300 grams (0.66 pounds) a week. ...

“I am a scientist: my body is my laboratory.” —Wim Hof

“I had to go very deep in this experiment. My body was exposed to a dose of toxin and I had to fight it. But that wasn’t the most difficult part. For many years, I’ve been seen as a fairground attraction, and I was the butt of scorn and cynicism. But I knew that I could influence my autonomous nervous system, and it was tough waiting for recognition. I’m over the moon that Professor Pickkers has now proved scientifically that I really can do it.” —Wim Hof

He was immediately enthusiastic about the benefits of the breathing techniques, but didn’t think Hof’s cold training was appropriate for him. Then, more than a year later, his brother-in-law told him that Wim only eats once a day.

Reading a book is all well and good. But, it would be a shame if this knowledge were to remain at an intellectual level and you didn’t take action.

COLD SHOWERS Take a warm shower, as you always do. Then, while the water is still warm, start doing breathing exercises. Breathe in and breathe out slowly. Do this a few times and then turn the shower to cold. Try to keep breathing calmly. Stay under the cold shower for a minute. In the second week, stay under the cold shower once for two minutes. In the third week, do the same once for three minutes. And in the fourth week, stay under the cold shower once for five minutes, without taking a warm shower first.